This story is interesting in light of my friend Jeremy Lott’s op-ed “Voters Don’t Care about the Environment.” An MIT survey shows that, where in 2003 Americans deemed “ecosystem destruction” the most important environmental concern (I wonder how many respondents even knew what it meant), now global warming tops the list. Back then, water pollution and toxic waste also beat climate change.
But the only-hinted-at bigger picture here is that, no matter where global warming is within environmental concerns, environmental concerns themselves rank low on the American political to-do list. One interesting tidbit from Lott’s piece is that one poll found ”self-described environmentalists tend to ‘rank the environment lower as a vote qualifier than other non-environmental issues such as abortion and Social Security.’” By Lott’s analysis, people tend to feel guilty only about not feeling guilty about these things.
As the science about global warming comes in, it appears the phenomenon is real (though maybe not catastrophic) and at least partially caused by humans. Even the author of Global Warming and other Eco-Myths has recanted. The MIT poll indicates scientists are doing a good job of getting this out relative to other environmental concerns, but they’ll have to do a lot better if they want anyone to truly care.
Robert VerBruggen blogs at http://robertsrationale.blogspot.com.
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