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Health & Science

Global warming no longer Americans’ top environmental concern, poll finds

By Juliet Eilperin and Peyton M. Craighill,July 02, 2012

(Page 2 of 2)

Just under four in 10 polled say global warming is extremely or very important to them, the lowest percentage since 2006 and down from 52 percent in 2007. Just 10 percent say it is extremely important to them personally, down from 15 percent in 2011 and 18 percent in 2007.

“The good news is that the public understands that the global warming problem is serious, and they overwhelmingly support serious solutions. The sad news is that, with reduced mainstream-media coverage and with big polluters and their allies in the media and in Congress falsely screaming hoax, the issue is not as high a priority,” said Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters. “But record-breaking temperatures, intense droughts and wildfires, and other climate-related disasters will hopefully be a wake-up call.”

Sen. James M. Inhofe (Okla.), a climate skeptic and the top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said in a statement, “The irony, of course, is that the president who came into office promising to slow the rise of the oceans has presided over the complete collapse of the global warming movement.”

He added that environmentalists have not criticized Obama because “they’ve no doubt been assured that if he is reelected, he will have the ‘flexibility’ to institute the largest tax increase in American history through regulations because he could not do it through legislation.”

People’s knowledge about global warming has declined as well over the past five years. Today, 55 percent say they know a lot or a moderate amount about it, down from 68 percent.

While many Republican lawmakers and candidates — including the party’s presumptive presidential nominee, Mitt Romney — question the connection between human activity and climate change, a majority of Americans say such a link exists. Thirty percent say climate change is caused by humans, and 47 percent say both human and natural factors contribute to it. Just 22 percent think climate change stems from natural causes alone.

Beth Abbadusky, 70, a retired office worker who lives near Moline, Ill., said she does not think humans are influencing the climate.

“I’m a Christian. I feel that we humans don’t have a lot of control over nature,” she said. “We just accept what’s going on.”

Abbadusky added that while she favors Romney over Obama, their positions on the climate “would not be a factor” in her vote. Overall, she said of politicians and global warming: “They’re not talking much about it anymore.”

Trust in scientific opinion on global warming continues to be less than robust. About a quarter of the public trusts what scientists say about the issue “completely” or “a lot,” while 35 percent, trust scientists only a little or not at all. Thirty-eight percent trust scientific opinions a moderate amount.

Part of this lack of trust could be due to how Americans see climate scientists’ motivations for their work. More than a third of them think that scientists who say climate change is real make their conclusions based on money and politics. Almost half say scientists who deny that climate change exists base their conclusions on their economic and political interests.

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(Editor’s Note: This article includes comments from Stanford professor Jon Krosnick, whose team conducted the poll with The Post. The Post, which had editorial control over the polling and the reporting, was not aware that Krosnick served on the board of Climate Central, an activist organization on climate issues. Krosnick has subsequently resigned that position.)

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