Many people have lamented the new poll figures from the Pew Research Center, showing that public concerns about global climate change have softened:
http://people-press.org/report/556/global-warming
In itself this poll, like all such data, is merely a snapshot of a moment, and in our factoid- and crisis-driven media culture there is nothing surprising about such fluctuations of concern. I am more concerned about the methodology itself, which treats this problem on a par with the other sorts of things people are worried about (taxes, the world series...) as though it were just another question that we will eventually work out some sort of compromise on -- and no doubt we will.
The problem with this, as Bill McKibben has lately been pointing out, is that all indicators are pointing toward a much more rapid climate shift than scientists had anticipated, and chemistry and physics don't negotiate.
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7 comments:
that is human nature, I doubt that the public will put any effort into a problem until it becomes an emergency.
Perhaps it reflects the flighty character of our present public discourse, but it would probably be a mistake to assume that humans are naturally and inevitably so shallow and lacking in foresight.
I think I may side with Geoff on this. Humans individually aren't necessarily shallow and lacking in foresight, but I suspect that the public will only become outraged enough to organise anything fruitful when the situation turns dire.
Here is a counterexample: in response to the threat of global ozone layer destruction, which was first recognized as a problem in the early 1970s, nations and industry organized (somewhat haltingly, and with much resistance) agreements, regulations, and protocols to limit the use or release of ozone-destroying chemicals, and the deterioration was arrested before its results became catastrophic. It will take decades for the ozone layer to be fully restored, but it is on track to do so. We caught this one and dealt with it well before most people experienced emergency conditions.
Global climate change is on another scale, of course, and will take very fundamental change, but it's unfair to assume that people are incapable of confronting a problem before it overwhelms them.
I think its hard for individuals such as ourselves to fully comprehend the scope of disbelieve in global warming unless we spend a good deal of time in middle America. I spent a week at the OSU campus in Oklahoma over spring break, and the overall feeling towards the environment, or lack thereof, was bleak. Last year I was at the University of Colorado at Boulder and helped to make all the football games zero-waste. I would be shocked if students in Oklahoma knew what zero-waste meant. So my point is this, while the news about the polls declining saddens me, it just makes me realize that i personally had been assuming that the rest of the country was in the same boat as the rest of us here on campus. It's SOOO not the case though. And so now I just focus on what I can do to change that.
I think we should be cautious of the term "middle America." I'm from Eastern Iowa myself, for example, where we had fairly robust recycling programs decades before Massachusetts began taking it seriously. You will find thoughtful people everywhere, and likewise thoughtless ones, and tempting as it is to stereotype, the coasts have no monopoly on intelligence or good policies.
What is certainly the case is that most people will regress to the norm in their localities, and not be much better (or worse) than the communities that surround them. From this I think the lesson is that we need to craft ideas, policies, and habits wherever we are that nudge us in healthy directions.
Unfortunately, this does not surpise me. Many humans tend to run away from problems. I agree with Geoff that the public will probably not put serious effort into the situation until it becomes an "emergency." But when is it actually going to be considered an emergency? It is not a black and white type situation... compared to a thousand years ago, we already are experiencing an emergency. Everyone recognizes this problem yet collectively we can't seem to put it at the forefront of our life.
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