What Do Americans Really Believe?

San Francisco -- Some recent polling data reveals that the much-reported "loss of public concern" about climate, energy, and the environment is very misleading.

An analysis by the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford shows that how Americans ranked environmental and climate issues in the fall of 2009 depended almost entirely on how you polled them. If you narrowed the focus to "today" and "the country," then economic issues were the public's greatest worry by far -- half of respondents put them first. Health care, national security, and the overall functioning of government were in the next tier, and environmental and climate issues came far behind (4 percent -- about the same as concern over a decline in moral values).

But what if you simply changed the question to say "the world" instead of "the country"? And what if you gave it a more future-oriented focus by saying "if nothing is done to stop it" instead of "today"? The results were very different. A cluster of climate, environment and energy issues got 23 percent, the economic cluster got 27 percent, and the national security issues got 22 percent.

So clearly Americans think climate and energy are long-term, global problems of great seriousness -- but not the biggest challenge facing America today. As a committed environmentalist who is deeply and passionately worried about climate, I think that's understandable. One more year of bad U.S. climate policy will affect most Americans less than one more year of bad economic results.

These results can be interpreted slightly differently depending on how you group the answers. Woods Institute fellow Jon Krosnick summarized the results of this and a similar poll:

When pollsters ask Americans to name the most important problem facing the country, fewer than 3 percent mention the environment. But when asked to name the most serious problem facing the planet if left unchecked, the environment and global warming rise to the top…

I think that overstates the findings, because Krosnick grouped "environment" and "climate" (fair) but didn't group "economy," "jobs," and "poverty." So you can do your own analysis, here's a table showing how Americans answered the differently worded questions:

 

Equally revealing was the gradual change that Krosnick found in responses based on the wording of the question:

For the Stanford study, the research team analyzed the results of two national surveys. The first was a September 2009 Internet poll of 906 adults, conducted by the polling firm Abt SRBI. Respondents were randomly asked one of the following open-ended questions:

1. "What do you think is the most important problem facing the country today?"
In this traditional MIP question, about 49 percent answered the economy or unemployment, while only 1 percent mentioned the environment or global warming.

2. "What do you think is the most important problem facing the world today?"
Substituting the word "country" with "world" produced a significant change: 7 percent mentioned environmental issues, while 32 percent named the economy or unemployment.

3. "What do you think will be the most important problem facing the world in the future?"
When asked to consider the future of the planet, 14 percent chose the environment or global warming, while economic issues slipped to 21 percent.

4. "What do you think will be the most serious problem facing the world in the future if nothing is done to stop it?"

This time, 25 percent said the environment or global warming, and only 10 percent picked the economy or unemployment."

Regardless of whether you interpret the data as meaning that, when viewed as a long-term global threat, climate and the environment are either the largest concern of Americans or one of their three largest concerns (along with the economy and national security), this is a far cry from the conventional analysis that the public isn't worried about climate and energy.

At the same time, there's a sobering lesson in this data. Elections are usually about short-term national issues -- not long-term global threats. The Stanford analysis suggests that the American people are willing -- perhaps eager -- for the country to deal with the climate, energy, and the environment. But they are not likely to cast their votes for politicians based on those issues -- economic issues will dominate at the polls.

Ironically, the good news is that our dependence on fossil fuels is the biggest part of all three problems: the economy, national security, and climate change. That means the solution (a clean-energy economy) for any one  issue will actually solve all three.

In policy terms, it makes sense that green jobs, energy security, and climate recovery go hand-in-hand. But, politically, we need to win the argument for all three if we want to create a government mandate for serious reform. As important as the climate change issue is to us as environmentalists, we can't afford to focus on that alone. If we do, we risk getting this reaction: "Well, you might be right in the long run, but this year I'm worried about jobs."