The president may be the only president of an industrialized country to reject the seriousness of global warming — Bush isn’t convinced it’s real and allows his White House to edit out references to global warming from government reports — but his constituents, fortunately, believe otherwise.
Most Americans believe global warming exists and a majority thinks it is a major problem — if not a crisis, according to a recent FOX News poll. Even so, less than half think they personally can do anything about the problem.
The new national poll finds that 77 percent of Americans believe global warming is happening and, of those, more than twice as many think it is caused by human behavior (46 percent) than by normal climate patterns (17 percent). About a third says it is a combination of both (30 percent).
All in all, Americans take the issue of global warming seriously. A 60 percent majority describes the situation as either a crisis (16 percent) or a major problem (44 percent), while about one in five say it is a minor problem (22 percent) and one in ten “not a problem at all” (12 percent).
“Despite the skepticism that has been expressed by some business, scientific and political leaders, the existence and importance of global warming seems to be the consensus position of Americans,” comments Opinion Dynamics Chairman John Gorman. “This lopsided acceptance of the problem is something we don’t see for many other issues.”
The same poll shows that Americans are also willing to take steps to address the problem — 80% want to buy more energy-efficient appliances, 73% want to educate themselves more about global warming, 67% are prepared to replace their regular light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs, and 59% are likely to cut down on driving or carpool more often.
Granted, there’s still some confusion out there. Over a third of Americans believe the United States is doing more than other industrially developed countries to reduce global warming, which clearly is not the case.
What’s more, the confusion seems to be partisan in nature.
Partisan differences are clear on the issue of global warming. Democrats are significantly more likely than Republicans to think global warming exists (83 percent vs. 66 percent), and more than three times as likely to call the situation a crisis (22 percent vs. 6 percent). Conversely, Republicans are almost twice as likely as Democrats to think the United States is doing more than other countries to reduce global warming (48 percent vs. 25 percent).
The bottom line, however, remains the same. Despite years of conservative rhetoric about global warming being a “myth” that should be ignored, the vast majority of Americans know better.
Americans recognize this as a problem and want to take steps to correct it. Watch for this to be an increasingly important political issue — and let’s hope it’s not too late.