Today we kick off a regular feature in which Grist’s editorial team celebrates—and carps about!—notable climate-related steps taken by businesses, politicians, and individuals. Think we patted the wrong back or slapped down the wrong pol? Jump in the comments section to let us know.
This week’s grades:
A big green thumbs-up to Barack Obama! Predictable? Sure. But we’d be lying if we said our cynical hearts weren’t touched by the explicit references to climate change and renewable energy in his inaugural address. Results and action matter, Mr. President. We won’t be shy about blasting your administration if climate change slips off your list of priorities.
Grist also awards an angry polar bear to you, the American public. Two new surveys suggest you don’t give a rat’s ass about the environment. According to the Pew Research Center, Americans think global warming ranks at the very bottom of a list of 20 national priorities, below even moral decline and the influence of lobbyists. Meanwhile, a Rasmussen survey shows a whopping 44 percent plurality of Americans don’t think climate change is caused by human activities. Haven’t they checked out our How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic series?
In your defense, fellow Americans, the polar bear should really be flipping off the outgoing Bush-Cheney administration (and their media mouthpieces), whose dissembling and equivocating on climate change for eight years probably did more to mislead Americans than anything else. And today we find out that at least one Bush-Cheney climate skeptic is trying to stick around in a high-level position at the National Science Foundation. Will it ever end??
Chuck Norris on Copenhagen
Comments
View as Flat
Peter B. Meyer Posted 11:51 pm
25 Jan 2009
That was after they responded to the question "How serious a problem is Global Warming?" with 41% saying Very Serious and another 23% saying Somwhat Serious.
Hey, how do you answer the first question above when you've already said you think there is a problem and the question doesn't say whether it means the issue today or the factors overall?
I grant, that sounds picky, but that's what academic survey researchers worry about. They find that leaving out a word like "today" can mean that some of the people saying "long term planetary trends" are to blame for climate change are misunderstanding the question and answering in terms of global patterns of climate change over geologic time.
Yeah, the results are depressing, but I am more upset by the surveys that "show" people that either/or choices are their only options than the results themselves.
Permalink
J4zonian Posted 3:40 am
27 Jan 2009
(interpreted from the results of one poll: http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=581 )
so i don't think the wording of the question is the problem.
Permalink