was, is and will be.  

What should be the central organizing concept around which all other issues radiate is not even on the list.  If they had asked the question, "What planet do you live on?"... but then, how many people wake up each day thinking, wow, man, here I am, living on earth.    

But, the poll was mainly oriented around health care issues:  "The Kaiser Family Foundation is a non-profit, private operating foundation dedicated to providing information and analysis on health care issues to policymakers, the media, the health care community and the general public."
It is not surprising that their polling would  push health care to be near the top. People do like to be alive and healthy but what does the environment have to do with that?

^ you could put that on top and affect several of the above.

It is way too easy to get the answers you want by slanting the questions.

How to solve the problems oil war, economic, healthcare, education, tax related?  With the issue that underlies the whole mess that shaved chimp leadership has left US in.

Renewable energy re-evolution.  Here is a poll for Grist to conduct.

Would you favor a renewable energy and conservation effort (on the level of WW 2 war production) enlisting government, industry, and citizens that ends reliance on oil that causes oil war, reduces energy costs, revives our failing job base and manufacturing sector, and balances the national budget.  While at the same time averting GHG climate disaster.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

As I think Justlou was pointing out environment is an umbrella concept in which these other issues are more salient, so we need to make these links stronger or vice versa, fight for the environment through these issues.

Iraq -> environment = energy security, poverty and climate change...
Economy -> environment = clean energy, green collar jobs...
Health Care -> environment = asthma, toxics, mercury...
Immigration -> environment = climate refugees, drought, environmental justice...
education -> environment = citizenship, science, democracy,
Terrorism -> environment = see immigration, iraq and economy
frustration w/govt. -> environment = DOn't get me started!

Many years ago, Al Gore proposed the idea of making the environment our central organizing principle of governing ourselves.  This did not get much reception at the time he said it.    

One of the presidential candidates could "break out" if they could iterate a vision with the environment as its core.  Putting this all together into a vision that all nations on earth could organize around would really help to give all of us more hope that the future is not as black as I and many of us often see it.  I think that many of us saw that Al Gore "got it" and why Al gave us some hope.  

I think my comment was a worry that you won't get a rethinking of those concepts, in terms of environment, or whatever.

I'm afraid that behind those top issues are fixed positions, set piece battles, ready to be repeated.

... time will tell.  NPR just did a bunch of quickie interviews with voters from across the country.  Some seemed to be repeating the fixed positions from '00 and '04.  Some seemed ready for a rethinking.

One guy (an independent from the south) actually mentioned global warming!

... unfolding as planned.

The Republicans, by getting the U.S. caught in the quagmire known as the War in Iraq, have managed to secure a continuous flow of money from tax payers and their children and grand children to the military-industrial-fear complex and distracted Americans from demanding environmental protection and real healthcare reform.

Grover Norquist most likely cannot stop giggling every time Americans rally around the Decider and Chimp.

Extract U.S. forces from Iraq and enact universal healthcare... then Americans might worry about the environment again. Which Democrat running for President will promise to do both of these things?

Another victim of Jean-Paul Marat's ghost and his virtual guillotine?

I'm still waiting for Grist to add "War" or "International Conflict" or some similar term to its beloved topic cloud. Its harmful effect on our natural environment exceeds almost every other problem, if only because unresolved conflicts are distracting us from real threats to human survival on the planet.

Another victim of Jean-Paul Marat's ghost and his virtual guillotine?