Poll: Americans See a Climate Problem

In a new TIME survey, most people see global warming worsening — and
want action
Sunday, Mar. 26, 2006

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1176967,00.html


A large majority of Americans — 85% — say global warming is probably
happening, according to a new TIME magazine/ABC News/Stanford
University poll. An even larger percentage (88%) think global warming
threatens future generations. More than half (60%) say it threatens
them a great deal; 38% feel that global warming is already a serious
problem, and 47% feel that it will be in the future.

Just over half of Americans (52%) say weather patterns in the county
where they live have grown more unstable in the last three years and
half (50%) feel that average temperatures have risen in their county.
A large majority (70%) think weather patterns globally have become
more unstable in the last three years and 56% feel average
temperatures around the world have risen.

Almost half (49%) say the issue of global warming is "extremely
important" or "very important" to them personally, up from 31% in
1998. When asked about the causes of rise in the world’s
temperatures, 31% feel it is caused by the things people do, 19% feel
it is due mostly to natural causes, and 49% feel it is a combination
of the two. Almost seven-in-ten (68%) Americans think the government
should do more to address global warming, according to the poll;
however, 64% think scientists disagree with one another about global
warming.

Two-thirds of Americans (66%) say President George W. Bush’s policies
did little or nothing to help the environment in the past year. More
than half (54%) feel American businesses did little or nothing to
help. Three-quarters want to see Bush and others — Congress, American
businesses and the American public — take action to help the
environment in the year ahead. About one-third (35%) of Americans say
that in the past year they have personally given a lot of thought to
the impact they were having on the environment.

Six in ten Americans (62%) think much can be done to curb global
warming and 52% favor government mandates. A majority (61%) say they
would support a government mandate on lowering power plant emissions,
and 87% support tax breaks to develop water, wind and solar power.
But 81% oppose higher taxes on electricity, 68% oppose higher
gasoline taxes and 56% oppose giving companies tax breaks to build
nuclear power plants.

The partisan gap on global warming seems to be shifting, according to
the poll. In 1998, 31% of Republicans and independents alike were
sure that global warming was happening, compared with 39% among
Democrats. Today, 46% of Democrats and 45% of independents are
certain, but only 26% of Republicans feel that way, according to the
poll.

The TIME/ABC News/Stanford University poll was conducted by telephone
March 9-14, 2006 among a random national sample of 1,002 adults. The
results have a three-point error margin.

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note: If so many of us see it, why did Bush blow off Kyoto and not get involved?
oh wait, I know, for the same reason he's still in office when so many of us think he should be impeached!