US public sees global warming as problem, but ambivalent about sacrifice
Share your Thoughts
Posted on April 30, 2007
Filed Under Justice, Global warming/Climate change, Greenhouse gas emissions, Consumer culture, Fossil fuel dependency, Earth spirituality, Renewable fuels
Fostering Ecological Hope
Today from Margaret Swedish:
Mentioned yesterday that a new poll conducted by the New York Times/CBS News finds we US Americans concerned about global warming, but reluctant to have our lifestyles upset too much to address the crisis.
By overwhelming majorities across the political spectrum, we believe it is time to take action and that:
Americans want the United States to support conservation and to be a global leader in addressing environmental problems and developing alternative energy sources to reduce reliance on fossil fuels like oil and coal.
These are good signs, showing that the message is finally getting across. Only took three decades. 
Maybe the 8-year drought in the SouthWest, the extreme drought in Georgia and the raging wildfires there, the early melting of this year’s snow pack, and the recent deluges of rain in the mid-Atlantic are beginning to reach our brains, telling us something is very wrong.
The problem with waiting this long is that we are already seeing the impacts of global warming around the world. We didn’t start in time to keep the climate from changing. Now the question is how bad it will get and whether or not we are willing to take the action needed to keep it from becoming truly catastrophic.
In that regard, the poll sent mixed signals, demoralizing ones for some of us. On the one hand, folks are ready for rules to force car manufacturers to make more energy efficient vehicles. They are willing to pay more for electricity produced by renewable energy sources. They are willing to pay higher gasoline taxes if the money goes to research on renewables. They say that protecting the environment is more important than stimulating the economy — by 52% to 36%. And they believe it is more important to conserve energy than to produce more fossil fuels — 68% to 21%.
This is real progress. It marks a shift in public consciousness.
On the other hand, folks polled oppose a federal gasoline tax by 58%, and if such a tax raised the price of gasoline by $2 per gallon, they oppose it by a whopping 76%.
And this is interesting — we are more willing to pay more for gasoline if it would reduce dependence on foreign oil than to reduce global warming.
What does all this mean? Can’t speak for everyone’s motivations, but it seems we want the federal government to come up with clean alternatives to provide energy for our way of life, we are willing to conserve energy, or at least to be encouraged to conserve energy, and we are more willing than ever to buy fuel efficient cars if automakers would produce them.
At the same time, I don’t think we are realizing yet the magnitude of the crisis, nor what it will take in changes to our lifestyles, our economic and individual ways of life, to reduce the drivers that are heating up the planet.
Climate is already changing, and the impacts are already pretty harsh in many parts of the world. If we still resist paying $2 more for a gallon of gasoline, than we are not getting just how bad these impacts will be on our lives — impacts that will make little problems like more expensive gasoline pale by comparison.
Maybe we need to start putting this in different terms. For example:
* would you be willing to pay $2 more for gasoline if it would reduce the risk of devastating drought and raging wildfires in our Southwest and Southeast?
* would you be willing to take more public transportation if it might help save island nations from inundation and Inuit communities whose towns are collapsing under the melting permafrost?
* would you be willing to forego that next international conference if flying less would help the Earth have a chance to heal its atmosphere?
* would you be willing to turn down your thermostats in winter and raise them in summer if this could help prevent future heat waves in Europe like the one that killed 30,000 people a couple of years ago?
You know, moral terms like that. Then it gets out of the head and into the heart. Than the moral, ethical, and spiritual choices become clear.
Photo Credit: AP Photo/The Florida Times-Union, Will Dickey
Technorati Tags: New York Times/CBS News poll, global warming and moral choices, gasoline tax, fuel efficient automobiles, Georgia wildfires
Comments
Leave a Reply
