Porforio Guzman pointed at the New Haven Green — and predicted it will look different in 20 years, thanks to global climate change. Julie Walker called it “crazy” for schools to teach kids such “unproven” theories.
Welcome to two of the “six Americas.”
Call Guzman (pictured) “concerned.” Call Walker “doubtful.”
That’s what a new Yale study would call them.
The study found overall that Americans are not terribly concerned about global climate change, but they simultaneously support aggressive environmental polices, such as regulating carbon dioxide and taxing gas-guzzlers, according to a Yale survey.
Researchers at George Mason University collaborated with Yale on the study. The study has been ongoing for years; the latest findings were recently in recent weeks.
What the scientists found was a puzzling good news/bad news, on the one-hand-other hand, strange-bedfellows story about how the U.S. views global climate change.
Anthony Leiserowitz (pictured), director of the Yale Project on Climate Change, co-authored the study. He said that despite a decline in concern about global warming, respondents favored brawny measures to decrease greenhouse gases.
Apparently entrepreneurs, businessmen, and fossil-fuel insiders want to wean the country off of foreign oil, and so are seeking some of the same measures as environmentalists, Leiserowitz said.
“There are many roads to Damascus,” he said, meaning there’s no reason tree-huggers and mountain-top-scrapers cannot share the same ends for different reasons.
“The alarmed want research, and the dismissives want us off of imported oil,” he said.
“Most Americans continue to want their elected leaders at all levels to get on with the job of of developing solutions to global warming,” said Edward Maibach, director of the Center for Climate Change Communication at Mason University.
Researchers polled a representative sample of 1,001 American adults 18 and older. The sample was weighed to correspond to U.S. Census figures; the margin of error is plus or minus 3 percent.
Leiserowitz and colleagues found that 85 percent of those surveyed favored more research on renewable energy, such as solar and wind power.
Another 82 percent favored tax rebates for people buying fuel efficient cars. And 72 percent of those asked said that teaching public school students how to save energy is a good idea.
Almost three-quarters, 71 percent, favored regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant, and 61 percent were in favor of the U.S. cutting carbon dioxide emissions 90 percent by 2050.
These statistics are from a study published by Yale and George Mason universities late last year called “Global Warming’s Six Americas 2009: An audience segmentation analysis.” (Click here to find an extended video interview in which Leiserowitz describes those six Americas.)
As such the 114-page report contains a wealth of complex information, much of which remains to be teased out, Leiserowitz said. For example, researchers could see whether or not people alarmed by global warming believe in technological solutions, or what legislation is acceptable to the dismissive parts of the population.
While there is strong support for climate and energy policies, global warming is retreating in many minds.
The number of people “alarmed” by the prospect of climate change dropped from 18 percent in 2008 to10 percent.
“Why did strong support drop? It’s eyebrow lifting. People are scared and angry about the economy. That pushes everything off the table,” Leiserowitz said.
“Maybe we have a limited pool of worry,” he said. During the best of times climate change is a low priority, Leiserowitz said. “It’s seen as distant in the future in time and space.
“Signs of climate change are all over the U.S. if you know where to look,” he said.
For example, spring is arriving earlier, rainfall is up, and the sea level is rising. Also, sea surface and land temperatures are increasing at about one-third of a degree per decade.
New Haveners are concerned, based on random interviews on the street..
“The experiment is going to continue,” said Porfirio Guzman.
“I don’t see climate change stopping. Within 20 years this is going to look very different,” Guzman said, nodding toward the New Haven Green.
“No one is worried about [global warming] because it’s not in their face right now,” said Sharod Head, of New Haven. “We need more research on fuel efficient cars,” he said.
Julie Walker said, “Everyone is for more research, but proselytizing kids in school — that’s crazy on something that hasn’t been proven.”
“Everybody should be on board” for stricter carbon dioxide regulation and increased research, argued Troy Lee of New Haven. “People underestimate the risk of global climate change.”
These New Haveners typify two of the “six Americas:” concerned and doubtful. The others are from high concern to low, alarmed, cautious, disengaged, and dismissive.
“We did the original study on attitudes, and then on policy support. ‘Global warming’ is becoming an incredibly polarizing word,’” Leiserowitz said.
Julie Walker said, “Everyone is for more research, but proselytizing kids in school—that’s crazy on something that hasn’t been proven.”
Nevertheless, there is strong consensus in the professional scientific that global warming and climate change are real, despite some politically motivated noisemakers who have tried (apparently successfully, given Ms. Walker's comments) to create the impression that there is no such consensus.
As for theories being "proselytized", one may wish to recall that there are many "theories" based on mathematical models (e.g., gravitational theory, theory of relativity, etc.) that are known to be valuable without proof in the most technical sense.
i'm not willing to wait for the proof that Ms. Walker seems to demand, since there is ample EVIDENCE.
(BTW the verb "proselytize" is typically used only of religious conversion. I wonder if this is, shall we say, significant for Ms. Walker's personal lexicon?)