Public's Environmental Outlook Grows More Negative

GALLUP NEWS SERVICE

PRINCETON, NJ -- This year's Earth Day, which will be observed Friday, is marked by a slight increase in pessimism about the environment among Americans. According to Gallup's annual environment survey, conducted March 7-10, half the public is negative about environmental conditions and only a quarter is positive; another quarter offers a mixed assessment. This is according to Gallup's environmental index, which takes into account ratings of current environmental conditions as well as perceptions of whether the environment is improving or worsening.

As the trend in this index shows, the current distribution is five points more negative than was recorded last year, and is the most negative Gallup has recorded since the index was established in 2001.

Gallup combines Americans' answers to two basic ratings of the environment to create the index of environmental attitudes.

• Respondents who perceive current environmental conditions as "excellent" or "good" and believe the environment is staying the same or getting better are considered "positive" about the environment. 
• Those who rate the environment as "only fair" and getting worse -- or who rate the environment as "poor" and say it is staying the same or worsening -- are considered "negative" about the environment. 
• Most others are categorized as "mixed."

In this year's environment poll, 41% of Americans characterize the overall quality of the environment in the United States today as "excellent" or "good." About half (48%) rate it "only fair," while 10% call it "poor." There has been no significant change in this measure over the past year.

At the same time, perceptions about the direction in which the environment is headed have worsened. Sixty-three percent of Americans, up from 58% in March 2004, say the quality of the environment in the country is getting worse. Only 29% (down from 34% last year) now say it is getting better.

Still No Surge of Concern

Despite a dimming view of the environment's future, there has been little change in Americans' level of worry about the quality of the environment. Only 35% of Americans -- identical to last year -- say they worry a great deal about the quality of the environment. Another 30% worry a fair amount, while 34% express little to no worry.

Public anxiety about the environment has held relatively steady since 2002 -- the percentage who worry a great deal or fair amount has fluctuated between 62% and 68%. However, concern about the environment was higher in March 2001, when 77% were this worried. 

The reason for the decline in concern between March 2001 and March 2002 could very well be the intervening 9/11 terrorist attacks. Heightened concern about terrorism caused Americans to show less concern about several issues, such as the environment, crime, and drugs.

Gallup also sees no change in the percentage of Americans naming the environment as the most important problem facing the United States today. The environment has rarely been mentioned by more than 5% of the public in recent years (significantly higher percentages mentioned the environment as the nation's top problem in the years immediately after the first Earth Day celebration in 1970). More recently, the figure has been in the 1% to 2% range. This is the case today, as just 1% name the environment as the top problem. Rather than the environment, the economy, Social Security, and issues related to terrorism and the Iraq situation lead the list of issues Americans see as most pressing.

Social Security Eclipses Environment as Long-Term Problem

A different test of how important the environment is to Americans comes from another open-ended question that asks them to project what the most important problem will be 25 years from now.

The environment was once the leading long-term problem perceived by Americans, but now Social Security and the economy overshadow it. Since 2000, the percentage of Americans naming the environment as the most important problem that will face the United States in 25 years has dwindled from 14% to 6%. Initially, the economy replaced the environment as the No. 1 long-term concern but, with its increasing prominence in public debate, Social Security has gained momentum on this measure and now swamps all other issues.

Looking ahead, what do you think will be the most important problem facing our nation 25 years from now?

Partisan Attitudes

Attitudes on the environment are predictably partisan. A majority of Republicans describe current environmental conditions in positive terms, while Democrats are more critical. Half of Republicans perceive the environment as improving, while four in five Democrats say it is getting worse. As a result, about four times as many Republicans as Democrats (42% vs. 10%) are identified as "positive" on Gallup's environmental index.

A Women's Issue

More interesting is that women are more critical of environmental conditions than are men. Fifty-seven percent of women, overall, are negative about the environment, compared with 44% of men.

This gender gap can be almost entirely attributed to the differences among Republicans. Republican women are nearly twice as likely as Republican men (41% vs. 24%) to be negative in their environmental assessments. There is virtually no difference in the environmental outlook of Democratic men and Democratic women. Similar results by gender within party were observed last year.

Global Warming

Hollywood gave us a global warming disaster movie -- The Day After Tomorrow -- in 2004. Though it was the No. 6 top-grossing movie of the year, it doesn't appear to have stirred up a great deal of alarm among Americans about global warming. 

By its own admission, the public is not well positioned to make much sense of the issue. Only 16% of Americans say they understand the issue of global warming "very well." Another 54% say they understand it "fairly well," while 3 in 10 say "not very well" or "not at all." This is virtually unchanged from last year.

Even prior to the debut of The Day After Tomorrow in May 2004, Americans appeared to have accepted that global warming is a real phenomenon. In March 2004, about half of Americans said that the effects of global warming were already happening, while two-thirds expected the effects would be apparent in their lifetimes.

Those figures are essentially the same today.

• About 7 in 10 Americans (69%) believe the effects of global warming have already occurred or will occur in their own lifetimes.
• Roughly one in five (19%) think the effects will only affect future generations. 
• Just 9% are completely skeptical, saying that deleterious effects from global warming will never happen.

There has been a slight change since 2004 in Americans' perceptions about the seriousness of global warming. But this change simply marks a return to where attitudes stood in 2003. Just under a third of Americans (31%) say that news reports about global warming generally exaggerate the problem. Just over a third (35%) believe the news generally underestimates the problem. Another 29% think that news coverage of the issue is generally on the mark.

Longer term, however, Gallup has recorded a slight increase in perceptions that the problem is generally underestimated, from 27% in 1997 to 35% today.

Survey Methods

The latest results are based on telephone interviews with a randomly selected national sample of 1,004 adults, aged 18 and older, conducted March 7-10, 2005. For results based on this sample, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum error attributable to sampling and other random effects is ±3 percentage points. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

16. How would you rate the overall quality of the environment in this country today -- as excellent, good, only fair, or poor?

17. Right now, do you think the quality of the environment in the country as a whole is getting better or getting worse?

32. Which of the following statements reflects your view of when the effects of global warming will begin to happen – [ROTATED: they have already begun to happen, they will start happening within a few years, they will start happening within your lifetime, they will not happen within your lifetime, but they will affect future generations, (or) they will never happen]?