Happy (or sad) Earth Day: A Gallup poll that’s encouraging and disturbing at the same time
The kind of good news: the majority of Canadians know about climate change and believe global warming is caused primarily by human activities. Even better, 76 per cent of those surveyed in regions dubbed “Developed Asia” have reached the same conclusion.
The clearly bad news: nearly half (47 per cent) of Americans believe global warming is the result of natural causes, and only a third say human activities. I wonder what Adam and Eve would say? Hmmm….
The clearly depressing news: On average, 36 per cent of folks in the entire world aren’t even aware of global warming as an issue, and in Africa and developing parts of Asia that figure climbs to a stunning 50 per cent!!! These, ironically and sadly, are the people who will be most affected by it.
Tyler Hamilton is associate publisher and editor-in-chief of Corporate Knights magazine and former business columnist for the Toronto Star. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005.
April 26th, 2011 at 7:11 pm
That is embarrassing, look at the Natural Causes US colum that is just plain denile. They all see it on the weather channel(or cnn) everyday, unnatural as all get out.
April 29th, 2011 at 9:08 pm
For practical purposes, what difference does it make if rising temperatures are caused by human activity or natural causes? There are plenty of other pressing reasons (health effects of pollution, geopolitical realities, cost of cleanup vs prevention, saving money, and probably bunches more) to persuade corporations and households to go green. Whether people take serious steps in that direction from concern about the climate or some other reason, the results will be the same. And wasn’t it just a few years ago that some Americans were quite vocally questioning whether temperature change was happening at all? I don’t see them anywhere on the poll. Of all the reasons to persuade people to change their behavior and buying habits, climate change seems to be the least likely to produce real results. If people who speak entirely or mostly about climate change would spend even a third of the same effort appealing to more immediate self-interest, we’d make more environmental progress. And faster, too.
By the way, what we see on the Weather Channel is completely natural, and changing weather has nothing to do with changing climate.
May 4th, 2011 at 8:52 pm
Maybe this is a half-full/half-empty situation. 54% of Canadians, 49% of Europeans, 34% of Americans, 76% od “Developed Aisia”… Together this represents, what, a billion people? A billion of the richest, best educated people who have ever lived?
Together, these people have the ability to solve global warming. Period.
Who cares if some people are determined to be wrong, stubborn or stupid. Do we really think we can put an end to human ignorance? Why should we waste our time trying? If a few million teenage girls can skyrocket Justin Bieber into being the most illustrious musician on the planet, why can’t a billion adults achieve a solution to global warming?
The solution is out there. The problem is that it require that people lift a finger to help.
May 5th, 2011 at 10:08 am
It’s true…you can’t even recognize if Earthday is suppose to be a happy day or a sad day. You take a look around and see how much things are changing day by day, especially the enviroment..and still people are too lazy to do something! How can we change the world in a better place, a safer place, if we’re not capable of seeing than the we’re the only ones that can make a change?