We’ve seen a lot of recent polling that Americans support strong climate action (see Mark Mellman : “A strong public consensus has emerged on the reality and severity of global warming, as well as on the need for federal action” and “Americans support greenhouse gas regulation even if it could “substantially” raise energy prices.” This guest post, first published here, presents a new “audience segmentation analysis.” I’d ask readers which segment they’re in, but if you’re not alarmed, you’re reading the wrong blog!
There are six unique segments of the American public that each engage with the issue of global warming in their own distinct way. Just over half of American adults (51 percent) are either Alarmed or Concerned about global warming, and these individuals are poised to vote on the issue with their pocket books and at the ballot box.
The Alarmed (18 percent of the U.S. adult population) are the segment most engaged in the issue of global warming. They are very convinced it is happening, human-caused, and a serious and urgent threat. The Alarmed are already making changes in their own lives and support an aggressive national response (see graphs below).
The Concerned (33 percent) are also convinced that global warming is a serious problem and support a vigorous national response. Members of this group have signaled their intention to at least engage in consumer action on global warming in the near term, but they are less personally involved in the issue and have taken fewer actions than the Alarmed.
The Cautious (19 percent) also believe that global warming is a problem, although they are less certain that it is happening than the Alarmed or the Concerned. They do not view it as a personal threat, and do not feel a sense of urgency to deal with it.
The Disengaged (12 percent) do not know and have not thought much about the issue at all and say that they could easily change their minds about global warming.
The Doubtful (11 percent) are evenly split among those who think global warming is happening, those who think it isn’t, and those who do not know. Many within this group believe that if global warming is happening, it is caused by natural changes in the environment. They believe that it won’t harm people for many decades, if at all, and they say that America is already doing enough to respond to the threat.
The Dismissive (7 percent), like the Alarmed, are actively engaged in the issue, but are on the opposite end of the spectrum. Most members of this group believe that global warming is not happening, is not a threat to either people or non-human nature, and strongly believe that it does not warrant a national response.
Very large proportions of the Alarmed and the Concerned are currently or intend to begin rewarding or punishing companies that are either enacting or opposing steps to reduce global warming. Overall, 58 percent of Americans—134 million adults—intend to reward or punish companies through their product purchases in the near term. The primary barrier to this consumer action, however, is knowledge—68 percent of these consumers say they simply don’t know which companies to reward or punish.
More than half (52 percent) of the Alarmed and 17 percent of the Concerned have already or intend to contact elected officials in the next 12 months to urge them to take action on global warming. This represents a large potential “issue public” waiting to be mobilized. These groups express strong support for a wide range of climate and energy policies. This is shown, for example, by their strong support for regulating CO2 as a pollutant.
The very large size of the Concerned segment—one out of three American adults—and their increasing willingness to express their concern about climate change through changes in their consumer and political behavior, suggests that the United States could be rapidly approaching an important tipping point in public engagement.
Interest in personal energy conservation is even more common across all six groups, which may be motivated by a desire to save money, in addition to any advantages to the environment. This reflects results drawn from the same data in a previously released report, “Climate Change in the American Mind,” which found that, by over a 5-to-1 margin, Americans believe changing their lifestyle to reduce carbon emissions would actually improve or have no impact on (versus decrease) their quality of life. Policies that help people reduce their energy use through energy efficiency improvements thus receive wide support, regardless of individual opinions about climate change.
“Climate Change in the American Mind” also found that despite the economic crisis, more than 90 percent of Americans said the United States should act to reduce global warming, even if it has economic costs (Figure 5). Likewise, 67 percent of Americans said, “The United States should reduce its greenhouse gas emissions regardless of what other countries do” (Figure 6).
The data for “Global Warming’s Six Americas” and “Climate Change in the American Mind” was drawn from a nationally representative survey of 2,129 American adults in the fall of 2008. The survey questionnaire included extensive, in-depth measures of public climate change beliefs, attitudes, risk perceptions, policy preferences, behaviors, barriers to action, motivations, and values.
The charts below visualize some of the report’s major findings. The size of the circles and width of the columns represent the proportion of the American public in each audience segment. The small cross at the center of each circle represents the segment average response to the question.
The ”6 Americas” fall on a scale from extremely sure to unsure that global warming is happening, with the majority somewhat to very sure that it is occurring.
The Alarmed and Concerned generally believe that global warming is currently harming or will harm Americans within the next 10 years or so, while the Cautious and Disengaged believe it will take 25 to 50 years. The Doubtful and Dismissive believe it is very far off or will not occur at all.
Most Americans support an international treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; only the Doubtful and Dismissive are opposed.
Most Americans strongly or somewhat support regulating CO2 as a pollutant.
Almost all Americans strongly or somewhat support rebates for the purchase of solar panels and fuel-efficient cars, including the Dismissive.
Few Americans have contacted their elected officials about global warming, although many of the Alarmed and Concerned say they intend to within the next year.
The majority of the Alarmed and Concerned plan to make purchasing decisions based on whether companies are enacting or opposing steps to reduce global warming.
Members of all six groups have made some energy efficiency improvements to their homes, which may come from a desire to save money, rather than the environment.
Anthony Leiserowitz is Director of Yale Project on Climate Change, Edward Maibach is Director of the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University, and Andrew Light is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and Director of the Center for Global Ethics at GMU.
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the last graph isn’t surprising. exposure to energy costs among “red state” voters is pretty high and their sense that the ecological books will be balanced on their shoulders has historic precedent, shall we say, up to and including bailouts for reckless bankers but not for clean-nosed homeowners.
Surprisingly optimistic graphs!
IMHO, the takeaway is definitely in Support of Rebates. Figuring out how to butter everyone’s bread is a much better strategy than educating people about global warming at this stage in the game. Education seems to have done its job, first of all, which is great! And education campaigns can be condescending if poorly done, and can be construed as condescension/class warfare even when they’re not.
Besides, there are also people who believe that we never landed on the moon, and that 9/11 was an inside job. It doesn’t really matter if a relatively small percentage of people don’t believe in global warming, as long as the larger fabric of the culture rewards good choices, like solar panels, insulating, electric vehicles and the like.
The last graph tells the tale: Even the “doubtful”, the “dismissive” and the weirdly “disengaged” have *still* made some efforts to improve the energy efficiency of their homes. Why? Because energy costs them money directly out of their pocket and as electric bills have gone up 40% on average the past decade, even the ostriches realized they had to do something to try to reduce what the pinch. This is why it is so important to put a real price — a realistic, meaningful price — on CO2 emissions. It is the only thing that will force (yes, I said force) half of the pubic to conserve and to make smarter consumer purchases in the future.
While these numbers are certainly an encouraging improvement over the official national denialism of the Bush Era, it is shocking to note that after 30 years of warnings by the scientific community and reporting by the mass media, that fully 18% of those polled are still either “doubtful” or “dismissive” — that’s the exact same percentage as those who are “alarmed” (!) This shows just how effective the calculated and deliberate campaign of well-financed denial and misinformation has been over the last 3 decades.
It is difficult for any thinking person to understand how so many educated people can be disengaged, doubtful and dismissive that there really is global warming occurring when we have recently experienced the most severe droughts in recorded history, the worst flooding, the most massive sequence of hurricanes and the 8 hottest years in history happening in the last decade alone. I mean, what more do these people need to be convinced? Their front lawns bursting into spontaneous combustion before their eyes?
Finally, the timing graph makes the point myself and others have been bringing up: Almost half of those polled do not feel like global warming is any kind of a threat to them personally in the next 25 years. That takes us out to 2035, far too late to do anything about it. The continued emphasis of writers and reporters on what will happen in 2050 and beyond is not reaching these people on a gut level. Horror stories with dates past 2030 still sound awfully speculative to many people, like a science fiction movie. If it isn’t going to happen in the useful span of their lifetime, they simply aren’t going to get all that concerned about it. They figure someone will figure out something to fix it the problem by the time those far future dates come along, and besides, they figure that personally they have got too much to worry about to just make it through the next couple of years anyway.
Naturally, writers and reporters should continue to talk of the longer-term effects, but the real focus needs to be on the next 25 years. Surely there are going to be enough horror stories over that period, particularly after 2025 when we’re not only much hotter, but really truly running out of oil, to make people realize that we have to act right now in a major way?
I agree with Jim above on the need to step up the emphasis on the current effects of climate change, not just the distant threats. How to go about doing that is a tricky question. The problem is that many of the current effects of climate change – wildfires, hurricanes, droughts, and so on – manifest themselves as increased likelihoods of events that occur anyway, so it’s impossible to point to any single event and say “THAT’s because of climate change”.
This is a worthy study, but I would rather see different descriptions of the groups.
Even as the world is more painfully affected by global warming this general distribution of attitude will hold. Keep the groupings, but imagine a shift across the group. So in 5 years when everyone accepts AGW, it will still be a small segment wanting to take the serious mitigation and adaptation steps… and then a larger segment unwilling to dive into making change.
The Six Americas could be used to describe Congress and other political leadership.
The poll numbers seem optimistic to me. It seems there is a higher percentage than 18% who are doubtful or dismissive of the science on global warming. One can ignore the Rasmussen push polls but other polls reveal U.S. doubt in the range of 40-50%.
(ditto) Surprisingly optimistic graphs!
I wonder what these graphs would look like for countries that are making real progress on GHG reductions? Norway? England? Be neat to have a whole globe’s worth of this information. Red states, blue states also.
And, what will these look like after one year of Chu, Zoi, Obama, etc?
Guess I will have to print the first 79 pages and read them….
Excellent very informative report.
A lot of the Cautious to Doubtful folks that I meet have been confused/fooled by the Inhofe/Morano disinformation campaign claims that many scientist are skeptical and even disdainful of AGW claims.
Some of them could be influenced by a well designed poll of scientists. I haven’t seen one. If one exists or if a new poll of scientists were performed, it would be great to see a similar graphic breakdown. That would be powerful.
Just imagine a graph called “Six Catagories of Climate Scientists”!
This Dan Ariely talk made me think of this post, and the larger problem of messaging/creating policy. If the environment is constructed so as to make low-emitting choices easy, there’s no need to work at converting stragglers:
http://www.ted.com/ index.php/ talks/ dan_ariely_asks_are_we_in_control_of_our_own_decisions.html
I would love to believe these results – but I can’t help wonder if the sample population is representative of our population in general. I bump into people constantly who know almost nothing about GW – just unaware, not on their radar, semi-literate, never use a computer, etc…..
A few years ago, if I showed anything to do with climate on air, I would get a lot of email along the lines of “your a global warming alarmist, or it’s all a hoax, why don’t you report that.
Just subjectively, it seems that I get considerably less of that now. My first thought on reading the poll numbers above, was that the dismissive category seemed about right.
I frequently have people tell me they are “confused” on the issue and unsure what to believe. Most of these people, were doubters not long ago I think. The overwhelming science is getting through.
Many synoptic forecasters, with little experience on the climate side of Meteorology, were avid doubters just 4 years ago, but I have noticed a big change there as well.
Dan
There were some other interesting findings in this report:
Figure 13: “None of the six Americas are fully confident that humans both can and will successfully reduce global warming.” How much has this attitude been shaped by the many apocalyptic visions of the future now in the media? (Joe and I have posted in the past about the need to visualize the positive future would could create if we tried.)
Figures 19 and 22: These charts indicate much stronger support for regulating CO2 than for cap-and-trade. Is Congress out of synch with the people on this and too timid about regulating?
Figure 23: Few have contacted Congress on climate change. It appears that groups like 1Sky and the Alliance for Climate Protection — both undertaking grassroots campaigns to press for bold congressional action — have their work cut out for them.
Bill: I think the disparity between wanting to regulate CO2 and living with a CAT system is the typical abstract vs. concrete schism we see all the time in public opinion. They like the strategy but not the tactics necessary to achieve that strategy.
I think the term “cap and trade” also trips up some people. They don’t know exactly what it means–will they have to account for their personal CO2 emissions and buy permits? how much will it push up prices?–so they’re hesitant to support it.
Overall this seems like a terrific report, and I can’t wait to read it.
When I click the link for the full report, Acrobat Reader tells me the document is damaged and cannot be repaired. I’ve e-mailed the Center for American Progress to let them know.
Judging by the comments here, other people are not having this trouble. Both my browser and the Reader are up to date. I have no idea what the cause could be.
[JR: Works for me. Try cutting and pasting this:
http://www.americanprogress.org/ issues/ 2009/ 05/ pdf/ 6americas.pdf]
Cutting and pasting the URL gave me the same result in Firefox. But it worked fine in IE6. Go figure.
Firefox problem solved, with guidance from Mozilla online help. I changed the Acrobat application setting from “Use Adobe Acrobat” to “Use Adobe Reader.” Works fine now.