Global Warming: Fact or Fiction



Global Warming: Fact or Fiction

Introduction

Prior to the White House conference, substantial proportions of Americans said that they believed in the existence of global warming. A large majority of people (77 percent) said they thought the world's temperature probably had been rising during the last one hundred years, and 74 percent said the world's temperature will probably go up in the future if nothing is done to stop it. A majority of Americans (61 percent) believed that global warming would be bad; 15 percent thought it would be good; and 22 percent thought it would be neither good nor bad. When asked about a series of specific possible consequences of global warming, most respondents said it would cause undesirable outcomes: more storms (69 percent), reduced food supplies (57 percent), more water shortages (54 percent), rising sea levels (52 percent), and extinction of some animal (52 percent) and plant species (50 percent). When deciding how good or bad global warming would be overall, people placed the most weight on its impact on sea levels, food supplies, and animal species extinction (Antilla, 2005).

Discussion

When asked how much should be done to combat global warming, majorities of Americans advocated significant effort. Fifty-nine percent said the U.S. government should do “a great deal” or “quite a bit.” Fifty-eight percent said the same about other countries' governments, 59 percent said so about U.S. businesses, and 44 percent said so about average people. However, only very small proportions of respondents believed these various groups were in fact doing “a great deal” or “quite a bit”: 11 percent regarding the U.S. government, 4 percent regarding foreign governments, 7 percent regarding U.S. businesses, and 5 percent regarding average people. Actions needed. A large majority of Americans (80 percent) believed that reducing air pollution will reduce future ...