But Pew study says fewer Americans believe in global warming
By Seth Masia
SOLAR TODAY managing editor
About 57% of Americans favor capping carbon dioxide emissions. At the same time, ironically, only 35% of Americans now consider that global warming is a serious issue.
According to a survey released today by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 57% of adults surveyed believe that there's solid evidence for global warming, down from 71% last April.
The survey doesn't explain why a population that doesn't savvy the climate issue nonetheless favors carbon caps. One clue is that 56% of respondents think the U.S. should cooperate in any international climate agreement. Maybe we just want to be world citizens.
So we're not doing a very good job of explaining this complex story to most of the country. Folks who live on the coasts believe in the reality of global warming, by 60 to 66% -- especially in the Southeast. That's an interesting statistic in and of itself, because only 35% of Republicans, nationally, think global warming is a serious problem.
Seth Masia
Liz Merry
