On Tuesday, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren spoke on the Senate floor to keep battling against the negative effects of climate change. In a seven-minute video, Senator Warren referred to morphing weather patterns as “a climate crisis, a point of no return.” The only problem is that the good Senator’s efforts may be in vain as a new poll shows that Americans don’t care about the issue.
“We are at a moment of great danger and great opportunity,” pleaded Senator Warren, urging listeners to continue innovating cleaner, greener products and lifestyles. But in general, her pleas are falling on deaf ears.
A new Gallup Poll conducted between March 6 and March 9 of of 513 adults living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia shows that climate change is of the least of Americans’ worries, as is the state of the environment.
According to Gallup’s data, just 24 percent of those surveyed cared a “great deal” about climate change, 31 percent percent for the environment, while 51 percent and 34 percent cared “a little/not at all,” respectively.
The top priorities, and understandably so, are the economy, federal spending and the budget deficit, availability and affordability of healthcare and unemployment.
Why Americans are so disinclined to act immediately on climate change and the environment is likely because those issues generally don’t affect them directly the way unfavorable economics or unemployment do. But as Senator Warren noted, when reciting some of the 5,000 letters she received in support of her taking action, many of which came from Massachusetts (good work, you guys), in our lifetime we’re likely to see how detrimental we’ve become to nature worldwide.
Gallup broke the statistics down even further, differentiating between political parties, and conveyed that Republicans are less likely to care about climate change and the environment than Democrats. But for their part, Democrats worry just 36 percent about the former and 46 percent about the latter.
In January Governor Deval Patrick appropriated some $50 million to be used for inclement weather preparations and further research into climate change and clean energy. His allotment came after the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Sandy in an attempt to save Boston from being subjected to the same fate as New York City on down the east coast.
