Poll: Global warming a low priority

Global warming is hanging from the bottom rung of Americans’ priority ladder, a new Pew survey shows.

But some opinion pollsters and scientists don’t find that surprising.

“Its immediacy is not on the same level as a job or health care,” said Chris Borick, a pollster and professor at Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania.

In December, Borick presented survey data at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs that suggested 72 percent of Americans believe there is “solid evidence the Earth is warming.”

However, according to a nationwide survey conducted earlier this month by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, “global warming” ranked last on a list of 20 priorities among 1,500 adults.

Topping the list were the economy, jobs and terrorism, in that order.

But the stimulus package being kicked around Washington could mean advancing environmental initiatives — such as developing green technologies — even if it isn’t primarily being billed that way, Borick said.

“A way that [President Barack Obama is] selling a lot of these [stimulus] issues right now is not so much on protecting the climate, but as ways to create jobs and stimulate the economy,” Borick said.

In the three years since Pew added it to its annual priority survey, the global warming category has not risen higher than 17th, with 38 percent of people considering it a priority in 2007. This is the second consecutive year it has ranked 20th, dropping 5 percent from 2008 to 30 percent this year.

Categories seeing the largest boost among priorities include “jobs,” which saw a 21 percent hike between 2008 and 2009, followed by “economy,” which was a concern for 85 percent of people surveyed.

Brian Balogh, chairman of Governing America in a Global Era at the Miller Center, said it wasn’t until the last quarter of the 20th century that policy makers began marrying environmental initiatives with economic stimulus.

“That would have been preposterous in the 1960s,” Balogh said.

Sid Milkis, professor of government and foreign affairs at UVa, said people often prioritize with their pocketbooks and that talk of alternative energy with fewer carbon emissions may have slacked off because the price of gasoline recently dropped.

Milkis said the president scattered references to environmental initiatives throughout his campaign, but believes it may be the end of Obama’s first term, or the first part of a possible second term, before he’s able to push a larger environmental agenda.

Howard Epstein, an associate professor of environmental science at UVa, said issues ranking higher on the Pew list, such as the economy, energy and the environment, all tie to global warming.

“What they’re saying in other ways is that [global warming] is important,” Epstein said.

While the economy category ranked No. 1, the Pew survey showed energy moved up one percentage point between 2008 and 2009, while the environment dropped by 15 percent. Health care also took a hit, down 10 percent this year.