Massachusetts Institute of Technology

NEWS RELEASE

Public release date: 31-Oct-2006

Contact: Elizabeth Thomson

thomson@mit.edu

617-258-5402

MIT survey: Climate change tops Americans' environmental concerns

Results are dramatic shift from three years ago

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- According to a recent MIT survey, Americans now

rank climate change as the country's most pressing environmental

problem -- a dramatic shift from three years ago, when they ranked

climate change sixth out of 10 environmental concerns.

Almost three-quarters of the respondents felt the government should

do more to deal with global warming, and individuals were willing to

spend their own money to help.

"While terrorism and the war in Iraq are the main issues of national

concern, there's been a remarkable increase in the American public's

recognition of global warming and their willingness to do something

about it," said Stephen Ansolabehere, MIT's Elting R. Morison

Professor of Political Science.

The survey results were released Oct. 31 at the seventh annual Carbon

Sequestration Forum, an international meeting held at MIT that

focuses on methods of capturing and storing emissions of carbon

dioxide--a major contributor to climate change.

Ansolabehere's colleagues on the work are Howard Herzog, principal

research engineer in MIT's Laboratory for Energy and the Environment

(LFEE), LFEE research associates Thomas E. Curry and Mark de

Figueiredo, and Professor David M. Reiner of the University of

Cambridge.

The findings are a result of two surveys, the first administered in

September 2003 and the follow-up in September 2006. Each survey

included about 20 questions focusing on the environment, global

warming and a variety of climate-change-mitigation technologies.

In designing and administering the surveys, the research team

collaborated with Knowledge Networks, a company that specializes in

Internet-based public opinion surveys. More than 1,200 people

answered each survey (with no overlap between the two groups of

respondents).

Comparing results from the two surveys provides insights into how

public awareness, concern and understanding have changed--or not

changed--during the past three years.

The environment continues to rank in the middle of the list of "most

important issues facing the U.S. today." However, among 10

environmental problems, global warming (or climate change) now tops

the list: Almost half the respondents put global warming in first or

second place. In 2003, the destruction of ecosystems, water pollution

and toxic waste were far higher priorities.

There is also an increased sense that global warming is an

established problem. In the 2006 survey, 28 percent of the

respondents agreed that it is a serious problem and immediate action

is necessary--up from 17 percent in 2003. All together, almost 60

percent of the 2006 respondents agreed that there's enough evidence

to warrant some level of action.

The other big change is a substantial increase in people's

willingness to spend their own money to do something about it. In

2003, people were willing to pay on average $14 more per month on

their electricity bill to "solve" global warming. In 2006 they agreed

to pay $21 more per month--a 50 percent increase in their willingness

to pay.

Could $21 make a real difference? Assuming 100 million U.S.

households, total payments would be $25 billion per year. "That's

real money," said Herzog. "While it cannot solve the whole problem,

it can certainly make significant strides."

For context, Ansolabehere pointed out that the U.S. Department of

Energy's budget for energy R&D is now about $2 billion per year.

"Another reading of this outcome is that people want not a little bit

more spent but rather a lot more spent to solve this problem--and

they're willing to pay," he said.

The MIT team undertook the original survey in 2003 to find out what

the public thought about carbon capture and storage (CCS), an

approach that Herzog and his LFEE colleagues had been studying for

more than a decade. The team was not surprised to find that more than

90 percent of the respondents had never heard of CCS. The 2006 survey

showed similar results.

In general, the respondents' understanding of climate change and

possible mitigation technologies showed little change between 2003

and 2006. In terms of their technology preferences, in 2006 most

still recommended using more wind and solar energy and increasing

efficiency, but more were willing to consider CCS and nuclear energy

as possible approaches.

"It's not that people have learned something fundamental about the

science, but they've come to understand that this problem is real,"

said Ansolabehere. "It takes a prolonged discussion of a complex

topic like this really to move public concern, and what's happened

over the past three years has got to continue."

The researchers plan to analyze the survey results in more depth, in

particular to test for correlations between answers to questions and

the economic, political, geographical and other demographic

characteristics of the respondents.

###

This research was supported by the MIT Carbon Sequestration

Initiative (sequestration.mit.edu/CSI/index.html). For more details

about the surveys and their results, go to

sequestration.mit.edu/research/survey2006.html.

Written by Nancy Stauffer, MIT Laboratory for Energy and the Environment

posted by Cold Mountain, Cold Rivers to Yahoo Group ClimateConcern