A recently released Gallup Poll indicates that the proportion of U.S. citizens who worry a great deal about global warming is remarkably unchanged in the last 18 years: about 37 percent now, versus 35 percent in 1990. That, even much large numbers of Americans report that they are indeed concerned about climate change and consider themselves quite a bit better informed than before. Four out of five Americans consider themselves very well or fairly well educated on the issue now, compared to barely more than half in 1990.
Three out of five U.S. citizens believe that global warming has already begun, compared to less than half eighteen years ago, and 40 percent think it will pose a serious threat to their way of life in their lifetimes, compared to 25 percent in 1990. Even so, climate change ranks only tenth on a list of environmental problems that most concern Americans, and the fraction of the citizenry that advocates “additional, immediate, drastic action”—34 percent—is essentially unchanged from what it was when public discussion of the subject got going in earnest at the beginning of the 1990s.
