Poll: Americans See a Climate Problem

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arge majority of Americans — 85% — say global warming is probably happening, according to a new TIME magazine/ABC News/Stanford University poll. An even larger percentage (88%) think global warming threatens future generations. More than half (60%) say it threatens them a great deal; 38% feel that global warming is already a serious problem, and 47% feel that it will be in the future.

Just over half of Americans (52%) say weather patterns in the county where they live have grown more unstable in the last three years and half (50%) feel that average temperatures have risen in their county. A large majority (70%) think weather patterns globally have become more unstable in the last three years and 56% feel average temperatures around the world have risen.

Almost half (49%) say the issue of global warming is "extremely important" or "very important" to them personally, up from 31% in 1998. When asked about the causes of rise in the world’s temperatures, 31% feel it is caused by the things people do, 19% feel it is due mostly to natural causes, and 49% feel it is a combination of the two. Almost seven-in-ten (68%) Americans think the government should do more to address global warming, according to the poll; however, 64% think scientists disagree with one another about global warming.

Two-thirds of Americans (66%) say President George W. Bush’s policies did little or nothing to help the environment in the past year. More than half (54%) feel American businesses did little or nothing to help. Three-quarters want to see Bush and others — Congress, American businesses and the American public — take action to help the environment in the year ahead. About one-third (35%) of Americans say that in the past year they have personally given a lot of thought to the impact they were having on the environment.

Six in ten Americans (62%) think much can be done to curb global warming and 52% favor government mandates. A majority (61%) say they would support a government mandate on lowering power plant emissions, and 87% support tax breaks to develop water, wind and solar power. But 81% oppose higher taxes on electricity, 68% oppose higher gasoline taxes and 56% oppose giving companies tax breaks to build nuclear power plants.

The partisan gap on global warming seems to be shifting, according to the poll. In 1998, 31% of Republicans and independents alike were sure that global warming was happening, compared with 39% among Democrats. Today, 46% of Democrats and 45% of independents are certain, but only 26% of Republicans feel that way, according to the poll.

The TIME/ABC News/Stanford University poll was conducted by telephone March 9-14, 2006 among a random national sample of 1,002 adults. The results have a three-point error margin.