There’s another more subtle message to politicians from the Gallop poll last week. The headline we discussed was that a whole quarter of the US are emphatic skeptics who don’t worry “at all” about climate change. But the other message is that if the politicans want to show they care about the environment, nearly every major environmental issue is more important to voters than “climate change”: 55% of the population worries about water pollution but only 32% feel the same level of concern for global warming.
On environmental concerns, climate change has the highest profile, but is consistently low ranking in the concern-stakes. People are much more worried about clean water, lakes and rivers, and air pollution rather than “climate change”. There is room here for either side of politics to step over the top of the supposedly greenest left wing parties and win voters by tackling real pollution rather than the fantasy kind. Any party that took serious action on rivers and water would earn environmental kudos and swinging votes. They wouldn’t win the die hard green vote, because those votes are not about the environment anyway. But true swingers shift between the major parties, and they are less into tribal politics and more into real outcomes. Their votes count. Wouldn’t it be something if the discussion at dinner parties was not about the “degree of green” as if it were a sliding scale from 1 – 100, but the type of green — practical, achieveable, or grandiose and grand-mal-expensive? The price of making a measurable difference to rivers and lakes is vanishingly small when compared to the cost of changing the global climate.
Most voters won’t change their vote for the environment ahead of the economy or jobs. But elections are won or lost on a few swinging percentage points. At the very least it could change the landscape of the environmental debate. There are pragmatic environmentalists, and there are fairies at the bottom of the garden. As long as all political parties run in the climate changin’ race, as if it were the only enviromental issue, the greens win. Time to change the race. Other finish lines are closer
14. I’m going to read you a list of environmental problems. As I read each one, please tell me if you personally worry about this problem a great deal, a fair amount, only a little, or not at all. First, how much do you personally worry about — [RANDOM ORDER]?
2015 Mar 5-8 (sorted by “a great deal”)
| Environmental Problem | Great deal | Fair amount | Only a little/ Not at all |
| Pollution of drinking water | 55 | 22 | 23 |
| Pollution of rivers, lakes, and reservoirs | 47 | 32 | 21 |
| Air pollution | 38 | 33 | 29 |
| Extinction of plant and animal species | 36 | 28 | 36 |
| The loss of tropical rain forests | 33 | 30 | 37 |
| Global warming / Global warming or Climate change | 32 | 23 | 45 |