Record levels of industrial smog? A dwindling number of fish in the world’s oceans? A 4° Celsius warming in global temperatures by the end of the century?
How about environmental warning fatigue?
Global concern for major environmental issues is at an all time low, according to the results of a global poll of more than 22,000 people in 22 countries, released earlier this week.
“Scientists report that evidence of environmental damage is stronger than ever — but our data shows that economic crisis and a lack of political leadership mean that the public are starting to tune out,” said Doug Miller, the chairman of GlobeScan, the company that carried out the study.
While respondents clearly still had grave environmental concerns, fewer people were “very concerned” about various environmental issues than at any point in the last 20 years. The sharpest decrease in global concern occurred over the last two years.
The issue of climate change, which 49 percent of respondents rated last year as “very serious” was the only exception to the general trend. Pollsters found that there was less concern between 1998 and 2003 than today.
Shortages of fresh water and water pollution were the highest global concern, with 58 percent of the respondents marking it as “very serious.”
Respondents were asked to rate seven different environmental issues – from climate change to loss of biodiversity – as being either a “very serious problem,” “somewhat serious problem,” “not very serious problem” or “not a serious problem at all.”
The latest numbers were gathered last summer in telephone and face-to-face interviews with participants in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Poland, South Korea, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Join our sustainability conversation. Do you take the environmental issues more seriously now than in the past? Do you find yourself tuning out?
IHT Rendezvous: Environmental Warning Fatigue
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IHT Rendezvous: Environmental Warning Fatigue
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IHT Rendezvous: Environmental Warning Fatigue
