Pew Findings

More on the recently released Pew Global Attitudes Projects to come in future posts, but there were some interesting finding's on global warming buried in the reports second half. Eighty-eight percent of Chinese and 85 percent of Indian respondents agreed to the proposition of paying higher prices to address climate change, the highest levels of any of the countries surveyed. Similarly, 84 percent of Indians and 82 percent of Chinese said that protecting the environment was worth slower growth and higher unemployment, figures which were once again the highest of any of the more than 30 countries surveyed. 

This all strikes me as at least a bit unexpected, because the two nations' reliance on fossil fuels to drive their economies is often painted as the principal obstacle to an effective global effort to combat climate change. You could argue that it is precisely because neither nation has done a lot to address the environmental harm of its recent growth that they are both so pro-environment. That is, essentially they are dealing in the abstract; whereas US respondents answer with the uncertaint impact of the recently passed cap-and-trade bill running through their mind, Chinese and Indians are basically being asked to offer a thumbs up or down on the environment, in which case it's a lot easier to go thumbs up. But another odd finding would seem to a contradict that, at least as a blanket explanation: the nations diverge sharply on whether or not global warming is a serious problem: 30 percent of Chinese say it is, the lowest number on the poll. For India, 67 percent say that it is a serious problem, the fifth-highest score. 

At this point, I throw my hands up and marvel at Brazil, where 90 percent of the population says that global warming is a serious problem, more than 20 points higher than the second-place finisher (Argentina). Did Lula just finish a big climate change public information campaign or something?