Californians Seek Action on Air Quality, Global Warming

Conducted before July's record-breaking heat wave, the PPIC survey also revealed a marked increase in concern about climate change. Six years ago, in another PPIC survey that asked Californians to identify the state's single most important environmental issue, zero percent of respondents picked global warming. In the latest survey, released July 26, 8 percent chose it.

"Public opinion is finally starting to move on this topic," said PPIC survey director Mark Baldassare. Californians, he said, "are so concerned (with global warming) that two-thirds actually want the state to address this issue -- completely independent of the federal government."

In the liberal Bay Area, where Al Gore's film on climate change, "An Inconvenient Truth," can make white people talk back to the movie screen, a full 12 percent of PPIC respondents cited global warming as their top environmental concern.

Eight in 10 Californians called global warming "very serious" or "somewhat serious." Blacks and Latinos were more likely than whites and Asians to call global warming "a very serious threat to California's economy and quality of life."

Republicans, on the other hand, remain unclear on the concept -- only one in four called global warming "very serious."

Despite most Californians' new awareness of climate change, the top environmental concern for state residents across all regions and races remains the air they breathe. One in four Californians chose air pollution as their top environmental concern.

More
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=130b0d0a14d55a204c2f02cf163fcfa5