Americans remain pessimistic about the environment, Stanford-AP su...(crats-31 percent versus 19 percent'' Kro...)

Conclusions

Krosnick and his colleagues provided the following summary of this year's environmental report card:

• As in 2006, a majority of Americans is pessimistic about the health of the environment, believing that it will get worse or is already in poor shape and will not improve.

• A large majority of Americans still wants to see substantially greater effort to help the environment, but this majority has decreased slightly since 2006, especially among Republicans.

• Blame for poor and declining environmental conditions is frequently placed on American businesses and to a lesser degree on President Bush's policies.

• A large majority of Americans is at least somewhat certain that global warming has been happening and will have at least somewhat serious consequences. These individuals are particularly likely to be pessimistic about the future of the environment.

• Democrats are more pessimistic about the environment and more supportive of remedial efforts than are Republicans, but even majorities of Republicans expressed negative views during the past year.

The 2007 survey was conducted by Krosnick and Trevor Tompson of the Associated Press, with support from the Woods Institute. The questionnaire used in the survey was designed by Krosnick and Gary Langer of ABC News. The report was written by Krosnick and Stanford doctoral student Brent Bannon in collaboration with Matthew DeBell, academic research and program director of the Institute for Research in the Social Sciences at Stanford.

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