This year's Gallup Environmental Earth Day poll finds Americans worry less about environmental issues than they did before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. "The same can be said for crime, drugs, energy, race relations, and poverty," wrote Gallup Scholar for the Environment Riley Dunlap, in an analysis of the poll released Monday.
The poll was conducted March 8 through 11 using a randomly selected national sample of 1,008 adults, aged 18 and older.
Sixty-two percent of those surveyed say they worry "a great deal" or a "fair amount" about the quality of the environment; down from 77 percent in March 2001. Most of this drop – 11 out of 15 points – happened between March 2001 and March 2002, in the months before and after the terrorist strikes.
After a small increase in 2003, the measure of worry dropped another six points over the past year.
Still, Dunlap writes, "the 2004 poll suggests that Bush's environmental image has suffered somewhat, particularly over the past two years." The data show a continued decline in the percentage of Americans saying that President Bush is doing a good job of "protecting the nation's environment."
As a result, for the first time, slightly more Americans (46%) say the president is doing a "poor job" than a "good job" (41%) on environmental protection.
This represents a 10 percentage point decline in the President's positive rating and an eight point rise in his negative rating on environmental protection since March 2001, shortly after he took office.
When the question was first asked in 2001, respondents were asked to predict what kind of job Bush would do.
The President has lost an even greater percentage of support over his handling of energy issues, according to the Gallup survey. Over the past three years, from March 2001 to March 2004, the percentage saying the president is doing a good job of "improving the nation's energy policy" has declined from 58 percent to 34 percent. Next to this 24 percent decline, the 10 decline in support of Bush's environmental protection policies seems small.
A majority (53%) continues to believe that environmental protection policies policies under the Bush administration are about the same as in prior administrations.
In February, the Union of Concerned Scientists coordinated the release of a statement signed by 60 eminent scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, declaring, "The current Bush administration has suppressed or distorted the scientific analyses of federal agencies to bring these results in line with administration policy."
The Gallup poll found two-thirds of those polled say they have heard either nothing at all (26%) or not much (40%) about the scientists' charges. But when asked whom they tend to believe in the matter, a majority (59%) say they believe the scientists, while 32% say they believe the Bush administration.
Dunlap has a warning for environmentalists and Democrats who think they will make President Bush's environmental record a reason to vote for Massachusetts Senator John Kerry and his pro-environmental record. "Environmentalists should know they are swimming upstream. Historically, the environment has been a relatively minor issue in presidential elections," Dunlap says.
A Zogby poll released Monday also shows that voters do not place the environment high on their list of election day concerns. Of 1,035 likely voters surveyed April 1 through 4, nearly one in three (32%) identified jobs and the economy as top issues facing the country, following by the war on terrorism (18%), the war in Iraq (14%), health care (7%) and education (5%).
In a Zogby poll last November, the latest in which the environment was surveyed, Bush rated 34% positive and 60% negative in his job performance on environmental issues.
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