Aidan Macie, Jack Kamysz, Henry Chapman, Matt Stevenson
Procedure:
This survey was completed in order to better understand how Portland residents feel about the importance of climate change issues, and the. To do this, our group of four, the rest of our class, and another class period gathered 160 responses to one question: If you compare climate change to other issues today, how important is it to you personally on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being most important)? Along with this we asked participants why this was and what zip code they lived in to qualify the data. Data was gathered from both downtown Portland and from the periphery of the city. Our group, consisting of Jack Kamysz, Matt Stevenson, Henry Chapman, and Aidan Mackie, took data on Wednesday February 1, 2016, around 3:00 PM at the Fred Meyer’s on 7555 SW Barbur Blvd in Portland, OR, which is a periphery location. There are two exits for the store, and being a group of four we decided to split ourselves between them. Each person was equipped with the survey on their phone consisting of two questions.
Analysis of PDX survey results:
General mean:
Age:
Majority of the people the class surveyed were under the age of 30. This could be due to being in the urban setting of Portland with a large population. Surprisingly though, the largest group that was surveyed only came in second compared to how concerned they are when it comes to climate change. Instead of the younger population being most worried about climatic changes even though they have grown up having access to the best knowledge about climate change, the age group of 30-60 had the most concern with an average of over 8, while both under 30 and over 60 were below 8. Even though as surprising as it is, the age group of 30-60 have more concerns about the future possibly because of their children, a possible aspect that raises the concern of climate change in that age group.
Gender:
An aspect that is quite interesting when it comes to analyzing our data is the correlation of climate change concern and gender. Of all the survey data collected, male participants slightly outnumbered female participants. When it came to the levels of concerns between the genders, males came out as having the highest average of concern with a 7.7, compared to females 7.5, and a 6 for other/unsure (only one person was surveyed pertaining to this group). There can be some valid reasoning behind these scores because of the recent higher concerns of other issues among women. The feminist movement has gained plenty of steam since President Trump took office. Women’s rights issues may have higher priority at the moment compared to issues such as climate change to women because it is more of a direct impact on people’s lives. This could be an aspect of describing why there is a difference. Although there is a difference that exists, both men and women were similarly concerned with climate change with only a .2 difference in opinions
Race/ethnicity:
Not surprising at all, the majority of participants surveyed are white. In fact, 78.2% of the surveys conducted downtown and in the periphery were taken by the white community. With the Hispanic and Latino community coming in second with only 7.1%. Although being the largest surveyed, the white community was held the third highest average concern for climate change, with the Hispanic and Latino and Black communities having the highest concern at 8.8% each. This, although, is not that surprising as the white majority of America is below the international average of concern and belief in climate change. In fact, South America has the highest concern among the world, which includes majority Hispanics and Latinos.
Downtown/Periphery:
We also decided to take the data we have collected to find how many people who took the survey live in downtown Portland (PDX Downtown) and periphery of Portland (PDX Periphery). We decided to do this because of the different views and opinions that change depending where someone lives. We also did this because of the recent election, to find if the conservatives who live on the periphery of Portland have similar or different opinions than those who live downtown, generally being more liberal. The majority of people who were surveyed were from downtown, but surprisingly the average mean of importance of climate change was pretty much the same between the two groups, being the 7.6 average of downtown compared to 7.5 average of the periphery. This reveals that throughout Portland, most people share a similar concern with climate change.
Comparison to national/cross-national data:
Taking the data we have collected and all of the analysis of that data, we compared it to some U.S. large scale surveys to see if our data collected by the class lives up to the national average. The first study we compared our data to is one that compares the views on climate change with that of individual’s party affiliation, political ideology, and party by ideology. In the U.S. 50% of adults believe climate change is caused by human activity, 23% believe it is caused by natural patterns, and 25% believe there is no solid evidence. When it comes to Republicans versus Democrats, 27% of Republican voters believe change due to human activities, while 71% of Democrats believe humans do cause climate change. There is no conservative versus liberal graph in our data, but based on a graph that we were provided before collecting data, those living in the peripheral tended to be more conservative while those living downtown are more liberal. Our data though does not live up to the national average. In our data we found that those surveyed in the periphery cared just as much for the environment as those downtown, unlike the national survey where there is a sizeable gap between this two.
Conclusion:
Overall, we were surprised by what we concluded in the data that was gathered. All of us before expected a bigger concern in downtown than the periphery when it comes to climate change, but this was not the case. The results showed similar concerns between different social groups including age, race and gender as well as where people live. Since our group conducted the survey in the periphery, we were surprised to find that all of our participants placed climate change high upon their own list of concerns. It was generally exciting to hear from someone who finds climate change as a serious problem and was open to talk about how they saw it. “I am concerned over the quality of the air, water, and food that affect human health. I am personally concerned about more tick expansion to the northwest hiking areas. I know human activities have a significant impact on climate change. It is hard to change one’s habits” It adds hope to hear people really concerned about the condition of our world, especially something that is as seemingly small as ticks infiltrating Northwest hiking trails. Even though the concern is there, action is another thing, and not something easily taken on.