By: Kat Chester, Paige Barta, Molly Sheridan and Leela Hornbach
Introduction:
The public opinion of climate change is a topic of rising contention. Our group was tasked with modeling a dialogic form of environmental communication in greater Portland and downtown. As discussed in Mike Hulme’s book, Why We Disagree About Climate Change, there is a lot up for debate and opinions can vary on how important climate change is relative to other world challenges. Contemporary dialogue has been seen as the most progressive way to relay scientific information to the public, but what does the public actually think?
In this survey we explore what Portland’s public opinion on climate change is and why. In light of the recent presidential election, increasing glacial melts internationally and turbulent snowfall locally, we must consider this an opportune time to examine public perception of climate.
Procedure:
Our group chose to survey the periphery of Portland, specifically the Beaverton area. We boarded the Max downtown at Pioneer square and headed West on the red line to Beaverton. At the Beaverton Transit Center we walked to a strip mall. This is where we were able to begin surveying. We approached randomly selected individuals to ask them a series of questions.
“If you compare climate change to other issues today, how important is it to you personally? On a 1 to 10 scale, 1 being low and 10 being high”.
“What are your other thoughts on climate change?”
“What is your home ZIP code?”
One group member interviewed while another took notes. Once the interview was done, we thanked the survey-taker and recorded their perceived race, age and gender. We also recorded our own observations of the interview. Later we used our cell phones to submit the survey to a Google form.
Analysis of Our Survey Data:
Demographics of Sample Group
We collected data from Beaverton, while other groups collected data in downtown Portland and the surrounding periphery. In total, 131 individuals were interviewed. 70% of the sample group was interviewed in downtown Portland and 30% of the sample group was interviewed on the periphery of PDX. 46% of the sample group were observed as female, 52% of the sample group were observed as male, while ≤1% were recorded as unsure.
The figure on the right displays the race/ethnicity distributions of the sample group. Unfortunately, there was little diversity in race/ethnicity so we could not comfortably state any trends in public opinion accordingly. The figure on the left displays the observed age distribution of the sample group sorted by those under 30, those 30 to 60 and everyone over 60.
Data Analysis
Each interviewee was asked; “If you compare climate change to other issues today, how important is it to you personally?” Their responses on a scale of 1 to 10 were recorded and made into a percent according to how many people choose each rating. The most popular response was a 10, with 26% of the sample group replying as such. As a general overview, Portland considers climate change to be important, as over 70% of the sample group interviewed rated their opinion as 7 out of 10 or above.
When comparing the responses given by subjects in downtown Portland with responses from the periphery of Portland, we found the percentages of each response in both places. We did this because there was such an uneven amount of subjects interviewed in downtown Portland (92 vs. 49). It would have skewed the visual representation of what was found, which was that subjects downtown commonly responded with a higher rating than those on the periphery.
An age distribution of answers was created according to amount of people per rating choice (1-10), not percentage. What was found was that individuals observed to be under 30 years old were the most likely to respond with a rating 7 or above.
The figure above displays the distribution of male and female responses to climate change according to number of response. Although little difference was found, men gave far more 10s than women did.
Average Opinion Rating
An average rating was found for each category and displayed in the figure above. The first category labeled PDX represents the average response for the entire study, which was 7.6. Downtown Portland’s response average was a 7.8, which was higher than the overall average and the periphery responses were lower than average. The male and female opinion ratings were both 7.6 which is the same as the overall average, meaning that in Portland, neither gender cares more about Climate Change than the other. Those interviewed under 30 years old had an opinion rating of 7.8, higher than the average. Those interviewed that were between 30 and 60 years old had an opinion rating of 7.2, which was the lowest average with PDX periphery. Those interviewed over 60 years old had the highest opinion rating of 8.2.
Discussion:
National Comparison
Upon analyzing other surveys both nationally and across the world, we have found that Portland varies from data collected in larger samples. A General Social Survey on climate change conducted in 2010 in the United States revealed that worry centered around climate change and global warming is relatively low with the most popular response being “somewhat dangerous” when participants were asked to rank the danger posed by the phenomenon. Other national surveys provided similar results, with the concern for climate change remaining on average relatively neutral. As we initially expected, Portland showed more general concern than the rest of the country.
International Comparison
Whilst analyzing trends of concern using the Pew Research Center’s worldwide study, we found that within the samples, numbers of those who denied climate change altogether were relatively low. This is true for every country analyzed in the study. The Portland sample produced varying levels of concern for climate change, though we did not encounter any people who claimed that climate change in its entirety did not exist at all.
Given that the population we sampled was far smaller and less diverse than other nations, we concluded that our sample was not representative of an evenly distributed population. We initially predicted that our own results would differ from both national and international data, given that Portland is a very green-minded and liberal area. Had we sampled a larger population of Portland, it is likely that our results would settle more within the median as the world and U.S. data did. Compared to many areas of the country and even the world, the population of Portland expresses more concern for and knowledge of climate change and its repercussions. Many interviewees appeared to share similar mindsets and ideologies. We received comments revealing a greater general knowledge than national and international surveys revealed, varying from “disappointment in our (US) participation in Paris” to “I hope the EPA doesn’t back down in the face of new administration”. Again, our sample cannot be considered an accurate representation of even the entire city of Portland as our sampled population lacked the diversity and size that it would need to represent Portland as a whole.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, Portland’s attitude toward climate change is higher in comparison to the national average in relation to other current issues. We were surprised that the national and international concern for climate change was so low. Our initial prediction was that Portland, having a very liberal mindset would align with a very environmentally conscious standpoint towards climate change. Overall, there will always be a wide range of opinions on climate change. Portland however, was consistent with it’s stereotype as being conscience towards global issues. The difference we found between the periphery of Portland and downtown Portland was only a was not a large enough margin to definitively say that there is a large difference between the two areas. Moreover, when the zip codes collected were entered into a map there was not consistency. Individuals who ranked themselves a 1 lived near those who ranked themselves a 10. Here in Portland, we live in a bubble of relatively educated and like-minded people. It is human tendency to surround ourselves with people we are ideologically compatible with. This experiment broadened our understanding of the diversity that exists in reference to climate change.
Citations:
Hulme, Mike. 2009. Why We Disagree About Climate Change. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.