Summary:
Our team of Jaime Monsher, Olivia Zelleweger, Raya Deussen and Tash Hood rallied round to travel to Hillsboro to complete a survey of the general public on the topic of climate change. This data was compiled with other data, collected in a similar manner, by our classmates in ENVS-160. The goal behind this project was to shed light on the general opinion of climate change and to see if there are discrepancies in how the public would rate the severity of climate change compared to other issues of the day. This fieldwork was based on our current class reading: Why We Disagree About Climate Change by Mike Hulme. We used primary data collected in Portland (OR) and surrounding areas and secondary data from online sources to compare with global/cross-national views.
Method:
Having been given the option to choose between conducting our fieldwork in downtown Portland versus the periphery, we selected Hillsboro. Hillsboro is the fifth largest city in Oregon and is located on the west side of the Portland metropolitan area. We selected Hillsboro as we were keen to expand our research into an area where we felt we would find more varying opinions and more conservative views.
There is a general belief in our ENVS-160 class that downtown Portland is well-known for being concerned about climate change, with the city itself making news nationally and globally (see this link) for demonstrations and direct action linked with the environment.
Results:
Age Response Mean
Under 30 | 7.7 |
30-60 | 7.1 |
Over 60 | 8.3 |
Race Response Mean
Asian | 7.4 |
Black | 7.9 |
Hispanic/Latina(o) | 8.0 |
Native American | 0 |
White | 7.6 |
Other/mix/unsure | 6.3 |
Location Response Mean
PDX downtown | 7.7 |
PDX periphery | 7.4 |
Gender Response Mean
Male | 7.5 |
Female | 7.5 |
Other/unsure | 6.0 |
We conducted the survey on 6 people in total, asking both men and women in a range of 20→ 60+. Of the 6 people we surveyed those that voted below 5 generally mentioned a lack of education on the issue and highlighted a need for more information directed at the public. One respondent was very adamant that there needed to be information which was directed at the “layman.” It is suggestive that many people feel swamped by scientific information and figures which cannot be converted on a personal scale. It was mentioned that it is hard to care about climate change when the effects are not apparent on a personal daily basis, therefore people did not rate climate change as being the most important issue of the day.
Having compiled our results as a collective with the rest of the ENVS-160 class we created the bar graph above to visually demonstrate the range of opinions and to easily identify the modal and mean score. With the majority of our data being collected from downtown Portland perhaps it is somewhat not surprising that our liberal haven of Portland replied with climate change being more important than a lot of other issues today. However, as Mike Hulme addresses in his book Why We Disagree About Climate Change, cultural, social, political and ideological factors all shape our belief systems about climate change differently. This is demonstrated in the range of responses with some respondents placing climate change as low as 1 or 2 on the scale.
Limitations:
While we don’t distrust our fellow Portlandia residents there is no way of knowing if respondents are being 100 percent truthful with their answers. Furthermore being confronted by Environmental Studies students might have thrown some respondents off hand slightly and either consciously or unconsciously they could have altered their answers in light of that information. It is also important to recognize that the survey question concerning the scale is very subjective and can be influenced by a variety of factors. Therefore some respondents may have been unsure of a basis for comparison when answering.
London:
As we had an international student (Tash) in our group, we decided to put our Brit abroad to use and had her collect some data from her native London. Using the same survey on Google Docs. Tash sent this survey to friends, acquaintances and family via social media to retrieve some data. The results showed that there were a huge range of opinions with some placing climate change at 1 on the scale, while others placed it at 8. It should perhaps be remarked though that 8 was the highest number recorded, whereas from our results in Portland we can see that over 35 people asked marked climate change at 10 on the scale, with climate change being the most important issue. This could be down to the fact that those in London were more honest in their surveys as there was an element of detachment and anonymity because all questionnaires were completed online, without the presence of an Environmental Studies student (therefore less pressure to appease them and no judgement rendered!)
Here is a small collection of some of the comments collected:
Comparison to Cross-National and National Survey Data:
After our own analysis, we compared our class results to a collective study (taken in the Spring of 2015) that focused on International responses to climate change. The international survey asked individuals to indicate the degree of concern they had for the “problem” of global climate change, and gave four categories to choose from; Climate change as a very serious problem, a somewhat serious problem, not too serious of a problem, or not a problem at all. We chose to use the results from “underdeveloped,” or typically less economically developed countries, such as Burkina Faso, Senegal and Uganda. It was interesting to observe the distribution of responses in comparison to our personal results.
There was a clear upward trend in number of individuals per (increasing) concern for the state of climate change in all examined international cases, as presented in our data as well. In the less developed countries there was a significant difference between the number of individuals who thought of climate change as a very serious concern versus the total number of individuals who thought of it as anything less. In our class’ data, a much more subtle trend was indicated. This is one of the most notable differences observed between the two surveys mentioned.
This dissimilarity can be accounted to several factors. In countries with less economic development than the area in and around Portland, individuals may be more affected by the effects of climate change, and thus are more aware of the “problem” it poses. To reference Why We Disagree About Climate Change, there are a multitude of reasons why, as a nation, and globally, humans do not share the same views of the changes to our climate and the current state of the global environment. It is possible that the people who live in underdeveloped countries are simply more aware of the seriousness of the situation based on rhetoric, media or expression of possible risk.
Conclusion:
From our cross-referencing of data with evidence from the Pew Research 2015 survey question: In your view, is global climate change a very serious problem, somewhat serious, not too serious or not a problem? it is clear to see that our results conducted in Portland and the surrounding areas showed that our area was much more concerned about the issue of climate change than America as a whole. This is not surprising for us as we established this a belief before undertaking the survey. Indeed this was a general consensus amongst the whole class.
This assignment struck a chord with us over how and why people differ over climate change. It is hard to imagine sometimes why people might disregrd climate change yet having the opportunity to hear and read members of the public’s comments and grievances we can see how differing ideological, social, political and economic forces come into play when shaping our opinions about climate change. We hope to be able to use this information as we conduct further research in the future and in our future studies in this discipline.