CHAPTER 4 WHAT DOES THE PUBLIC WRONGLY BELIEVE ABOUT ENVIRONMENT, RESOURCES, AND POPULATION? Let's lay the factual groundwork for what the public wrongly believes about environment, resources, and population, which are some of the main subjects of false bad news as well as my own particular interest. Late in the 1980s, disposable diapers became a cause celebre. At least for a time, Americans considered disposable diapers as "the single most important cause of our solid waste problem."<1> Government agencies have used the estimate that disposable diapers account for 12 percent of total trash. A poll of attendees at a National Audubon Society meeting produced an average estimate that diapers account for 25 to 45 percent of the volume of landfills. And a Roper poll found that 41 percent of Americans cited disposable diapers as a major cause of waste disposal problems"<2> . That's what the public (and a government agency) think is true. Yet according to the best available estimate, the diapers constitute "no more than one percent by weight of the average landfill's total solid-waste contents...and an average of no more than 1.4 percent of the contents by volume."<3> The public also misunderstands the extent of the waste from fast-food packaging. The Audubon Society meeting poll found an average estimate of 20 to 30 percent of landfills; the actual volume is "no more than one-third of 1 percent." <4> In school, 46 percent of children 6-17 said they had heard about the importance of "solid waste" disposal (36 percent recycling, 15 percent litter, 6 percent garbage/landfills) in school in the 1991-1992 school year.<5> (One wonders what the comparable numbers would be for the importance of honesty, hard work, and the free enterprise system.) The propaganda to the children is effective. A "national survey of children ages 5 through 8 asked these questions: `What would you do to make your city a better place?' and `...America a better place?' A majority of the kids...answered `Clean up'". This finding is significant for what the children do not say. There is no mention of "Build schools and parks" or "Go to the moon" or "Help those who are less well-off". Nor is this childish thinking confined to children. An attorney for the Environmental Protection Agency complained to the newspaper that the Post Office's new self-sticking stamps were "long-term environmental mistakes" because "As everyone knows, there is a solid waste problem in the country", and stamps with plastic "strike me as an incredibly irresponsible use of our limited petroleum resources." <6> The more relevant limited resource is newspaper space, and the editor choosing to print this letter rather than the hundreds of other contenders on serious subjects strikes me as "irresponsible". Where do people get their ideas about the value of those items in dumps? How many people have actually gone out to a dump and looked at its contents? How many have even take a careful look at the contents of what they and others put out for disposal? (I'd bet that those who pay by the can or the pound instead of a flat rate have a better idea.) These wrong ideas must come from the press and television. My introduction to the diaper "problem" came on a Martin Luther King Day in 1988. Someone from Cable News Network called me in a terrific snit. Because of the holiday she couldn't find anyone to comment on what she said was a scary new pollution report: Disposable diapers using up so much landfill that we would soon run out of farmland. She wanted me to comment for CNN news. Telling her that the scare was ridiculous didn't even slow her down. She insisted on getting a doomsday story, if not from me than from someone else. And energy as a "problem". Figure 4-1 shows that the percentage of the public that said energy is the "most important problem facing the nation" jumped from 3 percent in September, 1973, to 34 percent in January 1974, and then quickly fell back down to 4 percent. Then it went sharply up and then down again in 1977, and then up once more in the summer of 1979, following the price rise by OPEC, and then down once more.<7> Fully 82 percent in 1979 said that "the energy situation in the United States" is "very serious" or "fairly serious,"<8> but another series of polls also showed that public concern quickly dropped in the 1980s. (See figure 4-1). These swift changes in the public's thinking illustrate the volatility of concern about energy and oil. And since the public has no first-hand experience of energy supply other than changes in gasoline prices (which show no increased scarcity in the long run), these poll results also suggest that the public's concern derives from how the press and television describe the situation. Fig 4-1[-a Data from Cambridge Reports polls, 83-89 and Lunch and Rothman] And it's not just diapers, packaging, and energy. People are frightened about the entire range of environment-resources- population issues . According to a CBS News Survey before Earth Day, 1990, "The American public has an almost doomsday feeling about the national seriousness of environmental problems." <9> Across the board, the public, the environmental organizations, and the press say that pollution in the U.S. and the world is not just bad, but getting worse. Public statements on the matter emanate from prominent scientists, politicians of every stripe, and religious leaders of every denomination. For Earth Day in 1994, the National Council of Churches and something called the National Religious Partnership for the Environment distributed tens of thousands of "Environmental Awareness Kits" to churches and synagogues. For Protestant churches the following was part of the recommended program<10>: Minister: We use more than our share of the Earth's resources. We are responsible for massive pollution of earth, water and sky... We thoughtlessly drop garbage around our homes, schools, churches, places of work, and places of play... We squander resources on technologies of destruction. Bombs come before bread. Congregation: We are killing the earth... We are killing the waters... We are killing the skies. Notice that there was nary a word in that declaration about the creating and building that we do - and which obviously is larger than the destruction, because our world becomes healthier, safer and wealthier with every passing decade. You want amity and agreement among the religions? You've got it here. Protestants (including Evangelicals), Catholics, and Jews (Reform and Conservative) joined in the NCC campaign. In 1991, even the nation's Roman Catholic Bishops "acknowledged that overpopulation drains world resources". They asked Catholics "to examine our lifestyles, behaviors and policies, to see how we contribute to the destruction or neglect of the environment." The Pope issued a 1988 encyclical "In Sollicitude Rei Socialisis" and a 1990 New Year's message on this theme of environmental "crisis" and "plundering of natural resources," and "the reality of an innumerable multitude of people." (The Pope apparently has "gotten religion" since then and turned around on the issue.) The environmentalist ideal has suffused the Jewish community, too. In Washington<11> there was held a "Consultation on the Environment and Jewish Life," intended as "a Jewish communal response to the world environmental crisis." The signers of the invitation included just about every big gun in the organized Jewish community. The invitation letter said: "We appreciate the many important issues on the Jewish communal agenda. But the threat of ecological catastrophe is so frightening and universal that we believe we must mobilize our community's considerable intellectual and organizational resources as soon as possible." Just about all of these assertions of rising pollution are nonsense (see the Introduction, or Simon [1994 and 1995]). But they are dangerous nonsense. Not only is the public frightened, but the public concern is increasing, as several types of public opinion polls confirm: 1. People's answers to poll questions about whether things have been getting better or worse during (say) the past twenty years show that many more people believe that there has been deterioration than believe that there has been improvement. a) With respect to risk, as of 1980, when asked "Would you say that people are subject to more risk today than they were 20 years ago, less risk today, or about the same about of risk today as 20 years ago", 76 percent of the public said "More risk" and only 6 percent said "Less risk" (Harris, 1980, p. 9). b) Concerning environmental conditions, see Figure 4-2. Figure 4-2 [ultres 14-2] c) A 1988 survey found that "eight in ten Americans (81%) were convinced that `the environment today is less healthful than the environment in which my parents lived.'" <12> d) In 1990, 64 percent said that pollution had increased in the past 10 years, while 13 percent said it decreased. <13> e) Another 1990 poll found that when asked: "Compared to twenty years ago, do you think the air you breathe is cleaner today, or more polluted...?" 6 percent said "cleaner", and 75 percent said "more polluted". With respect to the "water in the lakes, rivers, and streams", 8 percent said "cleaner" and 80 percent said "more polluted". (These polls were taken in the midst of the Earth Day publicity, however.)<14> f) In 1991, 66 percent of Americans responded "Worse" to "Overall, do you feel the environment has gotten better, gotten worse, or stayed the same over the past 20 years?", and only 20 percent said "better."<15> 2) The trends in proportions of people expressing worry about pollution problems show large increases over recent years. a) In Harris polls i) the proportion who said that air pollution by vehicles was "very serious" rose from 33 percent in 1982 to 59 percent in 1990; ii) the proportion who said that "Air pollution from acid rain, caused by sulfur dioxide emissions from power plants" was "very serious" rose from 42 percent in 1986 to 64 percent in 1990; iii) there was an increase from 30 percent in 1986 to 49 percent in 1990 saying "very serious" for "Air pollution by coal-burning electric power plants." <16> b) However, a 1991 Roper poll found that people thought that the environment would be cleaner five years hence than at the poll date, unlike a similar comparison in 1980. And people's assessment of the environment "at the present time" was less positive in 1991 than in 1980.<17> c) Also see figure 4-3. Figure 4-3 [ultres 14-3(Lunch and Rothman?) 3) People expect worsening. a) In 1990, 44 percent said they "expect pollution to increase", and 33 percent expected decrease.<18> b) When asked "Looking ahead to 20 years from now, do you think the risks to society stemming from various scientific and technological advancements will be somewhat greater, somewhat less, or about the same as they are today?", 55 percent of the public said "somewhat greater" and 18 percent said "somewhat less" (Harris, 1980, p. 11). 4) A survey of high school students found that "The only interviewees who didn't share the perspective...that the environment is going to be destroyed completely...were the worst educated of the inner-city youth."<19> This finding is similar to the polls on energy mentioned earlier. (Does education on the environment help or hinder sound understanding?) One might wonder whether less-well-educated persons are less responsive to environmental issues simply because they know less. But surveys that ask whether "pollution increased in the past 10 years," or "decreased," or "stayed about the same" show that answers are not related to amount of education. (The only striking difference is that females were more likely than males to say "increased" and less likely to say "decreased" - 72 versus 56 percent and 8 versus 19 percent, respectively. There also was a slight gradient downward in "increased with older groups." <20> Education in large quantities would seem to increase one's propensity to rely on such abstractions. A Sunday kid's page article purveys such bits of "obvious wisdom" as "It takes more than 500,000 trees to make the newspapers that Americans read on Sunday...we're running out of places to put it...there aren't very many new places to put [landfills]."<21> The children are not told that trees are grown, and forests are created, in order to make newspaper. Even grammar-school texts and children's books fill young minds with unsupported assertions that humankind is a destroyer rather than a creator of the environment. It is not surprising that the consensus view of an informal Fortune survey of high- schoolers on this "issue on which almost everyone agreed" was: "If we continue at the pace we're going at now, the environment is going to be destroyed completely."<22> A 1992 poll found that 47 percent of a sample of 6-17 year olds said that "Environment" is among the "biggest problems in our country these days"; 12 percent mentioned "Economy" as a far-distant runner-up. Compare the almost opposite results for their parents: 13 percent "Environment" versus 56 percent "Economy." <23> A surprise to me is that the aged are even more convinced than the general public - 86 percent to 78 percent - that "people are subject to more risk today than they were 20 years ago". I would have thought that over their long lives, people aged 65 and over would have learned how much safer life is as measured by rates of mortality and injury. Only 2 percent answered "less" to the above question, whereas the rate in the public as a whole was 6 percent. (Harris, 1980, p. 9). Data that show the interplay of media attention to pollution stories and the public's expressed concern are found in figure 4- 5; pollution was no worse in 1970 than in 1965, but the proportion of the population that named it one of the three most important governmental problems rose from 17 percent in 1965 to 53 percent in 1970 (and fell thereafter), marking the media attention to the 1970 Earth Day. <24> Erskine, a long-time student of public opinion, labeled this "a miracle of public opinion", referring to the "unprecedented speed and urgency with which ecological issues have burst into American consciousness." <25> Consider this question and the answers to it over just five years: Compared to other parts of the country, how serious, in your opinion, do you think the problem of air/water pollution is in this area - very serious, somewhat serious, or not very serious?<26> Very Serious or Somewhat Serious Air Water 1965 28% 35% 1966 48% 49% 1967 53% 52% 1968 55% 58% 1970 69% 74% These data show the speed with which public opinion can change - or really, be changed, because here there is no possibility that the actual conditions changed radically (and indeed, if they changed, if was for the better, as we shall see). Fig 4-5 [Elsom p. 7] And with respect to energy, we see the power of momentary events reported in the media to affect public opinion. Interviews taken in the period December, 1979 to March, 1980 showed 23 percent of corporate executives and 11 percent of Congress (no data on the public as a whole were available in the survey) saying that the "Energy crisis" was the "greatest risk facing society today" (Harris, 1980, p. 8). That worry clearly did not last very long. A very strange poll result emerged from a November, 1993, poll conducted by the Los Angeles Times<27>. Various groups of elites, and the general public, were asked, "I'm going to read you a list of dangers in the world and after I finish, tell me which one of them you think is most dangerous to world stability". Eighteen percent of the public responded "environmental pollution" and 10 percent "population growth". But of the "science and engineering" members of the National Academy of Sciences, only 1 percent said "environmental pollution" - but an extraordinary 51 percent said "population growth". (The latter is not a typographical error; the percentages do not add to 100.) The only explanation I can guess at is that many of those NAS members are biologists, whose attitudes toward population growth have long tended to be very negative. (In passing, notice how population growth is simply assumed in the poll to be a danger, which biases the results, of course.) ENDNOTES **ENDNOTES** <1>: Wall Street Journal, article by Anne Nichols and Michael Allen, date missing. <2>: Rathje and Murphy, 1992, p. 162; 1993, p. 105. <3>: Rathje and Murphy, 1992, p. 162; 1993, p. 105. <4>: Rathje and Murphy, pp. 114-115. <5>: Environmental Research Associates, The Environmental Report: The Power of Children, reported in Public Opinion, U.S. Council for Energy Awareness, Nov, 1992. <6>: David A. Hindin, Nov 25, 1989, A22. <7>: Advertising Age, September 24, 1979, p. 48. <8>: Champaign-Urbana News Gazette, October 16, 1977, p. 2-A. <9>: 4/16/90. <10>:Quoted from Robert A. Sirico, "The False Gods of Earth Day", The Wall Street Journal, April 22, 1995, editorial page. <11>: March 9 and 10, 1992. <12>: Shapiro, 1991. <13>: MG/AP poll 31, May 11-20, 1990? <14>: NYTimes/CBS, March 30-April 2, 1990. <15>: Wall Steet Journal, Aug 2, 1991, A1. For more data, see Dunlap, 1991. <16>: The Harris Poll, April 1, 1990. <17>: Roper Reports 92-1, p. 25. <18>: MG/AP poll 31, May 11-20, 1990? <19>: Fortune, Mar 26, 1990, p. 226. <20>: MG/AP poll 31, May 11-20, 1990? <21>: O'Neill, 1991. <22>: Sherman, 1990, p. 226. <23>: Environmental Research Associates, The Environmental Report: The Power of Children, reported in Public Opinion, U.S. Council for Energy Awareness, Nov, 1992. <24>: Bloomgarden, 1983, p. 48. <25>: 1972, quoted by Dunlap and Scarce, 1991, 651. <26>: Opinion Research Corporation, quoted by Wattenberg, 1974, p. 226. <27>: Los Angeles Times, November 2, 1993, C1 ff. page 1 /mediabk pubopn4m/July 13, 1995