Features

Californians knew global warming was real even before temperatures soared past 110 degrees in many regions for days and killed at least 75 people statewide, according to a survey released by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC). 

Conducted before July’s record-breaking heat wave, the PPIC survey also revealed a marked increase in concern about climate change. Six years ago, in another PPIC survey that asked Californians to identify the state’s single most important environmental issue, zero percent of respondents picked global warming. In the latest survey, released July 26, 8 percent chose it. 

“Public opinion is finally starting to move on this topic,” said PPIC survey director Mark Baldassare. Californians, he said, “are so concerned (with global warming) that two-thirds actually want the state to address this issue—completely independent of the federal government.” 

In the liberal Bay Area, where Al Gore’s film on climate change, An Inconvenient Truth, can make white people talk back to the movie screen, a full 12 percent of PPIC respondents cited global warming as their top environmental concern. 

Eight in 10 Californians called global warming “very serious” or “somewhat serious.” Blacks and Latinos were more likely than whites and Asians to call global warming “a very serious threat to California’s economy and quality of life.” 

Republicans, on the other hand, remain unclear on the concept—only one in four called global warming “very serious.” 

Despite most Californians’ new awareness of climate change, the top environmental concern for state residents across all regions and races remains the air they breathe. One in four Californians chose air pollution as their top environmental concern.  

Most concerned about air quality were residents of Los Angeles and the rapidly growing Inland Empire and Central Valley. Thirty-one percent of Inland Empire residents named air pollution as their top issue, the highest of all regions surveyed. Riverside county is the fourth most polluted region in the world behind Jakarta, Calcutta and Bangkok.  

There were significant differences across racial and ethnic lines, however, in perceptions of how serious a health threat regional air pollution posed. Blacks (38 percent) and Latinos (31 percent) called air pollution “very serious” in their areas, while whites (18 percent) and Asians (13 percent) were less worried about breathing dirty air. 

“Environmental issues are often referred to as white, middle class issues,” Baldassare said. “That is no longer the case in our state.” 

The PPIC has watched the percentage of Californians reporting asthma as a condition afflicting themselves or a family member inch upward, from 37 percent in July 2003 to 41 percent today. The proportion reporting asthma as a problem was highest in the Central Valley (52 percent) and Inland Empire (50 percent). Children in the Central Valley suffer asthma rates higher than anywhere else in the state, according to the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. 

Who or what is to blame for all this bad air? Californians overall finger emissions from personal vehicles (26 percent). Broken down regionally, Central Valley respondents seemed unsure who the culprit was. More than any other area, Central Valley residents split the blame among personal vehicles (19 percent), commercial vehicles (14 percent), population growth and development (14 percent), industry and agriculture (16 percent) and pollution from outside the area (18 percent). 

When it comes to Californians’ favorite manifestation of power—horsepower, in the form of an internal combustion engine mounted on four wheels—residents want the government to pressure auto makers to make cleaner cars. Majorities of voters across political lines and regions surveyed by the PPIC supported tougher air pollution standards on vehicles. Even 56 percent of Republicans were willing to see tougher standards on new cars, trucks and SUVs—and even if it drove up the purchase price. Whites (83 percent) and blacks (70 percent) were most likely to support such policies; smaller majorities of Latinos (63 percent) and Asians (62 percent) agreed. 

California’s Republicans may support curbing auto pollution, but they also want more oil. Seven in 10 Republicans surveyed said they support more drilling off the California coast, oil-soaked birds and otters be damned. But a majority of Californians (56 percent) still opposes drilling, a percentage that Baldassare says hasn’t budged in the past few years, even with skyrocketing fuel costs. 

Those higher gas prices affect different races disproportionately, the survey found. Whites (47 percent) were significantly less likely to report cutting back on their driving, compared to blacks (64 percent), Asians (63 percent) and Latinos (62 percent), who felt pinched at the pump. 

A full 81 percent of Californians favor more government spending to find alternative sources of fuel for automobiles, with little difference between Democrats (87 percent), Republicans (82 percent) and Independents (85 percent). Solar and wind power are popular with Californians, though a slight majority (52 percent) still says no to new nuclear power plants. Not so for Republicans, who support more nuclear plants (58 percent). 

A large majority of respondents said they’ll take their concerns about the environment into the voting booth. Eight-five percent said candidates’ positions on air pollution, global warming and energy policy will be somewhat or very important in determining their vote in this November’s gubernatorial election. 

The PPIC’s findings are based on a telephone survey of 2,501 California adult residents conducted from July 5 to July 18. Interviews were conducted in English, Spanish, Korean, Vietnamese and Chinese (Mandarin or Cantonese). 

The PPIC is a private, nonprofit public policy research organization based in San Francisco. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation funded the poll, whose sampling error is plus or minus 2 percent.