YOUPOST 2

Stereotype: Americans are not environmentally friendly 

The stereotypical picture of America includes high polluting SUVs and plastic-packed XXL (fast) food everywhere. In the country where everything is possible, climate change is too. Do Americans really not care about global warming or are people just making up negative facts about the great US? Let’s take a look.

The National Geographic Society¹  (one of the largest non-profit institutions in the world) yearly releases a survey defining the Greendex² of a country to be able to compare the world’s countries environmental behavior. For this survey 17,000 consumer in 17 countries where asked about their housing, energy usage, consumption of goods, transportation and food choices (organic vs. conventional). Over the years America manages somehow to be ranked lowest.  From 2010 to 2012 Germany, China and Spain have increased their environmental actions/behavior the most whereas Brazil and India (former winner) have decreased largely. Americans and Canadians share the bottom of this ranking, remaining stable.  After studying this Greendex I can conclude that half of the Americans would describe themselves as green. Not even a fourth would say that he/she is concerned about environmental problems and their impact on health or life. However, 6% of Americans actually do feel guilty about their impact on the environment, which basically states that the stereotype is true (referring to this survey).  

Americans care more and more, but still not enough

You can't care about everything.
Financial inability or problems also keep you from being environmentally friendly next to rules and regulations (Americans can't buy the same cars as Europeans).

In general, Americans do a better job in recycling and buying organic food than they did in the past. The real problem is just the attitude towards global warming. There are constantly warnings and studies as well as predictions of scientists, which have failed before such as the prediction of the world-ending in 2012. People have heard it all before. Just saying something might happen if behavior continues like right now doesn’t impress anyone. I found a nice comparison to further explain this³: if there was a group of researchers who built a computer model that is able to tell you what you will be thinking in 24h, would you believe it? Probably not because there hasn’t been anything similar to this before. Same with climate changes. Although climate changes are natural like history proves (ice-age) we are not able to forecast them because we simply don’t understand them. Americans also argue that temperature never remains constant, not throughout the day, the year or decade. I bet you have caught yourself thinking or saying that this time last year was much warmer than right now. If not, just listen to elderly people talking about the weather. 
Weather forecast and climate change forecast - Americans listen to it but don’t trust the opinions on it, hence their behavior. 

How environmentally friendly is your behavior-calculate you personal Greendex:
http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/greendex/calculator/

¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Geographic_Society

² http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/greendex/#close-modal

³ http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/05/why-america-does-not-care-about-global-warming/

sources:
http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-content/file/NGS_2012_Final_Global_report_Jul20-cb1343059672.pdf
http://www.environmentalleader.com/2011/06/06/why-americans-don%E2%80%99t-buy-global-warming-part-i-of-ii/
http://www.psychworld.com/3-reasons-why-we-don%E2%80%99t-care-about-the-environment-2010-06
http://www.gallup.com/poll/2992/americans-environmentally-friendly-issue-seen-urgent-problem.aspx
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/04/22/earth_day_pew_research_poll_shows_how_little_americans_care_about_the_planet.html