Average Citizen de la BBC
11 noviembre 2008BBC
But how is the average American coming to terms with the challenges presented by global warming?Andy Ghalager has been attempting to find out…
Ocean Drive, on Miami’s beachfront, is a destination that attracts Americans all year round.
Winters here are warm and sunny… but the people of Florida are aware, perhaps more than most, of their natural environment:
It looks beautyful today –calm seas and swaying palm trees–, but this is hurricane territory and Florida often gets hit hard.
Prof. Brian Soden is a climate change expert from the University of Miami:
“I think there’s a growing acceptance, within most of the American public, of the reality of global warming just by virtue of the changes that they’ve witnesed in our lifetimes, or just over the past ten years”.
The authorities here have recentlu¡y been told that rising sea levels could threaten South Florida’s very existence.
A headline on a local paper read: “Miami 2050: You’ll really need that boat!”
But what about Americans from different parts of the Union?
“I’m Angela, from Dallas… I thinks it’s just come from to the forefront, gotten a lot more media attention, and so, uhm, there’s a lot more ducational materials available to learn about it, so that’s what I thonk has changed my mind”.
“Rafael, in West Palm Beach, Florida… The hurricanes that we were affected by, three of them in, like, a year. I mean, that’s what’s happening now”.
“Steven Hardy, I’m from Seattle, Washington… I don’t know, there just seems like there’s lots of hard evidence that proves that it’s happening”.
There is a consensus that American public opinion is changing, albeit slowly.
What do you think is being behind that, what’s the driving force?
“It’s probably the scientific facts… Ha!… I don’t know!”
“Elisa, Milwaukee, Wisconsin… I’ve thought for a while there are major issues and that we, as a country, have had our head in the sand a little bit”.
I didn’t find anyone from any State that didn’t have concerns about the invironment. Prof. Soden says that public opinion has been slow to change… but it is now turning:
“The evidence is hard to ignore, and there’s growing overwhelming scientific consensus, and I think, er… you know, the public, for the most part is swayed by the scientific consensus that exists ragarding the reality of global warming”.
Prof. Brian Soden there, from the University of Miami.