Who cares about global warming? A majority of Americans do, according to a new public opinion survey released October 28th by the Republican polling firm of Research/Strategy/Management, Inc. of Rockville, Maryland.

The survey found that a majority of voters believe that we now know enough about climate change and its causes and that we should act now to reduce its impact. About 97% of those surveyed believed that the US should increase the use of energy technologies that improve fuel efficiency and conserve energy.

Although 95% of climate scientists have seen global warming as a serious issue needing action for some time, it's taken a while to get this level of public support. There's a variety of reasons for this.

For one, we have a news media that reports mostly sensational news as well as (admirably) attempts to provide balanced news (both "sides" are represented). As a result, every time a climate change scientist comes out with a "global warming's not real" story it gets printed. Although "global warming is real" stories also get printed (the other half of the time in the interest of "balance") the public has gets the view that climate scientists are split on the issue. And lastly we have stories written by local people, such as Todd Juvinal's "Chicken Little" piece a while back that, with brazen self-assuredness, turned a serious issue into a joke .

Fortunately, readers of sound science journals, which better serve the need for balance on science issues, know the majority of scientists believe we are to some degree responsible for global warming and we can do common sense things about it. They say we must act now because the issue is potentially devastating to the health of our economy and environment. They also say two things are working against us: human inertia (it takes a while to get people to change) and climate change inertia (the climate problems will take a while to "fix themselves" once human changes are made).

A surprise from the survey was how strongly people believe our elected officials aren't doing enough to deal with global warming. People from all political parties believe congress is doing a very poor job on the issue (John Doolittle, for example, scoffs at the idea of listening to the scientists).

But government alone should'nt be expected to fix the problem. The population is creating the problem, and more so each day, but most people don't know what to do. Sure, most people recycle; this is obvious from all those little green boxes next to the trash cans on pickup days. While recycling is easy to understand, global warming is less obvious yet far more important. Although recycling is important, it's like dropping a penny into the "piggy bank of the future." In contrast, doing nothing about our individual contributions to global warming is like taking a dollar out of that piggy bank!

As far as what you can do about it, you can do a lot and it's pretty easy too! Our individual contributions to global warming come from burning fossil fuels such as gasoline, oil, natural gas and propane. A part of the electricity we use also comes from burning fossil fuels. The easiest and most important things an individual can do to reduce global warming is to reduce your home and transportation energy use.

The average home has grown from 1600sf to 2100sf since 1970 while the average family size has dropped from 3.6 to 3 people! Larger homes use more energy, so be realistic about how much square footage you need. If you're building a new home, "design with climate," or "passive solar design" can drop your heating and cooling energy use by half or more. Solar water heating can reduce your hot water energy use by 50-85%. Doing all these things together is actually a sound investment, giving you a higher "return on investment" than the interest you'll earn on most any investment you can find!

If you want to remodel your existing home there's a lot that you can do. A remodel and addition to my own 1974 vintage home reduced my heating energy by 30%, hot water energy by 85% and cooling energy by 90%, all cost effectively! Thanks to utility deregulation, you can now select from a variety of electricity providers, some of which sell 100% renewable power (we pay an extra $15 a month for power made only from solar, wind, small hydro and biomass).

Our choice of transportation can also make a huge difference. Like homes, automobiles have been getting bigger in recent years. Sport utility vehicles (SUV's) and four-wheel drives (4WD's) account for about half of all new vehicles sold! Is the climate changing so fast that half the population now needs 4WD's to get around? I think not. But there's hope, even for us folks who DO need 4WD.

In my own family's case, we have a 4WD wagon that seats five people and gets 25-28 mpg around town and 28-30 mpg on the highway. Compare that to the SUV's you see around town that get just 15-20 mpg and, as a result, use twice the gas and put out up to 2.5 times more pollution (that's no typo - two and a half times more pollution because they don't have the same pollution requirements as cars - yet). Being a bit zealous about my own personal impact on climate change, our second car is an electric vehicle.

If you're planning to buy a new car anytime soon, be forewarned that those SUV's are fast changing from "yuppie mountain-man" style statements to "global warming devices" in the public mind.

The day is coming soon when the type of car you drive and house you live in will be even more symbolic of your "environmental ethic" than that green recycling container. In the meantime, we all have an opportunity to "clean up our act!"