Many Americans have changed their opinions about the Gulf of Mexico spillage. Gallup / USA Today recently polled Americans to find that their preferences for prioritizing environmental protection over energy products have changed. They are now more pro-energy and less pro-environment. This disaster seems to have brought environmental protection into the mainstream of public opinion and the mass media.
In May, an online poll was taken to see how Americans felt about the decision between developing U.S. Energy supply and protecting the environment. A poll revealed that 52% of Americans preferred developing U.S. energy resources, and 43% prefer to preserve our environment. This contrasts with public sentiment a few years back. In 2007, 58% preferred to protect the environment more than 34% who wanted to increase our country’s energy.
This gap has been reduced to 41% and 50% respectively for energy and pro-environment in 2008. This gap was eliminated completely in 2009 when sentiment was almost identical (47 % to 46%) and then jumped to pro-energy preference this year. All of that has been changed by the spill, which caused the pro-environment sentiment to rise to 55%, and the pro-energy preference to plummet to 39%. This is almost the same level as in 2007, making it the 2nd largest pro-environment percentage in all of the questions.
This position was held by Democrats until late March. As a result, the Democrats’ strength in this position has grown since the accident. The public opinion has completely changed the views of independents, but Republicans’ views are unchanged. Republicans still place energy production above protecting the environment. While these shifts in sentiment are more evident among Democrats and Independents than they were among Republicans, there has been some movement among Republicans.
It is safe to conclude that Americans’ attitudes towards the environment have been significantly affected by the oil spillage. Because of our economy, these attitudes had been likely to shift towards pro-energy in recent years. This was because we placed more importance on issues directly related with our wallets. In the last 2 months however, this trend has reversed and now the pro-environment position is stronger than ever and enjoys the same dominance it held for much of the previous decade.