Climate change barely bothers wealthy, polluting nations: study
The bigger a nation's wealth and carbon footprint, the less its residents care about global warming. That's according to an online survey of 46 countries on every continent by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
The prosperous Dutch appeared the least worried about the prospect of future rising oceans and wild card weather, even though half of the Netherlands lies one meter below sea level. The next least concerned were people in Russia, the United States, Latvia, and Estonia.
"If you take global warming to heart, you understand that you have to sacrifice something," study author Hanno Sandvik said in a statement. "And the richer you are, the less willing you are to sacrifice. It's far more pleasant to decide that you actually don't quite believe in the climate threat."
The report ranked nations with the highest levels of greenhouse gas emissions as the United Arab Emirates, the United States, Canada, Australia, and Estonia. The least concerned nations with the most carbon pollution as well as wealth were Norway, the United States, Ireland, Denmark, and Canada.
However, Americans are the world's least "green" consumers, according to a report released last week by National Geographic and GlobeScan.
The journal Climatic Change, edited at Stanford University, is publishing the Norwegian study.






- by jemiller0 May 13, 2008 1:58 PM PDT
- You are just in denial because you want to continue driving your oil wasting Hummer. Regardless of whether global warming is real or not, the fact is that oil is going to run out sooner or later. Why **** it away? It could be put to better use making things like plastic. Do you actually like depending on the middle east for oil? Do you like filling the pockets of dictators and screwing up the environment? What about air pollution? Do you actually like breathing car exhaust? People like you are why this country is as screwed up as it is.
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
-
- by suyts May 13, 2008 7:44 PM PDT
- I'm not sure who you are replying to but I'd like to say that regardless of which side of the GW fence anyone is on, no one is against cutting the ties to mideast oil, or for breathing car exhaust, or making small dictators rich. The path to these goals is where many disagree. The fact of the matter is, one can't bicycle goods and produce to a store near you. Nor, can one bicycle electric transmission lines up. If we can have a viable alternative to fossil fuels, I'm all for it. Until then, we should pump the oil we have underneath us.....+10 billion barrels not allowed in Alaska....4.3 billion in the Dakota's yet untapped,(those 2 locations alone would make up the oil the U.S. imports for 2 years) we have coal in abundance mine it, fuel our power plants, and let other technologies mature. End result, cheap energy, easy transition to alternative power sources.
- Like this
-
(15 Comments)