US perceived as world’s biggest polluter

Pew Research Center: Nations Call US Biggest Threat to Environment

In 34 of the 37 countries where data from the Pew 2007 Global Attitudes survey are available, the United States is named by a majority or a clear plurality as the country that is “hurting the world’s environment the most”–even a third of Americans rate their own country as the world’s biggest polluter, more than point to any other single country. (Respondents were asked to name a country from a list that included India, Germany, China, Brazil, Japan, United States and Russia.)

This is a striking poll result. My instinct is to say that it is a profoundly wrong-headed result … if you subtract the U.S. contribution to the world environmental situation in the last forty-five years (since, say, the publication of Silent Spring, you have a significantly dirtier world. But the perception can’t be dismissed so easily.

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