Link This | Email this | Blog This | Comments (0)

John Dodge

No doubt, 2008 has been a year of lurching from crisis to crisis. First, we had the housing market collapse. Then gasoline and fuel prices shot up like a rocket. Now, they’ve come down and the stock market is up for the after ten straight days of record losses. Even though 2008 is an election year when officials give back, it’s been hard year for everyone in the U.S.

No doubt, high gas prices help the cause to achieve energy independence and curb global warming. Common sense says that frozen credit markets, plunging stock markets and a solidly recessionary economy would put some of these green causes on hold. Both sides of the aisle will say jobs come first and the expense of curbing pollution and CO2 emissions second.

If that’s what you thought, you might be wrong, according to new a new Pew Research Center study. Results of a study released Sept. 24 said that 76% per cent want to reduce energy dependence on foreign oil versus 63% in 2004. For dealing with global warming, 43% said yes while in 2004, it was only 36%. The study looks at several “Shifting Foreign Policy Priorities.” Highest in 2008 was protecting U.S. jobs and protecting the country against terror, both at 82%. In 2004, they scored 84 and 88% respectively.

With respect to global warming and energy independence, the study was completed well before last week, the worst in the history of the stock market so we are left ponder whether the two goals have fallen as priorities. And given saving U.S. jobs was such a priority, one would conjecture that a study taken today would show the green movement losing at least a little momentum.

Is the bloom off “green?”