"Economy Trumps Environment"

From Green Inc.:

My friend and colleague, Charles Blow, pointed me to this recent Gallup poll last night. Said the pollsters last Thursday:

For the first time in Gallup’s 25-year history of asking Americans about the trade-off between environmental protection and economic growth, a majority of Americans say economic growth should be given the priority, even if the environment suffers to some extent.

Americans, the Gallup folks found, are also “more inclined now than in past years to favor giving the priority to energy production over the environment.”

None of this is, of course, a complete surprise, given the recession. And it’s worth noting that there are deep partisan divisions among respondents, with Republicans and Independents favoring, to varying degrees, the economy and energy production over the environment, and Democrats in both cases putting the environment first.

The findings come just a few days after another Gallup poll found that more Americans than ever think that the seriousness of global warming is being exaggerated.

“There is little question that the current economic crisis poses a significant challenge for the environmental movement in this country,” wrote Frank Newport of Gallup, in the wake of last week’s survey. The complete analysis is here.