There is a Climate Crisis But We Are Happy We Are Doing Our Bit?

Kantar Public carried out a survey on more than 1000 people in 10 countries ahead of the Cop26 meeting. The respondents were based in France; Germany; the Netherlands; New Zealand; Poland; Singapore; Spain; Sweden; the UK and the US. One thousand sounds large but there would have been only 100 people from each country. Respondents are unlikely to have been truly representative of the countries in which they were based. Many of the countries most likely to be imperiled by climate change, were not even in the survey (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/07/few-willing-to-change-lifestyle-climate-survey). It's a snapshot at best. A majority seemed to recognise that climate change was the planet's greatest challenge. Many of the respondents seemed, however, to think that they, personally, were already doing more to engineer a solution than governments, business and the media. Only 51% of the people questioned would definitely take individual actions to help fight climate change. Almost half felt there was no real need for a change in their personal habits. There appeared to be a marked lack of enthusiasm for changing transport, diet or agriculture. The 'take home' message seems to be that most people are aware of the dangers of climate change but many are far (at least in the countries 'surveyed') from recognising that they will have to make individual changes to curb planetary heating. There will have to be some hair shirts!