Majority Agenda Project

Watching the news often leaves us worried about climate change and apparent public apathy. There is increasing despair over "cimate denialism" – the claim that the climate is not changing or that the changes are not due to human activity. No need, according to a recent poll described in the New York Times: Stanford University researcher, Jon Krosnick finds that, "huge majorities of Americans still believe the earth has been gradually warming as the result of human activity and want the government to institute regulations to stop it." This good news challenges climate activists to convert public opinion into a powerful social movement.

The latest Pew poll suggests a real drop in union favorability ratings. As many Americans now hold favorable views of unions as those who hold unfavorable views (41% to 42% with a 3.5% margin of error). For most of the last 3 decades, well over 50% of the public had a “favorable” view of trade unions. This was true despite ant-union federal policies and media hostility to labor.

A February 17, 2010, Gallup poll finds that about a third of Americans believe that the country spends too much on the military, another third each believe that its spends too much or about right (when you take the poll's margin of error into account).

A much neglected CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll (see results for 1/22-24/10) found that 80% of the public feels that the Afghan war is "extremely" or "very important." It also shows that 52% oppose the war, compared with 47% that support it. Taking into account the 3% margin of error, it is fair to say that the country is evenly split on the war. Interestingly, despite the slim majority opposition to the war, 61% still support President Obama's decision to send an additional 30,000 troops.

 CHAPTER FOUR

Despite concerted partisan opposition to the national census, most Americans view the census positively with more that 8 out 10 surveyed saying that the will "most likely" or "probably participate" in it, according to a January 6 - 10, 2010, poll conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.