Concerned about climate change?

Yesterday I received a link via our local statistician to an interesting post on the Getstats blog. It reports the result of a survey by the U.K.'s Department of Transport which shows that public concern about climate change is falling.

The proportion of adults saying they are willing to change their behaviour to limit climate change fell from 77 per cent in 2006 to 65 per cent last year.

Interestingly they find that higher levels of education is associated with greater concern about the environment and willingness to change behaviour to limit climate change.

This mirrors local work that I have been doing with the research area: Tourism Research in Economics, the Environs and Society (TREES). Below the cross-tab of data from our 2011 survey at the Two Oceans Marathon shows the following:

• Reading down the column, within the group that indicated that they are willing to pay to mitigate climate change, 23% had Matric, 36% a diploma or degree and 25% a post-graduate qualification.
• Reading across, of those with Matric 59% were willing to pay, of those with a diploma or degree 69% were willing to pay and of those with a post-graduate qualification 66% were willing to pay.
• But, fewer professionals were willing to pay than any of the above groups.

This weekend at the Cape Argus Pick 'n Pay Cycle Tour we will be asking cyclists what they think needs to be done (and what they are willing to do) to make the race greener!

			Willing to pay to mitigate climate change			Total
			Skipped	No	Yes
Level of education	Skipped	Count	8	4	5	17
		% within education	47%	24%	29%	100%
		% WTP	15%	3%	2%	3%
	No schooling	Count	4	1	5	10
		% within education	40%	10%	50%	100%
		% WTP	7%	1%	2%	2%
	Matric	Count	13	37	71	121
		% within education	11%	31%	59%	100%
		% WTP	24%	27%	23%	24%
	Diploma, degree	Count	9	42	112	163
		% within education	6%	26%	69%	100%
		% WTP	16%	31%	36%	32%
	Post-graduate	Count	11	30	78	119
		% within education	9%	25%	66%	100%
		% WTP	20%	22%	25%	24%
	Professional	Count	9	20	36	65
		% within education	14%	31%	55%	100%
		% WTP	16%	15%	12%	13%
	Other	Count	1	1	5	7
		% within education	14%	14%	71%	100%
		% WTP	2%	1%	2%	1%