Mark Dolliver's Takes: A Lukewarm Majority

Americans have mostly passed the stage of wondering whether global warming is for real. They’re far from unanimous, though, in seeing the matter as one of immediate urgency. You can gather as much from the chart below, which draws on polling by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and WorldPublicOpinion.org. The same poll offered different takes on the topic and asked adults to pick the one that best matches their own. Just 17 percent agreed that “Until we are sure that global warming is really a problem, we should not take any steps that would have economic costs.”