Americans are getting lazier when it comes to making personal changes to avoid climate change

Carbon-Footprint Calculator Helps Lazy Americans Fight Climate Change... - StumbleUpon

Two climate-change communications research centers, one at Yale, the other at George Mason University, found that more Americans have been giving themselves a break on taking actions that would limit climate change. We’re less likely in the winter to turn the thermostat down to 68 degrees or cooler. We’re less likely to carpool. We’re less likely to bike or walk instead of driving.

These drops have been particularly pronounced in the last year. In 2010, most Americans (56 percent) reported that they often or always turned down the heat. Now less than half of us do—just 45 percent. But we began slipping even before this year: In 2008, more than three-fifths of Americans (62 percent) were keeping their thermostats low. And not only are we going easy on ourselves, we’re telling ourselves that it doesn’t matter. That our actions won’t change anything. We’re pessimistic about the impact of choices that other Americans and other people in industrialized countries are making, too.

Americans’ Actions to Conserve Energy, Reduce Waste, and Limit Global Warming in May 2011 |  Yale Project on Climate Change Communication

18 percent of Americans say they have volunteered or donated money to an organization working to reduce global warming, while 13 percent have posted a comment online in response to a news story or blog about global warming.

10 percent of Americans have written a letter, email, or phoned a government official about global warming. Of these, 77 percent urged officials to take action, while 20 percent urged them not to take action to reduce global warming.