I posted Part I of this series a few weeks back from my hotel in Berlin. I was reminded of another big difference between Americans and Germans (Europeans?) when I read this snippet from a report about Live Earth:
Given a choice of four major issues before the United States today, 36% named the war in Iraq as most important. Twenty-five percent (25%) named immigration, 20% selected the economy and only 12% thought Global Warming was the top issue.
I heard people proclaim more than once during my recent stint in Brussels and Berlin that the most important political issue in Germany -- indeed, in most of Europe -- was climate change. The Europeans seem focused on this issue to a degree that is unimaginable in the U.S. Notice the prominence of the issue in this recent interview with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. By contrast, neither Mitt nor Rudy lists the issue among the top ten (though Mitt features "energy independence," he does not tie this to global warming). Hillary and Barack, on the other hand, both feature this issue alongside "energy independence."
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1. Posted by Fred Tung on July 10, 2007 @ 13:47 | Permalink
I've always been struck by how passionate Europeans get about genetically modified food. While I don't think every GM idea is a good one, and some may be downright dangerous, we in the US consume lots of GM food without even thinking about it. In Europe, it seems like an ideological issue that REALLY gets folks upset. Maybe we have more (too much?) faith in science here?
2. Posted by Mike Guttentag on July 10, 2007 @ 16:11 | Permalink
My guess is that conservatives prefer to avoid talking about global warning (with exceptions like Pat Buchanan), because global warming is a compelling example of an externality, an externality that suggests the need to regulate market outcomes.
3. Posted by M. Hodak on July 11, 2007 @ 3:50 | Permalink
I guess that explains their unemployment being double ours. It reflects their priorities.
Collective choice is a very messy, indirect, and often arbitrary process, but on the whole, people seem to get the government that they want. Or they leave, which is why I'm European by birth, but American by choice.
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