Survey: Americans Rank Last in Green Lifestyles, Don't Feel Guilty

By Todd Woody

If the stereotype of a typical American is an obese, SUV-driving, junk food-scarfing couch potato oblivious to the outsize environmental impact of his consumerist lifestyle, a new National Geographic survey of green attitudes and actions in 17 countries is not going to change many minds.

Americans came in dead last when it comes to sustainable behavior while feeling among the least guilty about their disproportionate consumption of the world's resources, found the survey of 17,000 consumers in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, the U.K. and the U.S.

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"The top-scoring consumers of 2012 are in the developing economies of India, China, and Brazil, in descending order," said the 204-page report of the fourth annual survey conducted for National Geographic by GlobeScan, a Canadian consulting firm. "Those in emerging economies continue to round out the top tier of the Greendex ranking, while the lowest scores are all earned by consumers in industrialized countries. American consumers' behavior still ranks as the least sustainable of all countries surveyed since the inception of the study, followed by Canadian, Japanese, and French consumers."

The survey, conducted between March and May of this year, asked consumers a wide-ranging set of questions about their homes, lifestyles, transportation use, eating habits and attitudes toward climate change and pollution.

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Seventy-five percent of Mexicans described themselves as "green" and 45% said they were "very concerned" about environmental problems compared to 52% of Americans who categorized themselves as green and 20% who said they were very concerned about environmental problems.
While 59% of Mexicans, 53% of Brazilians and 47% of Indians were "very concerned" about climate change and global warming, only 21% of Americans and Australians and 16% of the British shared those worries.

No surprise then that 72% of Brazilians believe climate change will worsen their lives within their lifetimes while only 34% of Americans agreed with that sentiment. Asked whether people will have to severely cut their consumption to improve the environment for future generations, 75% of Mexicans agreed versus 52% of Americans.

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On the other hand, Americans were the most worried about energy and fuel costs with 58% "very concerned" while only 24% of Swedes were very concerned.

Indians were the most guilt-ridden about their personal impact on the environment - 45% - while 44% of Americans said in effect they had a clear conscious.

While 56% of the French and 55% of Americans drive alone every day only 20% of Chinese and 16% of Indians do so.

And while 73% of Chinese walk or ride a bicycle all the time or frequently to their destination, 34% of Americans do so.

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