People's perceptions of facts—not just facts alone—help shape public opinion, and, to some unmeasured extent, the direction of public policy as well. Thus what people think about energy and environmental policy is worth reviewing along with the facts, events, and interpretations that customarily dominate the annual Highlights issue of Resources.
The two articles that follow provide a summary and interpretation of survey data and other information about public attitudes toward energy and the environment that have become available during the past year or so. The data are fragmentary, and the presentations by the two authors are not strictly comparable, but together the articles provide an additional perspective on the evolution of policy in these important areas. One question in particular emerges from a reading of the two reports that readers may want to ponder: Does the public know its mind much better on environmental matters than on energy? And if so, why, and what are the implications of this difference?
How the events of 1977 and 1978 will affect attitudes in the future is yet to be seen, but as the other articles in this issue make clear, a number of developments are likely to leave their mark on public thinking—for example, the natural gas shortage of the winter of 1976-77, the severest summer drought in many years, scare stories of new health hazards from toxic substances in the workplace and in the environment at large, legislative changes ranging from a new Department of Energy to revision of the Clean Air Act, and the effort to develop a global approach to the problem of nuclear proliferation.
A version of this article appeared in print in the January 1978 issue of Resources magazine.
