A new report from Indiana University affirmed that belief in climate change is more common in Bloomington than the state as a whole. But the report also showed slightly less than half of area residents surveyed think humans are the primary cause.
“Potentially one surprise is that Bloomington is not entirely a community of tree huggers,” said Eric Sandweiss, a professor of history at IU.
Sandweiss and Matthew Houser, an IU sociologist, led the Hoosier Life Survey on environmental attitudes. Results from that survey were used to produce seven recently released reports focused on Indiana metropolitan areas.
Those metropolitan areas, as defined by the U.S. Census, are Bloomington, Evansville, Fort Wayne, Indianapolis, New Albany-Jeffersonville, Northwest Indiana and South Bend-Mishawaka.
The hope is that these reports will help the state become better prepared for expected changes in the environment, such as more frequent droughts, floods and other extreme weather events.
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