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Mythbuster: Popular Fiction

Most Americans have "failed to keep pace with the realities of today's most pressing environmental concerns," according to the National Environmental Education and Training Foundation. In a survey of 2,000 people, the organization found, for example, that a majority of respondents believed that electricity in the United States is produced in nonpolluting ways, while only a quarter knew that oil, coal, and wood generate 70 percent of our energy.

About a third of the respondents assumed that spent nuclear fuel is stored in a "deep underground facility in the West," while only 17 percent were aware that the fuel is mostly stored on-site at power plants pending a long-term solution (a solution that has been pending since nuclear power was embraced). And more than half of the group believed that tankers, drilling rigs, or refineries are the primary source of oil pollution in waterways; 84 percent did not know that the leading source is improperly discarded automobile oil.

Such misconceptions "threaten to block progress on important environmental initiatives," says Kevin Coyle, the foundation's president. But Coyle takes heart in the fact that 71 percent of respondents considered environmental protection "more important" than economic development, and that an overwhelming majority said they act to preserve the environment.

With such an eager populace, the onus is on educators (and publications like this one) to get the facts out. —Reed McManus

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