Many Green Tards are also, perhaps primarily, Political Tards.

. . . an assistant professor in the Truman School of Public Affairs at MU, recently surveyed 1,000 adults concerning their attitudes about the environment. The survey polled respondents about their levels of concern for the environment and preferences for government action to address a wide set of environmental issues.

A strong majority of the public expressed general concern about the environment. According to the survey, the top three issues that the public wants the government to address are protecting community drinking water, reducing pollution of U.S. rivers and lakes, and improving urban air pollution issues like smog. In the survey, global warming ranks eighth in importance. . .

the best predictor of individuals’ environmental preferences is their political attributes. They examined the relationship between party identification and political ideology and support for action to address environmental problems.

“The survey reinforced the stark differences in people’s environmental attitudes, depending on their political leanings,” Konisky said. “Democrats and political liberals clearly express more desire for governmental action to address environmental problems. Republicans and ideological conservatives are much less enthusiastic about further government intervention.”

This wasn't a survey of environmental concerns, it was merely a political quiz. It cannot be concluded that "Americans are clearly most concerned about pollution issues that might affect their personal health, or the health of their families". All that can be concluded is that these are issues they judge government to be competent to handle. The survey asks what "the public wants the government to address", not what they are concerned about.

You'll find many who are concerned about global threats but that are as concerned, or more so, that governments will use the threats as an excuse to aggrandize themselves while failing to do anything useful about the problems. You'll find a crude dividing line with Democrats and leftists (not liberals or progressives) on one side, and Republicans and conservatives (including liberals and progressives) on the other. Democrats and leftists want government growth even though it is not competent to address the issues. Others do not, sometimes even if government is competent to address the issue since it is not uniquely so.

This varies a bit with the threat. If terrorism was the subject rather than AGW we would see different responses. Republicans would then be the party of government growth, though many that are called conservative would not be as supportive. Real liberals and progressive would be opposed to government growth for this threat too.

We need to be clear about this. Political opportunists will use any excuse to seize power, but don't give a fig about good governance. Their supporters and useful dupes go along without knowing whether their concerns will be satisfied or not, but they are unwilling or unable to makes informed decisions on the merits of the policies.

The invariable result is bad policy and continued or increased threats. Consider recent grand failures such as Kyoto and the various European empty gestures about climate. No progress on these issues will be made until the politicians abandon them, and that will only happen if we repeatedly reject politicians who try to exploit them. Unfortunately, there are no reasonable alternatives since all politicians are seeking to exploit these issues.

It won't happen soon. This may be one of those funeral by funeral deals. More optimistically, individuals and groups will develop solutions while governments thrash about ineffectually. Governments can then thrash ineffectually about something else.