Way back sociologist Richard LaPiere showed the enormous inconsistency between what people say in the abstract and their own behavior. For two years starting in 1930, he and a young Chinese couple criss-crossed the U. S. together, and among 251 events of eating and staying in motels, they only encountered racial discrimination once. In surveys, there is a consistent discrepancy between the public's beliefs about the environments that they know first hand, and those they only know second-hand. Poll respondents view the situation they know at first hand more positively than the situation at large. The media carry stories about environmental scares.
People therefore become frightened.
Polls then show people to be worried. The worry then is cited as support for policies to initiate actions about the supposed scares. These policies raise the level of public concern further. We are merely messengers who deliver it. These data show that the opposite is true in this case.