Americans seem to have come a long way in a short time when it comes to being concerned about global warming. But they're far from panicking.

A national poll conducted in July found that 48 percent of Americans now believe global warming will have dangerous impacts on people within the next 10 years. That’s a 20 percentage point increase from the response to the same question in 2004, according to Yale University, Gallup and the ClearVision Institute.

The poll also found that 62 percent believe that global warming is an urgent threat requiring immediate and drastic action, and 40 percent said a presidential candidate’s position on global warming will be extremely important or very important when deciding on their vote. Global warming hardly came up during the 2004 campaign.

On the other hand, the poll found that people are not particularly worried that global warming will affect them. Half of those polled said they were personally worried only a little, if at all. And, while participants said global warming is a serious threat to plants, animals and other people, only 19 percent said they consider it a very serious threat to themselves and their families.

The telephone survey involved interviews with 1,011 adults, and has a margin of error of 4 percentage points. Look here for more.

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