Most environmental issues are particularly suited for examining the effect media can have on the public precisely because the majority of people do not have direct contact (or do not know they are in direct contact) with widespread environmental problems. Thus, the public turns to media for information about environmental issues. Indeed, environmentalism has been on the public’s mind fairly steadily — if not increasingly — for over forty years. This steadfast persistence in modern politics and the strength of its pervasiveness on the public agenda has led scholars like Dunlap and Scarce to term environmentalism a “second miracle” of public opinion (1991). Yet, how does such an impressive consensus of public opinion form and around what issues does it gain strength? This paper attempts to examine this question by first reviewing public opinion data and then analyzing the role media and other political, social and cultural factors may have played in perpetuating and maintaining environmental public support.