Sunday, February 01, 2015

Accentuate the Positive

The Pew poll cited in the previous post tended to accentuate the negative when it came to attitudes on the climate crisis.  Now a different study not only accentuates the positive but adds to it.  According to the New York Times (via Boston Globe):

"An overwhelming majority of the American public, including nearly half of Republicans, support government action to curb global warming, according to a poll conducted by The New York Times, Stanford University, and the environmental research group Resources for the Future.

In a finding that could have implications for the 2016 presidential campaign, the poll also found that two-thirds of Americans say they are more likely to vote for political candidates who campaign on fighting climate change. They are less likely to vote for candidates who question or deny the science of human-caused global warming.

Among Republicans, 48 percent said they are more likely to vote for a candidate who supports fighting climate change, a result that Jon A. Krosnick, a professor of political science at Stanford University and an author of the survey, called “the most powerful finding” in the poll."

Somewhat contradicting the Pew study finding: "Overall, the number of Americans who believe that climate change is caused by human activity is growing. In a 2011 Stanford University poll, 72 percent of people thought climate change was caused at least in part by human activities. That grew to 81 percent in the latest poll. By party, 88 percent of Democrats, 83 percent of independents and 71 percent of Republicans said that climate change was caused at least in part by human activities."

The basic and most powerful finding:

"The poll found that 83 percent of Americans, including 61 percent of Republicans and 86 percent of independents, say that if nothing is done to reduce emissions, global warming will be a very or somewhat serious problem in the future.

On the issue of policies, the poll found that 77 percent of Americans say that the federal government should be doing a substantial amount to combat climate change. Ninety percent of Democrats, 78 percent of independents, and 48 percent of Republicans said the government should be fighting climate change."

This last number is actually a bit below what a Yale survey recently found: "56 percent of Republicans support regulating climate-warming greenhouse gases."

Slate reproduces the exact statements that respondents to the poll were asked to evaluate.

The Seattle pi story reporting on the survey gave several recent examples of Republican leaders making aggressive moves to thwart recognition of the climate crisis and government attempts to address it.

Contrast their positions with what an independent voter is quoted by the Times/Globe story as saying: that although he doesn't see it as a more crucial issue than dealing with terrorists like ISIL, he is turned off by absolute denialists, the most prominent and widespread position among Republican leaders:

But, he said of climate change, “if someone feels it’s a hoax, they are denying the evidence out there. Many arguments can be made on both sides of the fence. But to just ignore it completely indicates a close-minded individual, and I don’t want a close-minded individual in a seat of political power.

The Times/Globe story ends with unnamed "political analysts" suggesting that Republicans need to develop a position that speaks to that voter's concerns while not alienating the Koch Brothers.  Good luck with that.  The Kochs have made it known they're going to spend close to a billion dollars in the next election cycle, including money targeted to defeat any candidate--including Republicans in primaries--who don't toe the denialist line.

However, the possibility of some Republicans offering a different approach eventually (and maybe Christie will start this) is a lead-in to what I want to say in my next post.

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