I posted this poll after reading about an article in Nature. Apparently 80-90% of Americans dramatically underestimate the support for climate action among their fellow citizens.
Support for climate-positive policies are at 67-80%, but Americans estimate support to be around 37-41%.
So, about 2/3 of Americans support climate action, but most of us think it's closer to 1/3.
@evan
This is no accident. Those who have a strongly vested interest in the status quo have deliberately done this. Politicians have used this as a wedge issue. Mainly by furthering fear of costs, and making it seem like "sissy environmentalists" are the only ones worrying about this
@Beeks ah, interesting! I'm not sure it's fair to say that it was a referendum on climate action, though. There were a lot of other topics on the agenda!
@evan I agree, but as we sit in this boiling pot of water if you continue to vote for the chef as he keeps turning the heat up I don't think you can claim to support climate action.
@evan I understand what the government is barely managing to do. I'm pessimistically saying that there's no way 67-80% of the population cares about climate change action when almost half of them actively vote for a party that is explicitly anti-science. You can't "support" climate action and then vote directly against it.
@evan I would be interested in seeing the same poll with "Americans" replaces by "people from your country", since your question was asked to an international audience. The results from Nature may be a biais toward auto-criticism - which one may argue to be actually quite healthy.
@evan FEMA's running out of money this year. A lot of "climate" money goes to support for those hurt by hurricanes, fires &c. That's not taking action to tackle the root problem, but it still likely counts as "taking action" on the symptoms. Very widespread support for that, Trump tossing out paper towels in Puerto Rico notwithstanding.
@EWinterNM you should read the paper. It asks about support for a Green New Deal, 0% emissions from electricity generation by 2035, renewable energy generation on federal land.
@shadowbottle@Ruth_Mottram but what an interesting gambit! Instead of trying to convince us that climate change action is wrong, they instead convince us that such action is unpopular.
@evan@shadowbottle@Ruth_Mottram I suppose the question is whether or not it is popular with the people who pay for adverts, run PACs, own newspapers or social media companies
@otfrom@shadowbottle@Ruth_Mottram no, the question was, "Without looking it up, estimate the percentage of Americans that support climate change action."
@evan@shadowbottle@Ruth_Mottram we spend our private social capital and political energy repeatedly moving the dial from where it already was 20 years ago to where it is currently. I think it's very effective, very... classic public good problem nastiness.
@shadowbottle@evan@Ruth_Mottram I wonder whether it has something to do with the fact that the anti-mitigation actors are more visible than those to are taking or support action. We all (in the US) know about the "Rolling Coal" trucks and "windmills cause cancer", but we may not know how many people have PV systems on their roof and have sold their cars. Once again, the Right wins the messaging campaign.
It feels better to imagine oneself a lone rebel who can't effect change because an ignorant majority opposes one's efforts than to face the complex technical and social task of actually ending climate change.
@evan While this is important to understand and hopefully good news, it's notable that none of the policies they asked about in this study directly require people to materially change their own lives.
On the other hand, a Pew poll from a few months ago indicates that a much larger share of Americans are opposed to basic and necessary measures like banning fossil-fuel-powered cars or phasing out natural gas in new construction.
@auspicacious one good thing about individual change is that it doesn't require majority support. It's also very tractable to market forces and regulatory pressure.
@evan If a political party wanted to get a lot of votes, they could adopt policies, like climate action or campaign finance, which a huge majority of Americans would support.
But the parties don't (seriously) adopt those kind of policies, because there's more campaign donations available for other, more divisive, issues.
In other words, the US political parties value campaign donations more than votes. To put it bluntly, they value money more than democracy.
@evan My rhetoric is half-ass, but neither the DNC nor the RNC enact populist issues (like climate action, medicare for all, ending qualified immunity, campaign finance reform, gun control) to win votes.
Sure, my statement over generalizes. But the US is still stuck with two parties that cater more to their millionaire and billionaire donors, and cater less to those who only have a vote to give. And I'm really sick of it.
@grumble209 so, wrt climate, the Biden administration put us back into the Paris Agreement, set ambitious goals for emissions reductions, and passed the Inflation Reduction Act. A good analysis here.
@evan IRA is two half-ass things for the 99% (minor tweak to Medicare drugs, minor tweaks to IRS), with two sweeteners for the 1% (energy pork, manufacturing pork).
I grant that this is more than nothing. Yet t's less than decisive, and several area codes away from bold.
And it's tangential to my point, which was about the parties, and their business model.
Cmon, Dems, impress me: unearth HR1 and talk about campaign finance during a campaign.
@grumble209 the topic was climate action, and the provisions of the IRA are broad and historic.
"the Act's climate investments can be summarized as follows: $220–372 billion in energy, $67–183 billion in manufacturing, $28–48 billion in building retrofits and energy efficiency, $33–436 billion in transportation, $22–26 billion in environmental justice, land use, air pollution reduction and/or resilience, and $3–21 billion in agriculture."
@evan Weird that the Dems in both houses can come together to pass a spending bill over the GOP but it's impossible to pass a campaign finance reform.
Both issues are popular (climate about 2/3, campaign finance about 4/5), but one is sweet sweet pork, and the other is a bitter pill.
Reminds me of capitalism - capitalism doesn't exist to deliver products our society needs, it exists to deliver products that make a profit. Similarly, parties don't exist to solve every problem of our nation, but just the ones where donors can make money.
@evan
Yeah, there's that. Whichever reason makes the 1/3 not be like many of us were during VN, it spells doom for life globally as we know it. The small protest by "climate activists" at the Burning Man thing, treated roundly by media and local LE as a bunch of what Nixon dismissed as "dirty hippies" is illustrative to me that there is lip service rather thsn commitment.
@Waterloo2 thank you for illustrating this logical fallacy!
I was able to find this recent poll in about 30 seconds that refutes your priors. 90% of respondents in Florida say climate change is real. A majority support climate action policy.
I think this indicates how misinformed we are by our media in North America.
I am starting to believe that we will make no real progress against global problems until we pry media control away from the billionaires. There has to be a better balance between free speech and the deadly, criminal misinformation pouring out of our broadcast and print media.
@promovicz@evan all these studies suffer from an attitude-behavior gap. Let 100% support 'some' climate action in general, but as soon as your gas-guzzling SUV gets taxed a bit higher, you start to storm the capitol...
@evan There is a whole host of pro-social policies that 60-70% of Americans support that the political establishment (Democratic and Republican) are paid to ignore.
@virtuous_sloth I think you're wrong here. The Biden administration set ambitious goals, re-entered the Paris Agreement, and passed the IRA. It's been extremely active on climate change.
@evan depends if you mean the broad concept or an actual concept, any actual concept. I suspect the broad idea has high support, but people don't actually support any of the real actions.
"We need to take action against climate change"
"Yes!"
"We want to take these three actions to reduce our emissions"
"No!"
"How about these three actions"
"No! We don't want to actually change our lifestyle at all, make other people change"
@evan wouldn't this depend on your definition of climate action? I'd suspect a small majority of Americans support some level of action, as long as it doesn't inconvenience them, a large minority would support action that creates some inconvenience (eg using more renewables), as long as it doesn't force them to think too much about their own contributions to climate change.
But I'll bet the number who'd support meaningful action is under 25%.
@evan it does sound like that, yes. But I think the answer to the poll varies so widely depending on the definition that it's probably something that's needed.
Or maybe a more useful question would be what percentage of Americans believe that global warming is real and is caused by humans but don't support action.
@nm@evan
Reminder that 90% of the problem isn't average citizens, even average americans, but the iron grip that the megacorporations which make most of the pollution have had on our politics, our media, and our discourse. Most people want this to happen, but are barred from changing it by capitalism.
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