A new report finds strong support for clean energy, international climate agreements, and cutting carbon pollution – across the political spectrum
It’s almost an accepted dogma that in the United States (and in several other countries), liberals are much more in favor of taking actions to curb climate change whereas conservatives block such actions. That’s certainly true within the halls of power. For instance, in the United States, it has become a litmus test for Republication candidates to deny humans are causing climate change, to try to claim that it isn’t important, in many cases to demonize the messengers (the scientists), and to work to halt climate science so we won’t know how bad the problem is.
Conventional wisdom – and in fact the seemingly obvious message from this past election – is that this denial is good politics. If you want to get elected as a conservative, you have got to be anti-science.
A large majority of Americans want our nation to step up and do its part to limit climate change, and nearly all Americans understand that a clean energy economy is our destiny.
The single most surprising thing we learned in this survey was that 8 out of 10 Americans want our nation to limit global warming pollution by regulating it, taxing it, or both, while only 1 out of ten prefer for the United States to take neither action.