Environmental Polling Roundup – June 28, 2024
HEADLINES
Data for Progress – Heat continues to rank as Americans’ top extreme weather concern, and voters overwhelmingly support measures to help Americans cope with it – including expanded disaster relief funding, investments in cooling infrastructure, and new requirements for landlords [Article, Crosstabs]
Navigator – Despite partisan differences, voters widely agree that extreme weather is getting worse in the U.S. [Release, Report]
Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (YPCCC) – Explaining how climate change makes extreme heat worse, using the Climate Shift Index, increases Americans’ belief that climate change is a factor in extreme heat events [Release, Open Access Article]
Yale + GMU – “Pro-climate voters” make up a large share of the electorate, are eager to vote, and are enthusiastic about the IRA [Article]
LCV + Climate Power – Trump is vulnerable to messaging on his climate and energy record [Memo]
Data for Progress – Voters agree that there is a role for national service programs in the fight against climate change, and continue to widely back the American Climate Corps when they learn about it [Article, Crosstabs]
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Few deny that extreme weather is getting worse, even as the idea of extreme weather has become politicized. It’s now very common to see sharp partisan splits in people’s perceptions of the weather, as Americans have come to see extreme weather as part of the debate over climate change. Democrats and Republicans tend to differ not just in how much they attribute extreme weather to climate change, but even in their recognition that extreme weather is becoming more frequent. Encouragingly, then, Navigator finds that majorities across party lines currently say that extreme weather is getting worse in the U.S. – indicating that the reality of extreme weather is becoming undeniable even among those who are ideologically inclined to dismiss it.
- Reminding people about extreme heat, and using clear language about extreme heat’s link to climate change, increases beliefs about the climate-heat connection. Researchers at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (YPCCC) have come out with a timely study showing that communicators can deepen the connection between climate change and extreme heat for the public by using the Climate Shift Index and expressing the impact of climate change as a percentage (e.g., climate change made a particular heat wave “at least 400% more likely”). Additionally, their research finds that simply prompting people to recall an extreme heat incident makes them more likely to see a connection between climate change and extreme heat.
GOOD DATA POINTS TO HIGHLIGHT
- [Extreme Weather] 65% of voters recognize that the impact of extreme weather events is getting worse in the U.S. [Navigator]
- [Heat Mitigation] 80% of voters support FEMA adding extreme heat and wildfire smoke to the list of disasters to which they respond and allocate disaster relief funding [Data for Progress]
- [Heat Mitigation] 80% of voters support their state or municipality investing in cool roofs and cool pavements [Data for Progress]
- [Heat Mitigation] 79% of voters support requiring landlords to provide renters with air conditioning or indoor cooling in areas that experience extreme heat events [Data for Progress]
- [Heat Mitigation] 79% of voters support programs that specifically invest in cooling infrastructure for marginalized communities [Data for Progress]
- [American Climate Corps] 77% of voters support the American Climate Corps when provided with a brief description of it [Data for Progress]
FULL ROUNDUP
Data for Progress – Heat continues to rank as Americans’ top extreme weather concern, and voters overwhelmingly support measures to help Americans cope with it – including expanded disaster relief funding, investments in cooling infrastructure, and new requirements for landlords [Article, Crosstabs]
As we frequently see in environmental polling, voters are more concerned about extreme heat than any other type of extreme weather. Nearly one-quarter (24%) name extreme heat as the type of extreme weather event that concerns them most, ranking it ahead of other concerns such as tornadoes (16%), hurricanes (13%), and drought (9%).
Most voters say that the federal government’s disaster relief efforts are falling short. Majorities say that the federal government is not doing enough to support Americans with disaster relief (56%) and to provide information and resources about disaster relief programs (58%). Black voters are particularly likely to say that the government is lacking in these areas.
It also strikes voters as common sense to add extreme heat and wildfire smoke to the list of disasters that FEMA covers, with 80% in favor of FEMA responding and allocating disaster relief funding to these events.
Voters support a range of proposals to help Americans deal with extreme heat. When provided with basic explanations of these proposals, overwhelming majorities support each of them:
- Your state or municipality investing in cool roofs and cool pavements – 80% support
- Requiring landlords to provide renters with air conditioning or indoor cooling in areas that experience extreme heat events – 79% support
- Programs that specifically invest in cooling infrastructure for marginalized communities – 79% support
These proposals to help alleviate extreme heat also all enjoy bipartisan support, with at least 86% of Democrats and 71% of Republicans in favor of each.
Navigator – Despite partisan differences, voters widely agree that extreme weather is getting worse in the U.S. [Release, Report]
The clear majority of voters agree that extreme weather is getting worse in the U.S. Overall, nearly two-thirds (65%) say that the impact of extreme weather events is getting worse nationally. While Democrats (74%) are more likely to recognize this than Republicans (56%), majorities from both parties can agree that extreme weather is getting worse for the country as a whole.
A lower but still substantial percentage say that extreme weather is getting worse in their own local area. Around two in five (41%) say that the impact of extreme weather is getting worse in the community where they live, including half of Democrats (51%) but only about one-third of Republicans (32%).
It’s very common for voters to view problems as bigger issues for the country than for their own community. Navigator asked about eight different issues in this poll, such as the affordability of housing, the crime rate, and the level of political violence. For every single one, voters were more likely to say that the problem was getting worse at the national level than to say that it was getting worse in their own community.
The partisan differences here are also very consistent with other polling. As extreme weather has become associated with climate change, Democrats are far more likely than Republicans to report experiences with extreme weather and to say that climate change is a factor behind extreme weather events.
Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (YPCCC) – Explaining how climate change makes extreme heat worse, using the Climate Shift Index, increases Americans’ belief that climate change is a factor in extreme heat events [Release, Open Access Article]
Researchers at the YPCCC have released a timely study demonstrating how communicators can more persuasively draw the connection between climate change and extreme heat.
Using the Climate Shift Index (CSI), a tool developed by Climate Central for explaining how much climate change influences daily temperatures, YPCCC researchers tested different ways of explaining how climate change contributed to the July 2023 heat wave in a nationwide survey.
In each test condition, respondents were reminded about the heat wave: “In July 2023, a major heat wave covered much of the US. More than 85% of Americans experienced temperatures above 90 degrees Fahrenheit, with millions of people across the southern US experiencing temperatures over 100 degrees.”
Respondents were then provided with different explanations of climate change’s contribution to the heat wave, including three different ways of expressing the Climate Shift Index (CSI):
- Standard CSI: Scientists say these high temperatures were made at least 5 times more likely by climate change.
- CSI as a %: Scientists say the high temperatures were made at least 400% more likely by climate change.
- CSI as a time period: Scientists say that before climate change, a heat wave like this might have occurred only once every five years. But because of climate change, a heatwave like this is now likely to occur at least once each year.
Overall, they found that expressing the Climate Shift Index as a percentage (“scientists say the high temperatures were made at least 400% more likely by climate change”) was the most effective at communicating how climate change made the heat wave more likely.
Additionally, all test conditions increased beliefs that climate change is making extreme heat more likely and worse – demonstrating how reminding people about extreme weather events can positively impact their climate beliefs, even without explicitly mentioning climate change.
Pulling from the “Discussion” section of the paper:
“Informing people about the impact of climate change on a specific heat wave increases beliefs that climate change made that heat wave, as well as heat waves generally in the US, ‘a lot’ or ‘extremely’ more likely. This is the case regardless of how the information is framed or what explanations are used…
We also found that using percentages, rather than the standard CSI format which uses magnitude, was the more effective way to communicate the links between climate change and a specific heatwave. This finding corroborates previous qualitative research which suggested that conditional probability (i.e., 400%) is easier to understand than natural frequency (e.g., one in two) or magnitude (e.g., five times)…
Unexpectedly, we also found that just talking about the July 2023 heat wave, without mentioning climate change, was enough to positively impact beliefs that climate change is making heat waves more likely and worse, both for the July 2023 heat wave and heat waves in the US in general. One possible explanation for this finding is previous exposure to news media which linked the heat wave to climate change… Potentially our active control condition then acted as a prompt to recall this existing knowledge. Note that although talking about the heat wave was better than not mentioning it, directly explaining the impact of climate change was even more effective…
Contrary to some previous research, we did not find a backfire effect from our message treatments for climate skeptics… Even where treatment effects were not significant, they always moved in a positive rather than negative direction.”
Yale + GMU – “Pro-climate voters” make up a large share of the electorate, are eager to vote, and are enthusiastic about the IRA [Article]
Using data from their latest “Climate Change in the American Mind” survey, researchers at Yale and GMU have identified and analyzed a segment of voters that both rank global warming as “very important” in their vote for president and prefer a candidate who supports action on global warming over one who opposes action.
These “pro-climate voters” make up 37% of all registered voters nationwide, and therefore have the potential to make a big impact in the races for president and other offices this fall. (Note that the majority of voters consistently favor candidates who support climate action, but this “pro-climate voter” definition only includes voters who also say that climate change is important in their vote.)
Yale and GMU find that “pro-climate voters” are diverse, eager to vote, and enthusiastic about the IRA – though many still haven’t heard much about it. Pulling from the article, with emphasis added in bold:
“Just over one-third (37%) of registered voters in the U.S. are pro-climate voters. Notably, an additional 25% of registered voters also prefer a candidate who supports climate action even though they do not say that global warming is a very important voting issue to them. Most other respondents indicated that climate change will not factor into their voting choices, but importantly, virtually no registered voters said that global warming was a very important issue and that they prefer a candidate who opposes action.
Liberal Democrats are the group most likely to be pro-climate voters (70%), followed by urban residents (47%), Moderate/Conservative Democrats (47%), those with a Bachelor’s degree or higher (45%), and Hispanics/Latinos (43%).
…
Our research since 2022 has found that relatively few voters have heard much about the IRA, although this number has been increasing over time. Here, we find that this trend persists even among pro-climate voters. Only about half of pro-climate voters say they have heard ‘some’ or ‘a lot’ about the IRA (47%), although the proportion is higher than all other voters (35%).
After reading a short description of the IRA… a majority of registered voters supported it. However, pro-climate voters supported the IRA much more strongly (97%) than other voters (61%).
In addition, we asked registered voters how likely they are to vote in the November 2024 presidential election. Pro-climate voters are more likely (89% ‘very likely’ and 7% ‘somewhat likely’) compared with other voters (82% “very likely” and 9% ‘somewhat likely’).”
LCV + Climate Power – Trump is vulnerable to messaging on his climate and energy record [Memo]
Following up on the deck that they released last week of recent battleground state polling, this memo from LCV and Climate Power lays out how Trump is vulnerable to messaging on his climate and clean energy record. Pulling their four overarching takeaways from the memo:
- “Attacking Trump for his harmful record on climate and energy issues moves the vote in Biden’s favor and increases voters’ sense that Trump is ‘dangerous.’
- Two strong messaging lanes resonate broadly with persuasion audiences: Trump prioritizes his own personal interests over future generations, and Trump would let corporate polluters poison our communities with toxic chemicals.
- Trump is vulnerable on job losses. Highlighting how Trump’s plans to end clean energy investments would lead to layoffs and hurt local communities resonates across audiences and aligns with multiple frames.
- Too many voters that Biden needs to win mistakenly believe a Trump presidency would benefit them. Voters care about energy costs and need to see how Trump’s policies will raise their costs, while Biden’s will reduce costs.”
Data for Progress – Voters agree that there is a role for national service programs in the fight against climate change, and continue to widely back the American Climate Corps when they learn about it [Article, Crosstabs]
Voters widely support the American Climate Corps when they learn about it. Voters support the American Climate Corps by an overwhelming 77%-16% margin when provided with the description below:
“Recently, lawmakers created a new national program called the American Climate Corps (ACC). Members of the ACC will be paid to spend one year working on conservation, sustainability, public works, green infrastructure projects, and other
related efforts. This program will hire 20,000 Americans over its first year. Some of the benefits of the ACC will include:
- On-the-job training opportunities
- Assistance paying for school or student loans
- Pathways into civil service and clean energy jobs”
Earlier polling this year by Climate Power and Data for Progress also found large majority support for the ACC (65% support / 28% oppose) based on a slightly different description.
The ACC is particularly popular with young voters aged 18-34, with 83% supporting it in this most recent poll.
Touting the benefits of the ACC – including climate action and jobs for young people – beats back the common critique that the government should focus on other problems first. By a 53%-35% margin, voters side more with a positive argument in favor of the ACC than a negative argument against it:
- [Supportive Argument] “Just like the Civilian Conservation Corps put thousands of young people to work during the Great Depression, our national public service organizations can fill the urgent need to address climate change and pollution now, while giving young people the opportunity to serve local communities.”
- [Opposition Argument] “Our national public service organizations should not focus on addressing climate change when our local communities already face so many other immediate challenges, like underfunded education systems, that could benefit more from young people working in public service.”
Young people are most attracted to the ideas of earning a living wage and making a difference in their community. When asked to choose up to three options from a long list of possible reasons why people might join a public service organization, young voters aged 18-34 are most likely to select these as important reasons to them:
- Earning a living wage (e.g. $17 an hour) with full benefits, like healthcare
- Making a difference in their local community
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