The results show that there is broad consensus among the American public that climate change is happening
and that government should do something about it. Here are the
percentages in each state who believe global warming is happening.
The overwhelming majority agree, not
only in liberal states like New York (84%) and California (82%), but
also in conservative states like Mississippi (82%) and Texas (84%).
At least 75% of residents in every state surveyed believe in the
existence of climate change. (There were a couple of states for
which Krosnick lacked enough data to make a reliable estimate.)
Sixty-five percent or more in every state believe that global warming
is caused by humans, and 58% or more believe that it poses a serious
problem for the United States. Krosnick believes that personal experience with hot weather is primarily responsible for these opinion changes.
There was only slightly less agreement
on whether the U. S. government should take action to address climate
change. In only four sparsely populated Western states (ID, MT, NV,
UT) did the majority not agree that the government should do more.
Here are the percentages by state who believe government should limit
greenhouse gas emissions from U. S. businesses.
Similar majorities favor limiting
emissions of greenhouse gases from power plants, tax breaks to
produce renewable energy, and a cap-and-trade system to limit
greenhouse gas production. You can go to this site to check out the maps for all the questions that were reported. If you would like to
take a closer look at Pennsylvania's results, they are here.
Where did the public draw the line? In
only five states did bare majorities endorse tax breaks for nuclear
power. And in no state did a near-majority endorse consumption taxes
on gasoline or electricity, or government support for all-electric
cars.
These data are not new, but they seem
to be sharply at odds with previous statements about American public
opinion on climate change made by politicians and the corporate
media. The consistency across states is particularly surprising.
Here is Krosnick's take on how American public opinion is represented
politically.
I have often heard legislators in Washington express the belief that there is
considerable variation in opinions about global warming across parts
of the country, and that most of the people in their state or
district are skeptical about global warming. When I ask about the
polling they have done that led them to this belief, I have routinely
been told that they had not done polling and, instead, base their
impressions on phone calls, emails and conversations with and from
constituents on the issue. Our findings suggest that the balance of
those direct communications from constituents to elected
representatives may have created a misimpression of the public's
opinions on the issue.
My guess is that Krosnick is trying to
be diplomatic. This is not the first time politicians have been show to misperceive voter attitudes. Not only do Congresspeople not hear from a random
sample of constituents, the ones they do hear from are primarily
large campaign contributors.
Now that these data are available to
Congress, we will have yet another opportunity to observe whether the
American political system is responsive to public opinion. Would you
like to estimate the chances of these surveys having an impact?
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