It’s Friday, June 26, and Americans want climate action — both Democrats and Republicans.
According to polling data released this week by the Pew Research Center, a majority of Americans want the government to take action to stop climate change.
The data confirmed widespread support for a number of measures to mitigate climate change, including planting 1 trillion trees and taxing corporations for their carbon pollution. Americans also love renewable energy, the report found: A strong majority of adults supports developing more U.S. wind and solar power. This confirms decades of polling showing that clean energy is popular.
Political affiliation is still the strongest determinant of Americans’ perception of climate change. Conservative Republicans are overwhelmingly more likely to say that climate change isn’t human-caused or that it isn’t impacting their communities. But moderate Republicans have gotten on the climate train — their views on climate change are now more in line with moderate Democrats’ than with those of conservative members of their own party. Young Republicans and Republican women are also more likely to support government intervention to promote clean energy and cut back on fossil fuels. This corroborates previous polling showing that young Republicans aren’t listening to their elders when it comes to climate denial.
“There remain big divides between Republicans and Democrats on some overarching questions about climate,” Alec Tyson, associate director of research at Pew, told Bloomberg Green. “At the same time, you see some bipartisan support for policies to address it.”
The Smog
Need-to-know basis
The Trump administration announced plans on Thursday to open up 82 percent of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska to oil and gas leasing. The National Petroleum Reserve was set aside in 1923 as an emergency oil supply for the Navy, but it contains protected conservation areas that will be threatened under the new plan.
Two Louisiana activists were arrested on Thursday on charges of “terrorizing” an oil and gas lobbyist for the horrific act of … sending the lobbyist a box of plastic pellets. The shipment, which occurred six months ago, had been intended as an act of protest against the petrochemical company Formosa’s illegal dumping of billions of pellets into waterways.
A new working paper from University of California, Berkeley, scientists found that Black households in the U.S. have significantly higher energy bills than white households — $273 more per year for Black renters and $408 more per year for Black homeowners. The gap could be explained in part by Black residents being more likely to live in older housing stock and less likely to be able to afford energy efficiency upgrades, but further research is needed.
