* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Download N E T
Climatic Research Unit documents wikipedia , lookup
Climate governance wikipedia , lookup
Climate engineering wikipedia , lookup
Climate change and agriculture wikipedia , lookup
Effects of global warming on humans wikipedia , lookup
Climate change denial wikipedia , lookup
Citizens' Climate Lobby wikipedia , lookup
Economics of climate change mitigation wikipedia , lookup
German Climate Action Plan 2050 wikipedia , lookup
Economics of global warming wikipedia , lookup
Media coverage of global warming wikipedia , lookup
2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference wikipedia , lookup
Fred Singer wikipedia , lookup
Climate change and poverty wikipedia , lookup
Climate change in New Zealand wikipedia , lookup
Instrumental temperature record wikipedia , lookup
Attribution of recent climate change wikipedia , lookup
Climate change mitigation wikipedia , lookup
Global warming controversy wikipedia , lookup
Low-carbon economy wikipedia , lookup
Climate change, industry and society wikipedia , lookup
Physical impacts of climate change wikipedia , lookup
Effects of global warming on Australia wikipedia , lookup
Scientific opinion on climate change wikipedia , lookup
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change wikipedia , lookup
Solar radiation management wikipedia , lookup
Climate change in the United States wikipedia , lookup
Surveys of scientists' views on climate change wikipedia , lookup
Global warming hiatus wikipedia , lookup
Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme wikipedia , lookup
Global warming wikipedia , lookup
Politics of global warming wikipedia , lookup
Climate change feedback wikipedia , lookup
IPCC Fourth Assessment Report wikipedia , lookup
Mitigation of global warming in Australia wikipedia , lookup
GLOBAL WARMING OPINION POLLS: AMERICANS ARE CLEAR— NO ENERGY TAXES SPPI ORIGINAL PAPER ♦ August 28, 2012 GLOBAL WARMING OPINION POLLS: AMERICANS ARE CLEAR — NO ENERGY TAXES The public opinion of Americans, as captured by various polling organizations over the past few years, can generally and concisely be summed up as: The earth is warming Human activities probably have something to do with this (although the impacts are being exaggerated) We have many more important concerns (jobs, economy, etc.) that we think Congress and the President ought to focus on, and Any action that is aimed at mitigating greenhouse gas emissions should not cost us much, if anything at all (and direct taxes on gasoline or electricity are out). The actual degree of public opinion of these points fluctuates a bit over time, based upon nearterm weather events, how much climate change, including climate change scandals (such as the contents of the Climategate 1 and Climategate 2 email troves), is in the news, and other external issues such as the economy. But the general feeling has been pretty How long the American public will much been in place for probably a stand for politicians allowing the EPA decade or more and has resulted in no real legislation despite on-again-offto essentially make laws is unclear. again efforts in Congress to pass some sort of law to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the U.S.—an indication that Americans really do not support such actions. Further evidence of this comes from the 2010 election results in which Democrats in the House of Representatives paid a price for their June, 2009 passage of the cap-and-trade bill that was aimed at reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. Every close race that they lost in those elections evicted a member who had voted for the cap-and-trade program. In the Senate, (which never voted on the cap-and-trade legislation) every close race went to an incumbent 2 Democrat. Clearly, American’s did not look with favor upon their Representatives which supported higher energy taxes. For probably all of the reasons above, and despite President Obama’s comments in Rolling Stone magazine last April that “I suspect that over the next six months, this (climate change) is going to be a debate that will become part of the campaign, and I will be very clear in voicing my belief that we're going to have to take further steps to deal with climate change in a serious way” climate Candidate Mitt Romney has indicated change has not received much his effort to amend the Clean Air Act to attention in this year’s campaign—and probably will not do so during the effectively repeal the court ruling that remainder of the election season. allows the law to be used to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. But while the politicians do not want to explicitly address the issue through legislation, they nevertheless do so implicitly by allowing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to continue to establish new regulations aimed at limiting greenhouse gas emissions. While some of these regulations have been struck down in court, others have survived legal challenges and are proceeding. How long the American public will stand for politicians allowing the EPA to essentially make laws is unclear, but actions are growing in Congress to try to strip the EPA of its authority to regulate greenhouse gases. While several proposed actions have been unsuccessful to date, others are still in the works. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has indicated his The largest group thinks that the effort to amend the Clean Air Act to effectively repeal the court ruling that allows seriousness of global warming is the law to be used to regulate greenhouse being exaggerated in the media. gas emissions. So while some opinion polls—such as one from March 2012 conducted jointly by researchers at Yale and George Mason Universities (http://environment.yale.edu/climate/files/Policy-Support-March-2012.pdf)—when taken on their own, can seem to indicate widespread support for energy regulations, the broader set of opinion polls tells a different story. Below are some highlights from a collection of recent polls taken by a breadth of organizations aimed at ascertaining American’s viewpoints of the many aspects of global warming and climate change—and how these opinions may have changed over time. 3 A March 2012 Gallup poll (http://www.gallup.com/poll/153608/global-warming-views-steadydespite-warm-winter.aspx) indicates that while a slight majority of Americans think that global warming is currently underway, and a slight majority think that human activities are primarily to blame, the largest group thinks that the seriousness of global warming is being exaggerated in the media. 4 According to a November 2011 opinion poll by the Pew Research Center (http://www.peoplepress.org/2011/12/01/modest-rise-in-number-saying-there-is-solid-evidence-of-globalwarming/1/) investigating a similar topic, the percentage of Americans that think that there is solid evidence that the earth is warming is 63% (down from 77% in 2007) with about 38% (down from 47% in 2007) that think that the warming is because of human activity. About 65% of the people polled thought that global warming was either a “somewhat” or “very serious” problem (down from 79% having that opinion in 2007), while 33% thought that global warming was either “not too serious” or “not a problem” (up from 20% in 2007). 5 But, in spite of these opinions, “global warming” has consistently ranked at or “Global warming” has consistently near the bottom of a long list of concerns ranked at or near the bottom of a long or “priorities” that the American public would prefer that the president and list of concerns or “priorities” that the Congress focus on. A January 2012 poll American public would prefer that the conducted by the Pew Research Center ranked the percentage of respondents president and Congress focus on. that considered 22 particular topics to be a “top priority” for Congress. Global warming came in dead last with only 25% of those polled considering it a top priority—down 13% over the past 5 years. While only one-quarter of the people ranked global warming as a top priority, 86% considered “economy” and 82% considered “jobs” to be top priorities. 6 Further support that Americans do not want a great deal of attention focused on global warming policies comes from a poll conducted by Stanford University (http://woods.stanford.edu/docs/ surveys/GW-Policy-Trend-2010-2012-1.pdf) in April 2012. In that poll found a drop in the percentage of people over the past two years that endorsed policies intended to reduce future The poll found that an overwhelming global warming. The poll found that an number of respondents were overwhelming number of respondents were opposed to increasing taxes on gasoline or opposed to increasing taxes on electricity to try to reduce greenhouse gas gasoline or electricity to try to reduce emissions, although a majority favored “tax breaks” to industries trying to develop new greenhouse gas emissions. methods for reducing greenhouse gas 7 emissions (e.g., improving automobile gas mileage, improving appliance efficiency, producing electricity from renewables). Over the past two years, support has eroded for “tax breaks” and opposition to higher gasoline and electricity taxes has increased. 8 Together the results from these recent polls indicate a very tepid, half-hearted support for actions aimed at lowering greenhouse gas emissions, preferring a nebulous “tax break” to companies developing new technologies, but strongly opposing direct taxes (which are more easily understood as making things cost more) on individual energy usage. With these results in mind, the cap-andtrade proposal are being replaced with The cap-and-trade proposal are being purportedly revenue neutral proposals in replaced with purportedly revenue which taxes on carbon are “offset” by reductions in income taxes or other tax neutral proposals in which taxes on rebates. The idea is that the total carbon are “offset” by reductions in amount of carbon tax collected each year would be returned to Americans on an income taxes or other tax rebates. equal share per capita basis, while the amount of individual taxes paid would be directly tied to how much carbon was individually used. If you cut back enough the amount of refund you would receive would exceed the amount of taxes you paid—further encouraging continued demand for efficiency and driving down emissions. However, critics of such a program point out that once the government collects the taxes, there will be a growing tendency for it to want to keep the taxes—with the net result of rising energy costs and the declines in productivity, etc. that would accompany them. Not to mention a lot of other details 9 which would require being worked out and sold to the American public—a public which, as the poll results clearly indicate, has much more urgent matters on their minds that they want the Congress and the president to attend to. In these hard economic times, it seems that most Americans would take a dim view of Congress or the president spending too much effort in focusing on global warming and some new tax and rebate plan, when their minds are on jobs, debt and entitlements. Given that it is widely known (even by government officials) that domestic greenhouse gas emissions reductions produce no detectable impacts on local, regional, or global climate, any money at all spent pursuing such reductions is money taken away from more pressing issues. As a consequence—barring some sort of catastrophic weather event (even though such events cannot be scientifically linked to anthropogenic climate change)—global warming will almost surely not be raised as a major issue in the 2012 presidential and congressional campaigns. 10 Cover art provided by Microsoft. 11