The nation desperately needs to find common ground and the polls suggest that climate action may be part of the process of coming together. Despite deep divisions there is reason to believe that climate action is a shared concern that can unite Americans.
Polls show that support for climate action has increased in the U.S. despite the disinformation coming from President Trump, the GOP and the fossil fuel industry. This includes support for the Green New Deal. A poll from the Yale Program for Climate Communication showed that 70 percent of voters favor federal COVID-19 stimulus funding going to clean energy rather than fossil fuels.
In 2019 it was becoming clear that Americans were increasingly at odds with their government on climate action. Climate change was an important issue for many voters in the 2020 election and it contributed to president-elect Joe Biden’s decisive victory. Prior to the election an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll indicated that 58 percent of registered voters thought that Biden would address the climate problem better than President Trump (only 19 percent think Trump would be better at managing the climate crisis than Biden). Biden was elected on a platform that pledges to prioritize climate action.
An Pew Research Center poll release in April indicates that the majority of Americans think climate action should be a top priority for the president and the Congress. This is the highest level of support for climate action in the survey’s nearly 20-year history. Another Pew poll released at the end of June indicates that almost two-thirds of voters think the federal government is not doing enough to mitigate climate change. Roughly 79 percent of Americans said the U.S. should make developing alternative sources of energy like wind and solar a priority.
Although climate denial remains strong among evangelicals there are signs that this view is softening. As reported by Religion News, only 32 percent of white evangelical Protestants see global warming as a very serious problem (that is still 7 percent higher than the 25 percent of Republicans who accept the veracity of the climate crisis). In 2013 only 17 percent of white evangelicals saw climate change as a serious problem. This trend towards a fact based appreciation of climate change may be driven by young evangelicals who appear to be less dogmatic than their parents.
We cannot understand climate denial without factoring Trump’s impact. Climate denial is one of the defining features of his mendacious presidency. “I don’t believe it,” President Trump said in response to a question about the federal government’s report on climate change. “It’s not based on facts,” asserted Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Trump’s war against nature is powered by his symbiotic relationship with the fossil fuel industry and this is influencing Republicans. In his first year in office, the proportion of Republicans who believed that global warming is caused by human activity, and that it has already begun, dropped from 40 percent to one-third.
Americans harbor some of the most inaccurate views on the veracity and urgency of climate change in the world. Disinformation from Trump, the fossil fuel industry and their Republican minions have made the United States a bastion of climate denial. The fossil fuel industry has known that they are the leading cause of climate change for decades yet they have used their immense wealth and power to buy politicians and political outcomes. They bury the truth and disseminate multiple streams of disinformation in a cynical bid to protect their profits. The American Petroleum Institute (API) has also been peddling climate denial for decades.
Students are on the front lines of climate disinformation. The fossil fuel industry is behind efforts to prevent our children from getting a science-based education and deny them access to the facts about climate change. To do this they use front groups like the Heartland Institute to target kids with disinformation. Such disinformation efforts actively prevent teachers from sharing climate science.
The fossil fuel industry has bought the Republican party who have become chief disseminators of climate deception. Despite this malfeasance, there is reason for optimism as the polls show that Americans are not rejecting the GOP’s disinformation. Republicans subterfuge is being exposed including the argument that suggests Americans cannot afford to act on climate change (fact based analyses convincing reveal that climate action far outweighs the cost of inaction). The COVID-19 pandemic has also helped many Americans to appreciate the importance of science. Even in 2018 it was apparent that Republicans are increasingly at odds with their president.
With the help of strategies to bridge the political divide and approaches to communicate the science we appear to be making progress. Polls reveal growing support for the veracity of climate change and this may one day force Republicans to embrace the facts and unite as one nation under God.
Small Business Owners Support Climate Action
Infographic - Growing Belief in Global Warming by State (Even Among Republicans!)
The US is More Accepting of Climate Change (2012)
Extreme Weather is Causing More Americans to Accept Climate Change and Call for Government Action (2012)
The Stark Partisan Divide on Global Warming (2012)
Earth Day Poll Shows the Environment is Important (2012)
US Citizens Want Government Action on the Environment (2012)
US Environmental Attitudes 2007 - 2012
Environmental Gap Narrowing Between Democrats and Republicans (2012)
Republicans at Odds with American Public on Climate Change (2012)
The US is More Accepting of Climate Change (2012)
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