Climate change – not happening, says your average Republican.
Not so fast. A new survey released April 26 by Yale and George Mason universities found that twice as many conservatives believe that global warming is a threat compared to two years ago. Now 47% believe climate change is real, up 19% from 2014, according to the Yale Climate Program.
The jump is the single biggest change among voting groups, said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. He said the change in attitude could be in part from a reduction in attacks against climate science and policy by conservative politicians.
“In this presidential race, climate change hasn’t come up on the Republican side at all…It means that none of the political discourse, the discussion among the Republican Party right now, is addressing climate change at all. That’s actually an improvement in the discourse.”
Both Donald Trump and Senator Ted Cruz (R-FL) are staunch climate science deniers, which, it seems, now puts them at odds with almost half of their base. Leiserowitz said this may have given some Republican voters space to contemplate the issue independently, “because they’re not hearing a constant barrage of ‘This is a liberal hoax.’ ”
Not surprisingly, the survey found enthusiasm for climate change debate and change among liberal Democrats. It ranked as the sixth most important policy items out of 23 on the survey, behind the economy, health care, income inequality, protecting the environment and education.
To some Republicans, that finding rings some alarm bells. Christian Ferry, who ran Senator Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) presidential campaign, said in an email to Scientific American:
“I think if these trends continue, Republicans will find themselves out of step with voters who believe climate change is real. I think Republicans should be trying to find areas of agreement with pro-environmental voters and seek to emphasize those areas rather than focus on the different views about whether or not climate change is real or the role mankind plays or doesn’t play in it.”
Featured image via YouTube screengrab
