Resources

Search below for resources covering the intersection of climate engagement, social science and data analytics.

RESULTS

Environmental Polling Roundup – December 20th, 2024

David Gold, Environmental Polling Consortium
Research & Articles
12-20-2024

This post includes climate and environment headlines, data points, and key takeaways from recent public polls - including a new analysis of Americans’ climate concerns by Gallup, a newly published academic paper about pro-climate messaging, and new polls of Arizona voters and American farmers.

Research & Articles
12-13-2024

The overwhelming majority of U.S. farmers want to increase funding for USDA’s voluntary conservation programs. 75% of U.S. agricultural producers support increasing long-term funding for USDA’s voluntary conservation programs. Only 5% of farmers disagreed. Approximately 90% of producers surveyed either supported or were neutral on Congress moving the remaining, unspent climate-smart agriculture funds permanently into Farm Bill conservation programs to provide additional long-term funding to help farmers and ranchers adopt climate-smart agriculture conservation practices now and in the future. 64% of producers surveyed either agreed or strongly agreed. 74% of producers surveyed said that they think USDA conservation program payments are important in helping producers improve their bottom line, reduce input costs, and modernize their operations.

Research & Articles
06-25-2024

This June 25 briefing features recent research on multiple climate politics topics. Rural voters support clean energy but are skeptical about moving away from fossil fuels. Climate’s effects on weather and on Americans’ wallets outperform other climate messages. All topics covered include renewable energy siting (courtesy of NRDC); rural clean energy attitudes (courtesy of the Rural Climate Partnership); new and different techniques to effectively communicate about climate change (courtesy of the Climate Action Campaign); and Americans' prioritization of different environmental issues and the ways that environmental priorities differ across audiences (courtesy of the Partnership Project Innovation Hub).

Climate Doom to Messy Hope: Climate Healing & Resilience

Meghan Wise for UBC Climate Hub's Climate Wellbeing Engagement Network
Research & Articles
06-12-2024

Grounded in a commitment to fostering deeper understandings and connections, this theory-to-practice handbook aims to support mindful and proactive navigation of the escalating impacts of climate change on individual and community mental health and wellbeing.

Research & Articles
10-31-2023

Join the Rural Climate Partnership for a presentation on how we can use a benefits-forward narrative strategy to connect with rural people. Together, we'll explore 5 narrative keys that allow communicators to reach across cultural differences and avoid culture war frames to connect on shared values.

Western voters are deeply concerned about corporate interests harming Western lands and support a range of conservation solutions, including creating and protecting national monuments and doing more to regulate oil and gas operations on public lands. 87% of Western voters say that it’s important to them that a candidate supports conservation of public lands when deciding who to vote for in an election. 74% of Western voters say that they would feel more favorably about President Biden and his administration if they did more to focus efforts to protect and conserve public lands, parks, wildlife, and monuments. 71% of Western voters say that they are more likely to vote for someone who prioritizes protecting public lands from being taken over by private developers and oil and mining corporations. 70% of Western voters say that the government should do more to create and protect national monuments on public land that has significant historical, scenic, or scientific value for the future.

Poll: Rural voters may be swingable

Center for Rural Strategies and Lake Research Partners
Research & Articles
07-15-2023

While partisanship remains strong among the rural electorate, more than one-third (37%) of rural voters appear "swingable" in future elections, depending on resonant policy proposals and messaging. Three messaging points — lowering prices; bringing good-paying jobs to local communities; and a populist message focused on corporate greed — received such broad support that they rivaled voters’ agreement on core values like family and freedom. Read additional analysis in the Daily Yonder's coverage.

Tips & How-Tos
04-25-2023

The Fairbanks Climate Action Coalition (FCAC) is working to advance a Just Transition away from fossil fuel extraction and towards renewable energy and a regenerative economy in interior Alaska. For several years, FCAC’s Renewable Energy Working Group has been organizing around their local electric utility cooperative, Golden Valley Electric Association (GVEA), to support more generation from renewable energy sources and energy justice initiatives and decarbonization of electricity. FCAC’s organizing efforts have supported more pro-renewable candidates to be democratically elected to the GVEA’s Board of Directors and pushed the utility to consider community solar projects and on-bill financing. A major win came in June 2022 when the GVEA Board adopted a strategic generation plan including a commitment to close down one of their coal plants and pursue a large scale wind power project.

In this webinar, FCAC shares learnings from their Microgrant Report: Cooperative Opportunity: Clean Energy documenting the development of their campaign, sharing reflections on how their organizing structure led to wins, the challenges they faced, and the lessons that can be learned to succeed in future campaigns.

Survey Shows Pathway To Speeding Up EV Adoption in Rural Areas

Maria Cecilia Pinto de Moura. Union of Concerned Scientists
Research & Articles
03-14-2023

There is plenty of interest in electric vehicles (EVs) in rural areas, but there is a huge knowledge gap about what it is like to own an EV. In a nationally representative 2020 survey, across urban, suburban and rural areas, 4% of the respondents with valid driver’s licenses said they would definitely plan to get an EV for their next vehicle. In the latest survey, which was fielded in early 2022, this share has increased from 4% overall to 11% in rural areas and 18% in urban areas. An additional 18% of rural dwellers and 25% of urban dwellers would seriously consider buying or leasing an EV if they were to get a vehicle today. When considering respondents who would definitely plan and seriously consider (not including those who are open to getting one in the future), this adds up to 29% of rural drivers who would at least seriously consider buying or leasing an EV. Among rural dwellers, only 6% said they were very familiar with the fundamentals of buying and owning an EV, while 30% said they were somewhat familiar. One of the reasons for this lack of familiarity could be the scarcity of EVs in rural areas: only 27% of rural dwellers have seen an EV in their neighborhood in the past month compared to more than half of urban dwellers, and even fewer have a friend, relative or co-worker who owns an EV. A whopping 90% of rural dwellers have never been a passenger in an EV, and almost nobody has ever driven one.