This post includes climate and environment headlines, data points, and key takeaways from recent public polls - including new polls focusing on voters of color, young people, and Latinos.

Harness climate concerns shared by people of color. This survey of people of color about their attitudes toward climate change reveal that they are paying close attention to the issue and are motivated to get involved with climate solutions. The results show that people of color feel a strong sense of urgency to tackle climate change and are overwhelmingly more likely to support political candidates who prioritize the issue.

Building long-lasting grassroots power requires centering concrete issues and the humanity of individuals you’re organizing. Many organizations in West Virginia are cultivating organizers, building organizations that can sustainably organize local communities according to their needs for years to come, incorporating mutual aid, and more, in an effort to win and wield political power. In this article, The Forge contributor Mat Hanson discussed organizational strategies with multiple people involved in grassroots power building in West Virginia: Katey Lauer, co-chair of West Virginia Can’t Wait; Nicole McCormick, a founding member of the West Virginia United caucus and rank-and-file leader in the successful teacher’s strike; Dr. Shanequa Smith of Restorative Actions and the Black Voters Impact Initiative; and Joe Solomon, the co-founder and co-director of Solutions Oriented Addiction Response (SOAR), a volunteer-based organization that advocates for harm-reduction strategies to the opioid crisis.

In 2020, there were about 6 million Afro-Latino adults in the United States. They made up about 2% of the U.S. adult population and 12% of the adult Latino population. About one-in-seven Afro-Latinos – or an estimated 800,000 adults – do not identify as Hispanic. The life experiences of Afro-Latinos are shaped by race, skin tone and other factors, in ways that differ from other Hispanics. The multiple dimensions of Latino identity reflect the long colonial history of Latin America, during which mixing occurred among indigenous Americans, White Europeans, Asians and enslaved people from Africa.

This post includes climate and environment headlines, data points, and key takeaways from recent public polls - including new polling on clean energy investment as part of Biden’s economic plan; “direct pay” reforms to better incentivize clean energy production; electric vehicles and ethanol; and state-level polls in California and Massachusetts.

A majority of Nevadans are concerned about the impact of global warming, especially when it comes to the rise in wildfires in the West and resulting poor air quality.

• That sentiment is strongest in Washoe County, where the past two summers have been smoke-filled due to catastrophic wildfires in California. Almost all Washoe County residents polled have concerns about wildfires and resulting air pollution.  
• More than half of those polled in Clark County and nearly two-thirds of those in Washoe County said climate change impacts them daily, including 69% of Black respondents. 
• 78% of those aged 18-24 agreed climate change is impacting their lives, while less than half of those aged 65-74 agreed.
• The lone segment of Nevadans who did not report seeing a daily impact due to climate change was rural Nevada, where more than three-quarters said global warming doesn’t impact them.
• Nevadans on both sides of major political party lines are united by concern about the recent rise in the size, frequency and severity of wildfires — 95% of Democrats and 72% of Republicans agreed it’s a problem.
• While wildfire concerns span party lines, concerns about air quality do not — 90% of Democrats are concerned, as opposed to only 48% of Republicans.

A recent survey that asked Americans about their willingness to "support an organization engaging in non-violent civil disobedience against corporate or government activities that make global warming worse" and about their willingness to "personally engage in such non-violent civil disobedience themselves" found: 

• Among the Six Americas segments, the Alarmed are the most likely to support an organization engaging in non-violent civil disobedience; half (50%) said they “definitely” (21%) or “probably” (29%) would support such an organization.
• 28% of the Alarmed said they “definitely” (10%) or “probably” (18%) would personally engage in non-violent civil disobedience against corporate or government activities that make global warming worse, if asked to by a person they liked and respected. The ten percent of the Alarmed who are “definitely willing” to personally engage in non-violent civil disobedience represents approximately 8.6 million American adults.
• Millennial and younger adults are more likely to support organizations engaging in non-violent civil disobedience than older generations -- with 35% stating they “definitely would” (14%) or “probably would” (21%) support them -- and also more likely to say they would personally engage in non-violent civil disobedience to protect the climate; 8% said they “definitely would” and 12% said they “probably would,” if asked to by a person they liked and respected.
• People of color are more likely than whites to support organizations engaging in non-violent civil disobedience. About one third (34%) of Black Americans “definitely would” (12%) or “probably would” (22%), and about one third (35%) of Hispanics/Latinos “definitely would” (14%) or “probably would” (21%) support such organizations.
• People of color are also more likely than whites to say they would personally engage in non-violent civil disobedience in defense of the climate; about one in six Hispanics/Latinos (6% “definitely would” and 11% “probably would”) and one in five Black Americans (5% “definitely would” and 17% “probably would”) say they would engage in such actions, if asked to by a person they liked and respected.

This post includes climate and environment headlines, data points, and key takeaways from recent public polls - including new polling about Build Back Better and clean energy incentives, a new poll of Black and Latino Americans about climate and environmental justice issues, new findings from Yale and George Mason’s long-running “Six Americas” tracking study, and a newly released summary of the past year’s polling on climate and environmental issues.

You can also find a press release on the EPC’s end-of-year polling takeaways here, which was put out this week by EDF Action, the League of Conservation Voters, NRDC, Sierra Club, and the Climate Action Campaign.

Policies for the People is a website featuring policies to support Black climate justice leadership. The policies on the site have been selected to provide holistic support to those resisting extractivism and creating regenerative and democratic systems in their communities. This is an ongoing project and these policies are just a small sample of what we plan to include. New policies will be added regularly. Some examples include “Baltimore’s Water Accountability and Equity Act,” “California Cooperative Housing Bill,” and “Colorado Just Transition Fund, 21-1290.”

A poll of 600 registered voters across Connecticut revealed a number of helpful data points about current voter attitudes towards clean energy and fossil fuels including: