This post includes climate and environment headlines, data points, and key takeaways from recent public polls - including new national polling on oil and gas accountability, clean energy and infrastructure, and young voters, plus new polling in Florida on the state’s approach to climate change. 

HEADLINES

Climate change and the environment rank among President Biden’s biggest issue advantages over Trump with young voters, with clear room to grow. Voters under the age of 30 trust Biden by 16 points over Trump (58% Biden / 42% Trump) to protect the climate and environment.

Voters rank oil and gas as the country’s greediest industry, and continue to blame oil and gas companies more than anyone else for high gas prices. 56% of voters have unfavorable opinions of oil and gas companies, while just 34% feel favorably about them. Voters feel almost as negatively about oil and gas companies as they do about pharmaceutical companies (34% favorable / 59% unfavorable).

This post includes climate and environment headlines, data points, and key takeaways from recent public polls - including new polling on Americans’ climate attitudes and the Inflation Reduction Act. 

HEADLINES

Americans' opinions about climate change vary widely depending on where people live. Yale Program on Climate Communication just released a US Climate Opinion Factsheet Map tool. The factsheets include 22 key measures of public climate change knowledge, attitudes, policy support, and behavior for each of the 50 states, 271 congressional districts, and 3,142 counties across the U.S. The Factsheets make this state and local information even easier to use and share.

Americans overwhelmingly agree that climate change is a “serious problem,” and most say that the U.S. government should do more to address it. 73% of Americans recognize that the world’s climate is “undergoing a change that is causing more extreme weather patterns and the rise of sea levels”. 66% of Americans say that climate change is a “very” or “somewhat” serious problem. By a 59%-36% margin, more Americans support than oppose the U.S. government “doing more to reduce the type of activities that cause climate change and sea level rise”.

This post includes climate and environment headlines, data points, and key takeaways from recent public polls - including new polling on polluter accountability, Big Oil misinformation, climate resilience, and the Inflation Reduction Act.

HEADLINES

A growing share of Americans support the Inflation Reduction Act – including nearly half of Republicans – but only about half of Americans report hearing about it. Large majorities support a range of recent health care policies, including capping the cost of insulin, providing free vaccines, giving Medicare the power to negotiate lower drug prices, and cracking down on hidden junk fees on prescription drugs. Fewer than a third of Americans report hearing “a lot” about each of the health care policies tested.

Seven in ten voters support the Inflation Reduction Act when they learn basic information about it, but half say that they’ve heard little or nothing about it. Voters support the Inflation Reduction Act by a 71%-20% margin after reading a brief description of it. This is largely driven by sky-high support among Democrats (94% support), while Navigator finds that independents are also supporting the IRA by an increasingly wide margin (65% support / 17% oppose).

Most Americans say that climate change is happening now, and majorities across party lines support investments in “climate resilience” after learning about the concept. 71% of Americans support actions to increase climate resilience after seeing a brief description of the term. 60% of Americans agree that the impacts of climate change “are being experienced now”. Investments in climate resilience are popular across partisan lines, with large margins of support among Democrats (84%-6%), independents (66%-11%), and Republicans (65%-22%).