Green Education: Clean Technology

75% of Americans Support Regulating CO2; 60% Support Carbon Tax

Something I often think and try to often convey is that there is a huge disconnect between what Republican voters actually want and what Republican politicians push and allow. The vast majority of Americans support clean energy, support reducing pollution, and support fighting global warming, including a very large percentage of Republican voters. Somehow, though, Republican politicians have turned these things into enemy #1 (perhaps due to the fact that they get a ton of their campaign money and all kinds of other nice perks from oil and coal companies).

In yet another national poll, we see that Republican voters, in fact, don’t hate clean energy and aren’t opposed to strong action to fight global warming — in fact, they’re for these things.

The new national poll from the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication found that a whopping 75% of Americans support “regulating carbon dioxide (the primary greenhouse gas) as a pollutant.”

Here are some more details via Climate Progress (some of which are represented in the charts throughout this article):

• 63 percent of Americans support “signing an international treaty that requires the United States to cut its emissions of carbon dioxide 90 percent by the year 2050“!
• By a margin of 3 to 1 — 61 percent to 20 percent — Americans say they would be more likely to vote for a political candidate who supports a “revenue neutral” tax shift, increasing taxes on fossil fuels, and reducing the federal income tax by an equal amount.
• 61 percent said they support holding the fossil fuel industry responsible for “hidden costs we pay for citizens who get sick from polluted air and water, military costs to maintain access to foreign oil, and the environmental costs of spills and accidents.”
• By 3 to 1 — 58 percent to 17 percent — Americans say “protecting the environment … improves economic growth and provides new jobs” vs those who say it “reduces economic growth and costs jobs.”
• Asked “When there is a conflict between environmental protection and economic growth, which do you think is more important?” an amazing 62 percent supported “protecting the environment, even if it reduces economic growth” vs. 38 percent who backed “Economic growth, even if it leads to environmental problems.”

Related posts:

1. 90% of Americans Support Solar Power, Industry Development; So What’s Up with Congress?
2. 80% of Independent Voters (& Majority of Americans) Opposed to Fossil Fuel Subsidies
3. 71% of Voters, Small Businesses Support Mandatory Carbon Pollution Cuts (Even 49% of Fox News Viewers Do!)

Source: CleanTechnica.com