Ever since comprehensive legislation to reduce greenhouse gases died in Congress two years ago, my colleague John Broder noted here recently, climate change has been the issue that national politicians seem to avoid at all costs. Supporting renewable energy? Fine. Advocating energy independence? Great. Calling for action on global warming? Not so much.
A new study from Yale’s Center on Climate Change Communication, based on polling done in March — before the summer heat wave and the news that July was the hottest month ever recorded in the United States — shows that 55 percent of registered voters say that the candidates’ views on global warming will factor into their decisions in the polling booth.
Most of these voters also believe the evidence that global warming is stepping up and that the federal government should do something about it. A slight plurality of independent voters said they felt the same.
A Stanford University-Washington Post poll conducted in June shows that while trust in scientists has diminished in the last five years and the percentage of climate change skeptics has nearly doubled, to 25 percent, in the same period, nearly three-quarters of those polled still say the earth is probably warming.
About 77 percent said the issue was important to them. But half of that group said it was only “somewhat important,” the third available choice on a five-point scale. And 55 percent of those polled said the country should do “a great deal” or “quite a bit” about it.
Finally, the Pacific Institute in Oakland just released a study showing that in California, the impacts of climate change would be felt acutely by the state’s poorer residents, particularly those living in the Central Valley and the sprawling desert counties to the east of Los Angeles.
It is one of the first major efforts to assess not just where climate change will be most felt geographically, but what populations would bear the brunt of its impacts.
So, will candidates address the issue directly in coming weeks? Should they? Is it inevitable that they will, or doubtful — and why? We invite your views.