President Joe Biden is addressing a vital UN climate summit at a time when most Americans consider deteriorating weather as a problem of great importance to them, an increase from just a few years ago.
About 6 in 10 Americans also believe the pace of global warming is accelerating, according to a new survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago.
As Biden struggles to pass meaningful climate legislation at home ahead of next week’s UN climate summit, the new AP-NORC / EPIC poll also shows that 55% of Americans want Congress to pass a bill. to ensure that more of the country’s electricity comes from clean sources. energy and less climate-damaging coal and natural gas.
Only 16% of Americans oppose such a move for cleaner energy. A similar measure was initially one of the most important parts of climate legislation that Biden has before Congress. But Biden’s proposal to reward utilities with clean energy sources and penalize those without them met with objections from a coal state senator, Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia, leaving his fellow Democrats scrambling to find other ways to reduce pollution from burning fossil fuels.
For some of the Americans who are watching, it is an infuriating delay in dealing with an urgent problem.
“If you follow the science, the signs are here,” said Nancy Reilly, a Missouri Democrat who retired after 40 years as a retail manager and worries about her children as the weather deteriorates. “It’s here. And what was the first thing they began to dilute to pass this bill? Climate change.”
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“It’s just maddening,” Reilly said. “I understand why, I do it – I understand the politics of it. I’m sick of politics. “
After President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, the Biden administration hoped to help negotiate major emissions cuts globally to curb rising temperatures. But it’s unclear whether Biden will be able to pass meaningful climate legislation in Congress before the UN summit begins Sunday.
In total, 59% of Americans said that global warming is very or extremely important to them as a problem, compared to 49% in 2018. 54% of Americans said that the voices of scientists have a great influence on their views on climate change, and almost the same amount, 51%, said their views were influenced by recent extreme weather events such as hurricanes, deadly heat spells, forest fires and other natural disasters around the world.
Over the past 60 years, pollution pumped from gasoline and diesel engines, power plants, and other sources has changed the climate and warmed the Earth by 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit, making extreme weather conditions more extreme.
In the Smoky Mountains of eastern Tennessee, this year’s leaf-viewing websites are warning fall foliage tourists that the leaves are taking days longer than normal to turn from green to fiery orange and red. It is not evidence of climate change as a single instance, but it is typical of the changes that Americans are seeing as the Earth warms.
Majority in #US concerned about the weather: AP-NORC / EPIC survey. #CimateChange
“You usually get all four seasons, fall, spring, and winter, and that’s the way it is. But lately, it hasn’t been that, “said Jeremy Wilson, a 42-year-old man who votes for independence and works on the grounds of a picturesque chairlift park that takes people to the top of the Smoky Mountains.” Either way it has been hotter, or much colder. “
Seventy-five percent of Americans believe climate change is happening, while 10% believe it is not, according to the survey. Another 15% are unsure.
Among those who say it is happening, 54% say it is caused primarily or entirely by human activities compared to just 14% who think, incorrectly, scientists say, that it is caused primarily by natural changes in the environment . Another 32% of Americans believe it is a combination of human and natural factors.
And while Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say that climate change is happening, most of both parties agree that it is. That splits into 89% of Democrats and 57% of Republicans.
The survey also assessed Americans’ willingness to pay the cost of reducing climate-destroying pollution and mitigating its consequences.
Fifty-two percent said they would support a $ 1 per month carbon fee on their energy bill to combat climate change, but support decreases as the rate increases.
“I’d say, like $ 5, 10 as long as it’s really being used for what it should be,” said Krystal Chivington, a 46-year-old Republican in Delaware who credits her 17-year-old daughter with reviving her. own passion for fighting climate change and pollution.
It’s not ordinary consumers who should bear the brunt of paying to avoid worst-case climate change, said Mark Sembach, a 59-year-old Democrat from Montana who works on environmental remediation.
“I think a lot should fall on responsible corporations that, and unfortunately … most corporations are not responsible,” Sembach said. “And I think there must be a lot of opposition as to who ultimately pays for that.”
The AP-NORC survey of 5,468 adults was conducted Sept. 8-24 using a pooled sample of interviews from the NORC probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population, and panel interviews. online electives. The sampling error margin for all respondents is plus or minus 1.7 percentage points. The AmeriSpeak panel is randomly recruited using address-based sampling methods, and respondents were then interviewed online or by phone.
Reference-www.nationalobserver.com