Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to a new study, big heatwaves and other major weather events drive up the green vote, but only when people feel economically secure.
Climate change experiences raise environmental concerns and promote Green voting
Roman Hoffmann, Raya Muttarak, Jonas Peisker & Piero Stanig
Nature Climate Change volume 12, pages 148–155 (2022)Cite this article
Abstract
Public support is fundamental in scaling up actions to limit global warming. Here, we analyse how the experience of climate extremes influences people’s environmental attitudes and willingness to vote for Green parties in Europe. To this end, we combined high-resolution climatological data with regionally aggregated, harmonized Eurobarometer data (34 countries) and European Parliamentary electoral data (28 countries). Our findings show a significant and sizeable effect of temperature anomalies, heat episodes and dry spells on environmental concern and voting for Green parties. The magnitude of the climate effect differs substantially across European regions. It is stronger in regions with a cooler Continental or temperate Atlantic climate and weaker in regions with a warmer Mediterranean climate. The relationships are moderated by regional income level suggesting that climate change experiences increase public support for climate action but only under favourable economic conditions. The findings have important implications for the current efforts to promote climate action in line with the Paris Agreement.
Read more: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01263-8
Sadly the study is paywalled, but I think we get the idea.
This study supports my theory of the cyclic nature of green policies. Every time politicians try to kickstart the green revolution, the economy tanks, and voters discover other priorities. Politicians either back off or lose the next election. Then a few years later, when everyone has forgotten how bad it was, they whole sorry cycle starts over again.
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Re-wording the headlines gives….The Green Vote Enables Other Party Objectives and Some Green Project Funding Scams
Apart from Germany, does The Greens vote in elections ever get above 15%?
(mostly from youth and elderly demographics)
How much do you think they need to assemble to get enough voter blocks to claim a big tent mandate in divided nation politics?
15% is meaningless in Australian politics as there is around that level just peeved with both major parties … ask the Greens nobody gives a toss what they think or do 😉
The green vote has Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP by the balls in Scotland. They want to strangle the economy by offing the oil industry. Scotlands main other export industry is whisky and at the rate the SNP numpties and their green bed wetters are going we will need it all to drink ourselves into oblivion
Greens score very badly in big national elections here in France, not even double digits.
3% in the UK, likely far less now the cost of living with unreliable renewables is biting
And they pay these people to do this research?
It should be blindingly obvious. If you want to protect the environment, you protect the economy and standard of living.
When you and your family are comfortable you go away for the weekend to look at unspoiled forests filled with cute furry animals.
When you are living on the edge that forest is filled with things that can be burnt for heating and those furry animals are dinner for your children.
You really want to save the world – looking at you Greta – Get a Job!
So true. Last time I was in Lagos, Nigeria I hardly saw a tree or a bird. With an estimated 3-4M living on the street the trees are quickly cut for fire wood and the birds consumed for dinner.
That’s why the Chinese will eat anything. Mao’s “great leap forward” starved 30 million of them to death and the memory is still fresh culturally.
Exactly.
The first and most essential element of “sustainability” is to have a sustainable national financial capacity and an economy that provides employment that fills all basic household income needs.
Make people proud of where they live.
There is truth to the article, but if someone can make fear for your life, or your planet, then even the rich can fall for the scam. Orson Welles demonstrated that years ago … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTgEmO6L0Io
Just substitute ‘planet’ with ‘our rotten bankrupt financial system’ and it suddenly becomes clear what they are talking about – you billions save us few thousand.
The alarmist tempo has gotten to Leonard Bernstein crescendo levels lately, which means the ‘everything bubble’ is about to explode, no matter what Powell et al. do. Russia, China refuse to ‘save that rotten system’ so must be forced to, so London/D.C. think. Macron, Scholz seem not to get it, even when Biden, amazingly, actually does!
Voters do see the inflation hitting the wallet, have real fear, are not fooled.
Sounds like lazy and gullible people not doing their research on the topic.
Have encountered many people who behave like a cultist not bothering to read posts I make from here and other media they say the same replies to week after week, Authority, consensus, source fallacies abound with a liberal dash of trolling and name calling.
Recently posted evidence that those so-called replications of the absurd “hockey Stick” paper are based on the same error Dr. Mann used which is why they are all in error, but they don’t bother reading the facts behind it just plug their ears and go on their ignorant ways.
They go on and on and on with you are a climate change denier or just denier but when asked what is being denied they run away fast…..
That is what we face everyday people who are too mentally lazy to do some simple research they rather hide behind consensus and ideology instead.
I think everyday people are lazy and naive enough to believe “scientists” wouldn’t lie or do shoddy work. Also, the leftists that are determined to bring western civilization down are embedded in politics, academia, and the media, all pushing the propaganda.
The problem is that activist green idiots like Carter can get voted out, but leave enough destructive policies in place that continue to cause damage.
Carter sabotaging the Environmental Review policy is a case in point, leaving endless mischief for green NGOs to exploit.
“Then a few years later, when everyone has forgotten how bad it was, they whole sorry cycle starts over again.” Amen.
What’s with all this sociological stuff in science? This one doesn’t even know hardly anything about the groups they are talking about, one example barely into the paper—
“For most of the scientific disciplines associated with coastal and estuarine research, workforce representation does not match the demographics of communities we serve, especially for Black, Hispanic or Latino, and Indigenous peoples.” As a friend pointed out, how many countries would be considered “Latino,” assuming that it means real Latin? Their definitions in Box 1 are junk, as in “Exclusionary Science.” As with so many now references are within the last couple of decades, except for one on Black Power in the 60s.
Harris, L., Grayson, T., Neckles, H. et al. A Socio-ecological Imperative for Broadening Participation in Coastal and Estuarine Research and Management. Estuaries and Coasts 45, 38–48 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-021-00944-z Open Access
I know quite a bit about the Estuarine Research Federation, already complained. Have to wonder who reviewed this paper. Delving in other disciplines is OK if you do your homework, which they clearly have not done.
Probably because the people of those communities are busy trying to make enough money to pay for food and gas and heat
That’s not far off what many people have posted here over the years. The best thing for the environment is to have the local people sufficiently prosperous that they can afford to care about the environment.
Trying to get your next meal trumps environmental concern every day of the week. Well, Duh!
The corollary is that when the results of stupid wind and solar policies really begin to bite, support for those policies and belief in the CAGW ‘science’ that drives them will evaporate.
When the big Texas freeze happened, the greenies blamed the fossil fuel infrastructure. I bet most of their fellow travelers believed them. What would happen if such disasters happened a couple of times per year? (As far as I can tell, nobody’s doing anything that will prevent that.) Folks would start going after the windmill apologists with torches and pitchforks.
People are leaving NY and California in a trickle. What would have to happen to turn that into a flood? For NY, it could be as simple as not being able to heat their houses for a week or two.
“People are leaving NY and California in a trickle. What would have to happen to turn that into a flood? For NY, it could be as simple as not being able to heat their houses for a week or two.”
Sounds plausible … but you are not accounting for stupidity.
Think of the huge number of disasters that have historically re-occurred in the same geographic areas (volcanoes, floods,earthquakes), do people move even 10 miles away to an area that rarely/never gets hit ??
NO, in general they move right back asap, rebuild on the rubble & wait to be hit again !!!
“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” ― George Carlin
Yes, and they rebuild with US Government funds.
All true. My own favorite gripe is people who build on flood plains.
On the other hand, the history of the world is one of migration.
If things get sufficiently bad in a location people will leave. Thousands of ghost towns attest to that.
So “climate change” increases the Green vote eh? Of all the bad things the alarmists blame on the “climate crisis” this is by far the most credible and alarming.
“So “climate change” increases the Green vote eh?”
Actually, we are talking about climate change propaganda, since the climate is not doing anything out of the ordinary. So the alarmists lie, and say it is, and apparently these lies sway some voters.
They didn’t explain why the green vote goes up when people feel economically secure.
I can tell them because they then feel guilted and have nothing else to worry about so they have to invent things to be worried about 🙂
And they call this crap research
“Public support is fundamental in scaling up actions to limit global warming.” In other words, “we researchers are committed to the illusion of control no matter what.” Just admit it.
President Carter had those solar panels installed on the White House roof.
They took them down a few years later.
Carter used to be the “worst president evah!”, then along came Barack Obama to take the title, and now we have the worst one of all in Joe Biden.
I didn’t think anyone could screw things up worse than Obama, but I was wrong. As Obama said once, “Never underestimate the ability of Joe Biden to screw things up.” For once, Obama was right on the money.
Biden is so bad he needs to be impeached and removed from office. Republicans should do this as soon as they have the political power, possibly in January 2023. We can’t afford to allow Biden to continue down his destructive path.
And before January 2023, the Republicans should refuse to cooperate with the Democrats on *anything* until Biden closes the U.S. southern border.
So they admit that lying to people is all they got.
Who’d have thought cold and hungry people don’t put voting Green as a high priority.
And in other news, the occurrence of droughts and famine was found to closely correlate with the burning of witches.
Nobody seems to have picked up on:
“The magnitude of the climate effect differs substantially across European regions. It is stronger in regions with a cooler Continental or temperate Atlantic climate and weaker in regions with a warmer Mediterranean climate.”
Is this the effect on the climate, or the climate effect on voting?
In either case, it seems to be one of Einstein’s “isn’t that interesting?” observations.
There is a pre-print at https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-738080/latest.pdf
I suspect that the Green Vote effect seen is riven by the attitudes/bias of the Media in each country.
Hint for those who hit paywalls and still wish to read a study:
Good luck!
This method worked for this paper and many others I have searched for recently.
Climate concern also drives up a Green’s bedwetting.
Environmentalism is a luxury affordable only for the super rich.