In a recent post by The Conversation, “Climate change matters to more and more people – and could be a deciding factor in the 2024 election,” one of the authors of a recent study looking at polling and Americans’ attitudes towards climate change claims that despite being low on most people’s list of concerns, it actually plays a potentially deciding role in elections. This is unsubstantiated, and not only can the results can be manipulated based on what polling you select, but the researchers appear to have -at best- some major blind spots when it comes to interpreting their data.
Matt Burgess, assistant professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, wrote the Conversation piece, and is also one of the authors on the study being referred to. Right away, he admits that American voters’ top priorities are economics, inflation, crime, health care, education, and immigration. This is consistently shown to be true, as Climate Realism has pointed out numerous times. Not only do Americans rank other issues higher than climate change, but it is actually ranked last or tied for last for the majority of people when compared to other issues, even other environmental issues.
Still, Burgess insists that actually climate change has influenced presidential elections, writing “[d]espite this, research that I conducted with my colleages suggests that concern about climate change has had a significant effect on voters’ choices in the past two presidential elections.”
The authors used 2016 and 2020 survey data from “Voter Study Group,” a subsidiary of “Democracy Fund” which is described as nonpartisan, although they seem to lean decidedly left. The study analyzed “relationships between thousands of voters’ presidential picks in the past two elections with their demographics and their opinions on 22 different issues, including climate change.”
The survey data they used was one where they asked voters to rate climate change as “unimportant,” “not very important,” “somewhat important” or “very important.” Unsurprisingly, they found that 67% of those polled rated climate change as “somewhat” or “very” important, which was an increase from previous polling from 2016. They also report that 77% of those rating climate change as important expressed support for Biden in 2020, and 69% of them supported Hillary Clinton in 2016. Burgess says this suggests “that climate change opinion has been providing the Democrats with a growing electoral advantage,” but this is obviously ignoring another fundamental criterion, which is candidate likeability.
Even among Democrats, Clinton was unpopular. Remembering, for example, that many Bernie Sanders supporters were miffed when Clinton was given the nomination, polling data from the time showed that 12% of Sanders supporters ended up voting for Trump in the general election.
This is a pretty egregious oversight on the part of Burgess, and in the Conversation article, he admits that “[o]ur analysis could not answer” the question of how climate change opinion may have “tipped” the 2020 presidential election, but he offers “educated guesses.”
First, that because recent elections have been very close, “climate change opinion would not need to have a very large effect on voting to change election outcomes.” Number two was that “candidates who deny that climate change is real or a problem might turn off some moderate swing voters,” and third was that “some voters may be starting to see the connections between climate change and the kitchen-table issues that they consider to be higher priorities than climate change.”
None of this is evidenced by the data, and outside research calls it into question. The Pew Research Center tried the same thing in 2020, as covered by Climate Realism at the time, claiming that “a majority of registered voters in the United States say climate change will be a very (42 percent) or somewhat (26 percent) important issue in making their decision about whom to vote for in the presidential election[.]” However, once again, the same poll found that out of 12 policy issues, it was at the bottom of the ranking. The question “How important, if at all, are each of the following issues in making your decision about who to vote for in the 2020 presidential election?” was asked of surveyed voters, and even in that line of questioning, the economy, health care, supreme court appointments, corona virus, economic inequality, foreign policy, gun policy, immigration, racial and ethnic inequality, and violent crime all ranked higher.
Burgess admits towards the end of the article that Democrats “risk losing voters when their policies impose economic costs, or when they are framed as anti-capitalist, racial, or overly pessimistic.” This is a death blow to the idea that climate change gives Democrats a significant benefit in elections, because climate policy is consistently economically costly, especially when discussing banning fossil fuels, and polls show that voters are unwilling to spend very much money at all on climate issues. Additionally, the climate narrative is completely pessimistic with constant alarmist claims of impending doom.
In the end, the article about Burgess’ study reads more like wishful thinking than science. It is transparently an effort to use polling in order to influence people into believing that the climate issue is more important in their peers’ minds, so that social pressure will make it a priority for them too. If past polling and the reporting on it are anything to go by, this attempt will likely not succeed either, especially as energy costs rise amid the application of climate policy.
No poll asking people their opinion on the importance of climate change should be conducted without asking how much they would be willing to pay to reduce its effects. As I recall, in the past that has been a pretty small figure. To me, that’s the more telling result.
No comment from Burgess as CU Boulder is closed for the second day in a row due to too much snow.
I was at a meeting in Boulder in April of 1973. A storm warning was issued and many left early – I was headed to Iowa City. Those that left in time got home before the snow shut down most of the middle of the Country.
Iowa weather: The blizzard of 1973 was dubbed Iowa’s ‘worst spring storm in at least 80 years’ (desmoinesregister.com)
Any party not following the CC agenda will get my vote.
Hard to find one…
Other things being equal (and they rarely are) you and I would consider a candidate’s position on “climate change” to be “very important”. Contrary to the study, this does not mean we would vote FOR a CAGW nutter!
Story tip – The Financialization of Nature › American Greatness (amgreatness.com)
“According to the proposed rule, a Natural Asset Company (NAC) would ‘hold the rights to ecological performance,’ giving these companies license to control the management of both public and private lands through quantifying and monetizing natural outputs such as air and water. In other words, NACs would use the air you breathe as currency. Under the guise of climate change, NACs would make this ‘control’ mechanism profitable without the actual use of the land itself. By monetizing and leveraging the management of these natural outputs their war cry of ‘ecological performance’ would fall under the rules of sustainable development. ‘Natural assets’ would now belong to corporations that are potentially run by special interest groups such as The Nature Conservancy and the World Wildlife Fund, thereby requiring all production tied to the land to fall under the sustainability rules established by these non-governmental organizations.”
I saw that previously and it scared the shit out of me.
Apologies for offensive language.
Anglo Saxon is quite acceptable in Southern England
Women and the youth tend to vote Democratic because they believe that the Democratic Party is working to combat Climate Change, whereas the Republicans do not see it as a problem
It isn’t a problem. On the other hand, the attempts to stop this non-problem are devastating the lives of billions.
Women and the young tend to vote Democrat because they have been conned into believing that free lunches are possible, all you have to do is raise other people’s taxes enough.
I would consider climate change an important issue in elections, with the proviso that a candidate favoring The Green New Deal or NetZero would be automatically rejected.
Climate change is very important and it would influence my vote on leadership:
Either way any poll that correlates thoughts about climate change with political preferences is irrelevant to the idea that climate change beliefs drive those preferences. Correlation says nothing about causation.
Of course Climate Change influences elections, just like any other religion.
It is nothing more than wishful thinking.
Only the bright young things with nothing better to do worry about the weather
Polls are like the weather. Don’t like it? Wait a few minutes and it will change.
2016: Trump won because Clinton is so disliked (a variety of reasons)
2020: Biden won because Trump is so disliked (a variety of reasons)
2024: Biden and Trump – the Nation loses
Climate change is the least of the Nation’s worries.
I hear Joe is looking at regime change
In Israel….
The Conversation is not, never was, and doesn’t aspire to be.
It should be called The Lecture.
Lecture implies there is something of importance to be learned. It should be called “The Inane Drivel”.
One wonders just what aspect of “climate change” the US worriers worry about. It can’t be temperature as the Climate Reference Network shows no notable change in US temperature for 19+ years. Could it be landfalling hurricanes? No, the count of such storms is level or down as is hurricane strength. Could it be sea level rise? That has not changed in over 150 years or so although some parts of the country see unsatisfactory rise because their land is sinking. Could it be hot days? Hot days were greater in number and intensity in the 1930’s. Of course, following the technique of some of our august climate agencies, clipping off all data prior to about 1960 makes a graph of hot days look like their might be an increase. How about droughts and floods? Nope, no change.
The only thing that could be affecting such opinions is the misinformation constantly before everybody on MSM sources and some others, none of which is based on actual data. Can’t that be fixed?
Hardly a surprise not only in the US but also in a variety of other countries where polls show climate change has consistently ranked well below other issues like jobs, the economy, affordable housing, general inflation, healthcare, education, individual safety, national security, etc. Only the alarmists try to convince us that climate and environment should be top priority issues. Fortunately most people aren’t listening since they have more pressing needs.
Burgess admits towards the end of the article that Democrats “risk losing voters when their policies impose economic costs,
Yep and that’s the point the climate changers don’t get. You numpties kept banging on wind and solar are cheaper so now the punters expect Gummint and Biz to get on with saving the planet at no cost to them. What’s not to like ticking the climate change box stoopids?
It’s called Catch22 for your info which is why for example rooftop solar owners get really peed when they see their electricity rates going up and their FIT going down so please explain? Every rationalist knows why but you played the dishonest emotion game with them and can’t come clean.
So the climate changers continually lie about the real economic cost of abandoning dispatchable fossil fuel energy so where does that leave them if those costs are not to become obvious to the punters? A race to the bottom with Treasury red ink everywhere and money printing inflation all to the wealthy subsidy miners and snouts in the taxpayer trough-
Gina Rinehart-backed rare earth miner soars in value on news of $840m in support | Australia news | The Guardian
and who wouldn’t like $300k subsidy per truck to go mean green and lean?
ALBO THROWS THE SWITCH AT TEAM GLOBAL’S NEW GREEN DEPOT AND ELECTRIC TRUCK FLEET | Truck & Bus News (truckandbus.net.au)
and train a few women to keep in sweet with the Metoo mob and their simping beta males as there’s a shortage of truck drivers anyway. On and on it goes everywhere leaving a housing crisis and inflation for the homeless and struggletown to deal with. How do lefties sleep at night you wonder?
PS: Let’s talk about where money comes from shall we lefties?
A lot of people ‘don’t understand’ where money comes from (msn.com)
A much needed put downer for politicians and their analysts.
No doubt my ‘political’ concern over increasing electricity bills and lack of credible policy translates into a worry/concern about climate change in the twisted minds of the woke classes which is why they need “cancelling” and quickly.
I’m pretty sure that this year’s election a huge majority of voters are worried about the economy, the war in Europe and the border crisis and the climate is hardly a thought.