Public Opinion in the West: Still a Toss-Up
What people believe about whether and how we are changing the climate will determine when and how quickly we stop changing it. As Abraham Lincoln said, “Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed.”
In the Rocky Mountain West, public opinion about climate change is evenly split. An August 2008 poll by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research in six interior western states showed that westerners divide evenly about whether climate change is real or not. (We at RMCO found this discouraging, but it also renews our sense of the importance of the work we have yet to do!)
On the other hand, even if many are doubtful that climate change is real, most westerners understand that taking action to address it is good, not bad, for the economy.
Note the sharp difference in views depending on party affiliation (shown in aggregate numbers for all six states. (This is why RMCO works hard to maintain a bipartisan or nonpartisan orientation in all that we do!)
Mason-Dixon Poll, 6 Western States, August 2008
Is climate change a scientifically established reality, or still unproven and subject to debate? | ||||||||
AZ | CO | NV | NM | UT | WY | Dems | Repubs | |
| Reality | 54% | 47% | 48% | 48% | 45% | 35% | 74% | 25% |
| Unproven | 43% | 47% | 44% | 44% | 50% | 53% | 20% | 70% |
| In the West, will the benefits of taking action on climate change be worth the costs, or not? | ||||||||
AZ | CO | NV | NM | UT | WY | Dems | Repubs | |
| Worth the costs | 52% | 51% | 57% | 57% | 45% | 41% | 72% | 30% |
| Not worth costs | 32% | 35% | 26% | 30% | 41% | 41% | 14% | 54% |
| In the West, will addressing climate change create jobs through new energy and agricultural technologies, or lose jobs by increasing regulations and business costs? | ||||||||
AZ | CO | NV | NM | UT | WY | Dems | Repubs | |
| Create jobs | 61% | 52% | 56% | 55% | 45% | 46% | 68% | 40% |
| Lose jobs | 17% | 26% | 26% | 31% | 32% | 24% | 9% | 38% |
A more recent poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that in the Mountain West there was a 31% drop from April 2008 to October 2009 in the percentage of people saying there is solid evidence that the climate is warming. The decline was from 75% who thought so in 2008 to 44% who thought so in 2009. The subsample from the interior West in this poll was small, barely more than 100 people, so the margin of error is large. But, along with other evidence, this makes it clearer that the West remains a
real toss-up when it comes to attitudes, and therefore actions, on climate change.
As the West may also hold the balance of political power in determing what the nation does, RMCO is redoubling our efforts to communicate to Westerners what the scientists, overwhelmingly and unequivocably, are telling us about the reality of a changing climate and what it may mean here.