Here’s an interesting piece, from Medium’s George Dillard (The New Climate): “The Next Climate Perception Battle: Americans now accept climate change — but they still need a more complete understanding” was published on January 26, 2024.

The Dillard piece starts by reporting on a recent survey by Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. The survey results show that by now most Americans accept that climate change is real, bad, and worth fighting:

• 72% of Americans think “global warming is happening.”
• 58% think that it is “caused mostly by human activities.”
• 74% think that government should regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant.
• 68% think that fossil fuel companies should have to pay a carbon tax.

There’s every reason to be happy with the results because the survey shows that awareness of climate change is pervasive in the United States, and we don’t have to go back that many years when this was not such a reasonable claim.

Dillard draws an important point from the survey:

Americans may agree that climate change is real and bad, but they seem not to be interested in doing much about it. If they’re going to agree to meaningfully combat climate change, Americans need to believe that climate change is important, addressable, and nonpartisan.

Two paragraphs later, he draws this point toward the right question:

People say they want all sorts of stuff — gun control, a higher minimum wage, expanded Medicare coverage, etc. But the key question is not what voters prefer — it’s what drives them to make decisions at the ballot box.

From what I’ve been seeing in general polling, climate change remains toward the bottom of the list of issues voters find central to their voting decisions.

Dillard suggests that one problem is “climate doomers,” and as readers of my posts here should know, I too find “doomers” not much better than climate denials when it comes to obstructing the political action needed for climate progress. He puts it this way:

It’s a difficult needle to thread — climate activists need to convince Americans that climate change is a serious issue, but we can’t indulge in hyperbole or push people into hopelessness or helplessness. It will take precise and honest messaging to make sure people understand the actual situation.

One of the pleasant discoveries by way of Dillard’s piece is a reference to Hannah Ritchie and her coverage of recent academic research titled “Republicans and Democrats differ in why they support renewable energy,” and the authors include Abel Gustafson, Matthew H. Goldberg, Seth A. Rosenthal, Matthew T. Ballew, and Anthony Leiserowitz from Yale University’s aforementioned Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (School of Forestry & Environmental Studies), and John E. Kotcher and Edward W. Maibach, from George Mason University’s Center for Climate Change Communication. This paper was published in 2020, but there’s little reason to believe that enough has changed in the United States that would invalidate their findings.

The Abstract tells the tale:

Republicans’ (compared to Democrats’) support for renewable energy is driven more by considerations of economic costs/benefits, whereas Democrats’ (compared to Republicans’) support is driven more by concern about global warming.

I’m all for bipartisanship and even more in favor of people voting for climate progress regardless of Party, but climate progress requires—at least here in the U.S.A.—laws and bills, which means we need members of Congress to vote for such laws and bills in majority numbers. The Inflation Reduction Act is a great start, but I’m less sure that it will be widely seen as an economic benefit. Instead, I fear that the IRA will be perceived as an economic cost, and the reason is simple: much of the greenhouse gas reduction comes from electrification, and while the IRA has excellent tax credits to help offset the costs–an EV purchase or heat pump substitution for older oil- or gas-fired furnace, for example—such projects are still costs. Yes, one can argue, and rightly so, that over time money will be saved, but we got into the climate crisis in part because we don’t think long term, even if by long term we mean five or eight or fifteen years down the road. Getting electricity from the sun and wind will be far less expensive than drilling, transporting, refining, transporting, and burning fossil fuels, but there’s a lot to do—and spend—before this happy day shines on us all. Of course, backing off fossil fuel subsidies would put the true cost of this power source, including its contribution to pollution and greenhouse gases, and a revenue-neutral carbon fee is one way to do that.

In my second book of The Steep Climes Quartet, Dear Josephine (due Spring 2024), the issue of cost-of-climate-progress messaging is part of the story, with one of the main characters arguing that climate progress activists and politicians need to address this pain point, because the opposing political forces will be sure to talk about it, using the lame (but effective) argument of “pocketbook” issues.

Dear Josephine takes place in 2029, and it isn’t until the third book, taking place in 2035, that the American body politic is solidly behind climate progress candidates and action. I hope that I’m wrong, and that climate becomes the fierce and effective issue in the coming elections, but political progress doesn’t usually happen that fast.

The best argument I can think of is that not doing enough to address climate change will exact a far greater cost, and those costs may prove out over the next couple of years, with wildfires and floods and drought and storms and border challenges, but that is a hell of a way to get people to vote smart.

But a big majority of Americans now understand that climate change is a threat, so progress is indeed possible.