Until recently, the U.S. and the rest of the developed world pursued a costly global policy of “net-zero” carbon emissions to battle the supposed ill-effect of climate change. [emphasis, links added]
But President Donald Trump has changed all that by ending the U.S.’ commitment to the global net-zero effort.
Will today’s highly partisan voters support Trump? The latest I&I/TIPP Poll data suggest a high degree of skepticism among many voters over global warming’s threat.
Three-quarters of those responding to the I&I/TIPP Poll agreed there are reasons for “public skepticism toward climate-change policies,” while just over a third of voting-age Americans say they “distrust” the information used to sell previous climate change policies.
For the national online poll, taken from Jan. 29-31, 1,478 adults were first asked:
“How much do you trust the claims made by climate change activists and policymakers?” The poll has a margin of error of +/-2.6 percentage points.
While 50% said they either trust “completely” (20%) or “somewhat” (30%), another 36% said they “completely” (20%) or “somewhat” (16%) distrust claims made by climate activists and politicians.
Once again, political affiliation plays a role in how voters see the issue.
Democrats overwhelmingly say “trust” (67%) over “distrust” (21%) the climate change claims that have been made, but Republicans are more skeptical, with 37% answering “Trust” and a 51% majority answering “Distrust.”
Among independents, responses were somewhere in the middle, at 47% ‘Trust” and 35% “Distrust.”
Trust in the climate claims rises with income. Of those earning $30,000 or less a year, “trust” was 46%; for those at $30,000-$50,000 a year, 47%; for those at $50,000-$75,000 a year, 51%; and those over $75,000, 63%.
A follow-up question asked the following:
“What do you think is the main reason for public skepticism toward climate change policies?”
The responses showed what really concerns people most about the public response to the hypothetical threats of climate change.
Of those responding, 25% cited “Lack of clear, transparent scientific data,” 22% responded “Perceived hypocrisy of leaders and activists,” 17% agreed on “Economic consequences of proposed policies,” and 8% answered “Media exaggeration of climate risks.”
Meanwhile, only 8% said they don’t believe there’s widespread skepticism over climate change scientific claims, while 16% said they weren’t sure.
This is more than a gauge of sentiment about climate change policies in general and the “net zero” policy in particular.
For one thing, talking about making the world “carbon-neutral” by the middle of the century can take place on an abstract plane, but it will have enormous financial and economic consequences unparalleled in human history.
A recent study by the McKinsey Global Institute found:
“Capital spending on physical assets for energy and land-use systems in the net-zero transition between 2021 and 2050 would amount to about $275 trillion, or $9.2 trillion per year on average, an annual increase of as much as $3.5 trillion from today.”
Opponents of such spending argue that’s an enormous expenditure, one that could impoverish billions of people on Earth for no actual provable gain. If you need a comparison, the total global GDP last year, according to Statista, was roughly $110 trillion.
With that in mind, supporters say continued rises in temperatures could bring “severe storms, floods, drought, and wildfire,” along with permanent flooding of current coastal areas.
Americans don’t seem to buy the doom and gloom of such prognostications.
While every natural disaster has partisans claiming it’s caused by human-made CO2 in the air, American voters seem to feel that the message they’re getting through the media, politicians, government bureaucrats, and NGOs is distorted by partisan, lock-step belief in the theory of runaway heating of the atmosphere.
Meanwhile, for nearly half a century the repeated predictions of doom and gloom from CO2-caused global warming “experts” have been stunningly wrong.
Read rest at Issues & Insights
