Yale University's Fantastic Report on the Politics of Climate Change
Here’s a report from Yale University that sheds light on the politics of global climate change. Highlights include:
• “A majority of all registered voters (55%) say they will consider candidates’ views on global warming when deciding how to vote.”
So almost half of our voters don’t care a lick about this issue? That’s not good.
• “Independents lean toward ‘climate action.’”
That’s because people who register as independents are thinkers.
• “Policies to reduce America’s dependence on fossil fuels and promote renewable energy are favored by a majority of registered voters across party lines.”
I’m glad to hear that, though it makes one wonder how the “drill baby drill” mentality could have come to pervade the U.S. energy agenda. I’m reminded of the story that Colorado Governor Bill Ritter told us last fall at the Renewable Energy Finance Forum, where both senators from his state overtly defied the clearly expressed will of the people and voted for pro-oil legislation. There is a word for this, and I use it advisedly: corruption.
Having presented this admitted oversimplification of Yale’s report, I urge you to read it in its entirety.
It is not necessarily in the best interests of a politician to vote for what the majority of the people want, and that is not necessarily the result of corruption.
Most people are not one issue people. They will vote for the politician whose views they favor on most issues. Thus, if the majority of voters favor taking steps to reduce climate change but only a few see that as an over-riding issue, which candidate they vote for will not be greatly influenced by the candidate’s position on climate change. But if there are a few voters for whom the over-riding issue is climate change, the candidate will be most influenced by those voters.
Let us suppose that 55% of voters would prefer that a candidate support action to minimize climate change but will not change their vote if the candidate opposes action to minimize climate change. Let us also suppose that 20% of voters do not believe in human-caused climate change and also believe that action taken to reduce CO2 emissions will greatly harm the economy. Then, it is to the candidate’s advantage to ignore the 55% of voters who are concerned with climate change and to listen to the 20% of voters who oppose any action to reduce climate change.
This is a principal that doesn’t seem to be widely understood.