{"id":335269,"date":"2024-07-01T11:01:49","date_gmt":"2024-07-01T09:01:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=335269"},"modified":"2024-07-01T11:01:51","modified_gmt":"2024-07-01T09:01:51","slug":"pew-research-how-americans-view-national-local-and-personal-energy-choices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=335269","title":{"rendered":"Pew Research: How Americans View National, Local and Personal Energy Choices"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From Watts Up With That?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roger Caiazza<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Pew Research, Americans still want renewable energy, but support is waning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pew Research Center June 27, 2024<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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How Americans View National, Local and Personal Energy Choices<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most Americans want more renewable energy, but support has dipped. Interest in electric vehicles has also declined<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Alec Tyson<\/a> and Brian Kennedy<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The planet\u2019s continued streak of record heat<\/a> has spurred calls for action by scientists and global leaders<\/a>. Meanwhile, in the United States, energy development policy is being hotly debated<\/a> on the national and local levels this election year. How do Americans feel about U.S. energy policy options, and what steps are they willing to take in their own lives to reduce carbon emissions? A new Pew Research Center survey takes a look.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the major findings:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s been a decline in the breadth of support for wind and solar power.<\/strong> The shares who favor expanding solar and wind power farms are down 12 percentage points and 11 points, respectively, since 2020, driven by sharp drops in support among Republicans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interest in buying an electric vehicle (EV) is lower than a year ago.<\/strong> Today, 29% of Americans say they would consider an EV for their next purchase, down from 38% in 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, a majority of Americans (63%) support the goal of the U.S. taking steps to become carbon neutral by 2050. <\/strong>When asked which is the greater priority, far more Americans continue to say the country should focus on developing renewable energy than fossil fuel sources (65% vs. 34%).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The survey, conducted May 13-19 among 8,638 U.S. adults, finds a fairly modest share of U.S. adults (25%) say it\u2019s extremely or very important to them personally to limit their own \u201ccarbon footprint.\u201d<\/strong> Far more give this middling or low priority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These findings illustrate how large shares of Americans back more renewable energy that would decrease overall carbon emissions. Still, this general orientation does not necessarily translate into strong commitment to reducing personal carbon emissions or interest in buying an EV.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Read more:\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/science\/2024\/06\/27\/how-americans-view-national-local-and-personal-energy-choices\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe it is just me but the lead sentence claim that record heat is spurring action smacks of bias.  I checked the description of how they did the survey to see if my concerns were warranted:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pew Research Center conducted this study to understand Americans\u2019 views of energy issues. For this analysis, we surveyed 8,638 U.S. adults from May 13 to 19, 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everyone who took part in the survey is a member of the Center\u2019s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way, nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP\u2019s methodology<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are the questions used for this report<\/a>, along with responses, and its Methodology<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The questions used for the survey<\/a> were not overtly biased.  Nothing like \u201cIn order to save the planet from imminent doom are you in favor of solar farms?\u201d  My only reservation is that these questions were part of a bigger survey, so it is not clear if previous questions primed the pump towards climate impact alarm.  One other point is that the methodology<\/a> was different from most surveys.  Instead of a phone survey the Pew Research Center has established the American Trends Panel \u201ca nationally representative panel of randomly selected U.S. adults who participate via self-administered web surveys.\u201d  I have no opinion if this affects survey results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather than just provide the results of the survey the Pew website description addresses the question of what\u2019s behind the declines in support for wind and solar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Declines in public support for renewable energy have been driven by Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, whose support started to fall sharply after President Joe Biden took office in early 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n