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Eighty Percent of Republicans Want More Clean Energy, and Most Want it Now

This is such a radically different portraiture of Republicans than the one you get on the TeeVee.
Image: Flickr, CC 2.0

Here's the thing about Republicans: they're not as anti-science as the leaders who represent them. They listen to scientists, and they want a clean, safe, future, too. They want more renewable energy and less fossil fuels by overwhelming margins, regardless of what the blowhards say in Congress and on Fox News.

Much hay has rightfully been made about the intense anti-science proclivities of the Republicans in Congress—there was the nonsense about female bodies rejecting 'legitimate rape', there's the omnipresent disavowal of evolution, and, maybe more than anything, there's the rampant denial of climate science.

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Republican leaders have spent the last four years working overtime to shut down any and all legislative moves to curb our carbon problem—they defeated an effort to install cap and trade system to price carbon, they repeatedly rejected attempts to remove Big Oil's billions of dollars in federal subsidies to level the playing field, and, as you've surely noticed, the routinely oppose clean energy and blast it publicly. They have tried to paint the clean energy sector as one big Solyndra (and its mythologized version of it)—bloated, the product of liberal deal-making, and sure to go bankrupt. That's why there was a year or two back there where you couldn't turn on a conservative media outlet without hearing about the failed thin-film solar company.

But it didn't work. Republicans still love clean energy. I mean, overwhelmingly love the stuff by epic margins. Dr. Anthony Liesorwitz has just released the findings of a Yale Project for Climate Change Communication scientific survey of American Republicans, and that's the gist. Most (52%) of them believe in climate change, almost all of them want more clean energy, and most want it right now. Just look at these findings:

  • A large majority (77%) says the United States should use more renewable energy sources (solar, wind & geothermal) in the future. Among those who support expanded use of renewable energy, nearly 7 out of 10 think the U.S. should increase the use of renewable energy “immediately”.
  • Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents prefer clean energy as the basis of America’s energy future and say the benefits of clean energy, such as energy independence (66%), saving resources for our children and grandchildren (57%), and providing a better life for our children and grandchildren (56%) outweigh the costs, such as more government regulation (42%) or higher energy prices (31%).
  • By a margin of 2 to 1, respondents say America should take action to reduce our fossil fuel use.
  • Only one third of respondents agree with the Republican Party’s position on climate change, while about half agree with the party’s position on how to meet America’s energy needs.
  • A large majority of respondents say their elected representatives are unresponsive to their views about climate change.

Are you seeing this stuff? This is such a radically different portraiture of Republicans than the one you get on the TeeVee; just night-and-day. Republicans say it's worth ramping up clean energy even if it means more government regulation! Even if it raises energy costs! And I love those last two stats: Only 1/3 of Republicans—get that?—just one third of all Republicans agree with their blustery leaders' fact-free ideas about global warming, and a large majority are well aware that those blustery leaders are wrong on climate.

So what's the problem already! Why are the science-hating ignorami still in office? Well, that's the rub, and what the survey doesn't well account for—climate change is still likely a very low priority issue when stacked next to "the economy" or "second amendment rights" or "stopping gay marrying" or such. And the prioritizing of those issues, along with what's likely a deep, longtime tribal identification with the Republican Party, has turned climate change, for the time being, into one of those issues that the constituency just doesn't see eye-to-eye with its more radical leadership on.

The big question is how to change that prioritization. Because Republicans—the normal, average Republican Joes—want more clean power, and they'd happily stomach a little pain to get it. It's the beltway elites, the Republicans who deal with Roger Ailes and the campaign-financing oil company execs and libertarian billionaires, that are holding the nation back. Ordinary Republicans clearly envision a future with more and better clean energy. The question now is, how do we get them to fight for it?