Report · Jan 30, 2025
Climate Change in the American Mind: Politics & Policy, Fall 2024
By Anthony Leiserowitz, Edward Maibach, Seth Rosenthal, John Kotcher, Emily Goddard, Jennifer Carman, Teresa Myers, Marija Verner, Jennifer Marlon, Matthew Goldberg, Joshua Ettinger, Julia Fine and Kathryn Thier
Filed under: Policy & Politics
8. Political Advocacy
8.1 Eight percent of registered voters have urged elected officials to reduce global warming.
Eight percent of registered voters have contacted government officials to urge them to take action to reduce global warming at least once over the past 12 months. This includes 16% of liberal Democrats, 10% of moderate/conservative Democrats, 6% of liberal/moderate Republicans, and 2% of conservative Republicans.
8.2 Many registered voters are willing to take political actions to reduce global warming if asked.
About half of registered voters (48%) say they would sign a petition about global warming if someone they like and respect asked them to, including majorities of liberal Democrats (83%) and moderate/conservative Democrats (64%), but fewer liberal/moderate Republicans (28%) and conservative Republicans (17%). About one in four registered voters would donate money to an organization working on global warming (28%), write letters, email, or phone government officials about global warming (27%), volunteer their time to an organization working on global warming (26%), or meet with an elected official or their staff about global warming (26%).
About one in five registered voters (22%) would support an organization engaging in non-violent civil disobedience against corporate or government activities that make global warming worse, and 11% (including 22% of liberal Democrats) would personally engage in such non-violent civil disobedience.
8.3 Relatively few registered voters would be willing to get arrested as part of a non-violent civil disobedience action.
Although 11% of registered voters say they would personally engage in non-violent civil disobedience against corporate or government activities that make global warming worse (refer to section 8.2), only 3% say they would be willing to get arrested as part of such an action (1% “definitely would,” 2% “probably would”; refer to data tables, p. 47). This includes 6% of liberal Democrats, 2% of conservative Republicans, and 1% of both moderate/conservative Democrats and liberal/moderate Republicans.
According to the most recent data available from the U.S. Census Bureau, there are more than 161 million registered voters in the United States. Given that 1% say they “definitely would” get arrested as part of a non-violent action against activities that make global warming worse, and an additional 2% “probably would,” it suggests that approximately 1.5 million to 4.5 million registered voters may be willing to do so.
8.4 About one in four registered voters are participating in, or willing to join, a campaign to convince elected officials to take action to reduce global warming. Current participation is low.
About one in four in ten registered voters (26%) say they are either “definitely” (7%) or “probably” (18%) willing to join a campaign to convince elected officials to take action to reduce global warming or are currently participating in such a campaign (1%; refer to data tables, p. 48). This includes 50% of liberal Democrats (1% “currently,” 11% “definitely,” 38% “probably”), 31% of moderate/conservative Democrats (1% “currently,” 11% “definitely,” 19% “probably”), 12% of liberal/moderate Republicans (1% “currently,” 2% “definitely,” 10% “probably”), and 8% of conservative Republicans (none “currently,” 4% “definitely,” and 4% “probably”).
