Report · Jun 4, 2020
Politics & Global Warming, April 2020
By Anthony Leiserowitz, Edward Maibach, Seth Rosenthal, John Kotcher, Matthew Ballew, Parrish Bergquist, Abel Gustafson, Matthew Goldberg and Xinran Wang
Filed under: Beliefs & Attitudes, Behaviors & Actions and Policy & Politics
6. Individual and Collective Action to Reduce Global Warming
6.1. Many registered voters are willing to take political actions to reduce global warming.
About half of registered voters (51%) say they would vote for a candidate for public office because of the candidate’s position on global warming if a person they like and respect asked them to. This includes a large majority of Democrats (78%), and about half of Independents (53%), but only about one in four Republicans (23%).
About four in ten registered voters would publicly wear a t-shirt or display a t-shirt, bumper sticker, etc. about global warming (43%) if a person they like and respect asked them to. Fewer would donate money (35%) or volunteer their time (33%) to an organization working on global warming, or contact (33%) or meet with (29%) government officials about global warming,
About one in four registered voters (28%) say they would support an organization engaging in non-violent civil disobedience against corporate or government activities that make global warming worse, and about one in six (16%) say they would personally engage in non-violent civil disobedience.
Overall, Democrats are most likely to say they would take these actions, with many liberal Democrats saying they would take them. Independents and Republicans are less likely to say they would take these actions.
6.2. About one in three Americans would join, or are already participating in, a campaign to convince elected officials to take action to reduce global warming.
A total of about one in three registered voters (34%) are either participating (2%), definitely would participate (8%), or probably would participate (24%) in a campaign to convince elected officials to take action to reduce global warming. This includes a majority of Democrats (57%; 68% of liberal Democrats and 45% of moderate/conservative Democrats), three in ten Independents (31%), and 12% of Republicans (20% of liberal/moderate Republicans and 8% of conservative Republicans).
The percentage of registered voters who are participating or would participate in such a campaign has increased by seven percentage points over the past year (since our April 2019 survey), particularly among Democrats (+15 percentage points). This is due primarily to an increase in the percentage of Americans who say they are willing to participate in a campaign rather than an increase in the percentage who are already participating in one.
6.3. Few registered voters have urged an elected official to take action to reduce global warming during the past 12 months.
About one in eight registered voters (13%) say they have contacted an elected official during the past 12 months to urge them to take action to reduce global warming. However, about one in four Democrats (23%), including 33% of liberal Democrats, say they have done so. Additionally, 9% of Independents, but only 3% of Republicans, say they have contacted an elected official to urge them to take action to reduce global warming.
