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USA Republicans – half of them accept the science of climate change

Half of U.S. Conservatives Say Climate Change Is Real, Bloomberg, Trump and Cruz reject global warming, while more Republicans see it as a threat.Eric Roston eroston  

The percentage of conservative Republicans who consider global warming a threat shot up 19 points in two years, to 47 percent, according to public opinion researchers at Yale University and George Mason University. Overall, 56 percent of Republicans agree that it’s happening. Including Democrats and independents, the national average for the U.S. is 73 percent.

The new survey results, “Politics & Global Warming 2016,” suggest a growing gap between what most registered Republican voters understand to be true and what the party leadership says it believes, particularly on the presidential campaign trail this year.

Liberal-to-moderate Republicans say climate change is real in much higher numbers than the party’s right wing does. More than 70 percent of GOP moderates say they know the world is warming, up 10 percentage points from two years ago. But only half of these Republicans, and just 26 percent of conservative Republicans, identify the problem as caused mostly by human activities (PDF)…….

The survey confirms that while only liberal Democrats put climate change near the top of their agenda, it remains a litmus test for credibility among many registered voters. Respondents were more likely to pick a candidate who strongly supports fighting climate change, 43 percent to 14 percent. They also reported feeling less likely to vote for an opponent to climate policy.

The issue is generational as well as partisan, according to Sheril Kirshenbaum, director of the University of Texas-Austin Energy Poll. Younger Americans are much likelier to understand climate change—but that doesn’t mean they’ll vote…..

Climate change is also the most divisive of the 23 issues—a fact the researchers will look at in more detail next week, when it reports on what each presidential candidates’ supporters think about the issue. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-27/half-of-u-s-conservatives-say-climate-change-is-real

April 29, 2016 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA elections 2016