Four fifths (79%) of registered US voters oppose the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle climate research, including a majority of Republicans, a new study by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication has found.
According to the study, which was undertaken in May, the proportion of Democrat voters who are opposed to policies that would halt climate research at federal agencies is understandably higher, with 98% of ‘liberal’ Democrats and 89% of ‘moderate/conservative’ Democrats agreeing with this statement.
At the same time, however, 73% of ‘moderate/liberal’ Republicans and 56% of ‘conservative’ Republicans are opposed to pushbacks on climate research.
‘Widely unpopular’
‘At the EPA, the administration has pushed out hundreds of staffers and is in the process of dissolving the agency’s primary office for scientific research,’ the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication noted.
‘These policies are widely unpopular. […] Even conservative Republicans, who are most likely to approve of Trump’s policies, say they are largely against shutting down these research programs, according to the May survey.’
Sharing information
Elsewhere, when registered voters were asked if they were opposed to policies that would prohibit federal agencies from sharing information about climate change with the public, 78% agreed with this statement.
Again the breakdown was skewed more towards Democrats, with 96% of ‘liberal’ Democrats and 87% of ‘moderate/conservative’ Democrats agreeing. However, a majority of Republicans also agreed – 69% of ‘moderate/liberal’ Republicans and 58% of ‘conservative’ Republicans.
‘The Trump administration is also shuttering the channels that communicate this critical information to the public,’ the report noted. ‘These moves, too, are starkly out of step with public views, even among Republicans. A wide majority of Republican voters said that government agencies should continue to share information about global warming with the public; this view is also shared by most Democrats. This solid bipartisan agreement is striking.’ Read more here.
