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To: Interested Parties
From: Mike
Date: March 17, 2008
Re: Research Project
Executive Summary
- Voters do not identify climate change anywhere near the top of their concerns, irrespective of how the question gets asked. We need to understand that as we go forward; the issue is a political one for advocates, not a pressing one for the American voter.
- Voters are nowhere near ready to accept the potential costs given their current sentiments about the science. The lesson for us is clear: those opposed to regulatory mandates need to keep the scientific argument open and viable. That is especially true as people are informed about potential costs.
- As is so often the case, facts are the allies of those opposed to further government action. People do not know what is already being done. They do not know that we are doing better than the Europeans. They do not know that alternative energy sources are expensive and the technology is not quite there yet. Those who would oppose regulatory mandates cannot simply say that the costs are high, or even prohibitively high. They need to tell voters the whole story.
- Potential job losses will be at least as important to this discussion as costs to households.
- As part of a coherent critique of current plans to address global warming, opponents of current proposals need to include the idea (where applicable) that such plans will lead directly or indirectly to increased reliance on imported energy.
- Voters believe that consumers, not government, are the key to producing the necessary technology.
- While questions about Chinese and Indian involvement may be important to elites, they seem less important to voters.
- Those who argue that taxation is the better approach will find fertile ground to argue that taxes are better than government regulation.
- We expect that soon advocates will offer something smaller, perhaps more modular, in response to voter sentiment about costs, jobs, technology, the need to grow a program only after some success, and the overall economic context.
Methodology
As you know, we have recently concluded a research project on global warming. I have attached the results of the nationwide survey of 1000 registered voters (conducted March 10 through March 14, 2008, margin of error is 3.1%). While some of the results are straightforward, I wanted to offer a few thoughts about them, as well as offer some contextual information that we gleaned from the focus groups (consisting of about 10 registered voters each and conducted in Atlanta, Detroit, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Tampa, Houston, Denver, and Los Angeles).
Context
As we have found before, global warming is not a very important issue for voters. When asked to identify the most important issue facing the United States, about 2% of our respondents offered the “environment”. When asked for the second most important, 2% offered the “environment”. Combined, that is less than energy (10% combined) or immigration (7%) and markedly less than the most important issues (the economy at 68% and Iraq at 45%).
When we focused respondents specifically on the environment, only 25% offered global warming or climate change as the most important environmental issue facing the United States right now. The percentage was not appreciably different (28%) when we asked about long term. It is, however, down slightly a percentage of mindshare from our survey results in January 2007, where 38% identified global warming as the most important environmental issue.
Additionally, addressing global warming was selected by 16% of respondents as the most pressing or urgent global problem among the choices offered. This places it fourth of four choices, significantly behind “curing disease” (32%) and “feeding the hungry” (25%).
Finally on this point, we tried to understand the voters’ perspective from a different angle and asked about the most important aspect of the energy we use in the United States. Just a bit less than one in eight (12%) mentioned “its environmental effect” (compared with 24% who mentioned “cost” and 13% who mentioned “whether it is domestic or imported.”
Science
At the outset of the project, we expected that the respondents would consider the science pretty much a closed book and a dead letter. What we have learned is that even in places (like Minneapolis) where we salted the focus group with true believers, few respondents offered that the science was settled. The survey results confirm that. When asked how certain the science is on a scale of one to 10 (with 10 being certain), the mean response was just 5.8 (the median was 6.0).
At the same time, respondents hedged their bets by suggesting that the urgency to do something was somewhat greater than the certainty. Again, when presented with a one to 10 scale, the mean response with respect to urgency was 6.5 and the median response was 7.0. That suggests to us that while there remains significant questions about the science, people are approaching the issue carefully and are looking, for lack of a better way to think about it, to hedge their bets.
But that willingness or desire to hedge has limits. When introduced to potential cost numbers and then asked what level of certainty they would need to accept such costs willingly, respondents in both the focus groups and the survey responded by increasing the level of certainty, significantly in some instances. When asked simply what the level of scientific certainty would need to be if there would be (just) “some” job loss, the mean rose to 7.4 and the median to 8.0 (increases of 25 and 33 percent, respectively).
It is worthwhile to note that the survey respondents were offered much gentler numbers than the focus group participants. When we attached actual estimated numbers (job loss and specific average price increases) to the discussions, the focus group participants typically offered that the certainty scale would have to be either nine or 10.
Costs
We expected costs to be one of the most significant contrary arguments available to us, and they should be. For example, when asked how much extra money they would be willing to spend to address global warming, survey respondents offered a mean response of $554 dollars annually; the median was just $50. It is important to note that 70% of the respondents offered $500 or less; while just 18% offered more than $500. More than one-third (35%) offered “zero”.
There were some striking differences between groups on these numbers. As noted above, African-American respondents were much less enthusiastic than their white counterparts. Men as a group had a mean response of $671 a year, while women’s mean response was $439 a year. The largest disparity may have been between those who think the EU is doing better and those who don’t. The EU fans offered a mean of $1,026 per year; their counterparts offered just $286 per year.
With that said, I would note, however, that the overall mean response was higher than expected, although it does confirm conversations that we repeatedly heard in the focus groups. Those conversations consisted of participants initially offering very limited amounts that they were willing to spend (typically around $200 annually) and then signaling that they were willing to spend more if that was necessary to initiate a “good start” on addressing global warming.
All of which leads us to two thoughts. First, it is crucial to remind people of their original sentiments about costs before explaining the legislation (and place a comparative in the conversation, like a specific increase in the price per gallon of gasoline). Second, we need to alert people that we already have made a good start by listing off actions already taken and results achieved. Absent that, we will be vulnerable to the other side avoiding the cost issue by selling the legislation as a “good start”.
On that note, there is very little understanding of what has been done. Respondents have little or no information about what actions have been taken by government or others that have reduced or will reduce emissions of greenhouse gases (only about 10% are even close on guessing how much we spend each year). They have little or no idea about either what sources of energy we use (they typically guess that we rely much more on renewables than we do, which probably means that they believe a transition to alternatives is easier than it really would be), our recent track record on greenhouse gas emissions (they think the EU is doing much better than we are), or even how much coal, oil, or whatever we have left.
The lack of information among voters makes them vulnerable to the other side’s pitch. For example, while 28% of all respondents think that global warming is the most important environmental issue facing the United States in the long-term, among those who think the EU is doing a better job that percentage is 38%; among those who think the US is doing a better job that percentage is 18%. The message to us seems apparent: when you have command of some basic facts, when you can place the conversation in context, you are less susceptible to undue agitation and your sang froid tends to remain intact.
On a final note, when presented with cost estimates, there are some interesting dynamics. At a cost estimate of an additional $1000 per year in energy and other costs, most respondents (58%) indicate that will make them less likely to support the bill. However, some groups (self-identified liberals and those making $80,000 or more a year) indicated that would make them more likely to support the bill – clearly they expected a bigger cost. At a cost estimate of additional $3,000 per year, about 71% of respondents are less likely to support the bill, and this time, everyone is opposed, even self-identified liberals (61% opposed) and those making more than $80,000 per year (64% opposed).
Jobs
People were shocked at the magnitude of the potential job losses, especially in the context of what they anticipate will be a difficult and lengthy recession. In the past, we have usually found that people are disinterested in the loss of jobs not their own, but the economic environment has scrambled that traditional sentiment. The scope of the job losses is clearly well beyond what voters will accept.
For example, when asked what number of job losses would be considered acceptable to reduce carbon emissions by 80%, the mean response was 426,000, but the median was 1,000. Fully two-thirds of respondents (65%) said 100,000 or less, one-third (35%) said “zero”. Just 5% said 1 million or more job losses would be acceptable.
Among those who think that the US is doing better than the EU, fully half said “zero”.
This conforms completely to what we heard in the groups. Participants were thoughtful and careful about what sorts of extra money they might be willing personally to pay, but were emotional and direct about potential job losses.
On a comparative note, when presented with cost estimates and job loss estimates, survey respondents (not surprisingly) were more concerned about the $3000 per year extra (71% less likely to support the bill) than the $1000 per year extra (58% less likely to support the bill). But the job loss numbers drove away even more voters (barely -- 72% less likely) than the high end cost numbers.
Contextually, the sentiments make sense. When asked if the economy strong enough to incur the additional costs, 65% said no. Earlier in the survey, almost nine in 10 respondents said that affordable energy was “very” important to the economy. The other side is going to have a difficult time explaining that now is the appropriate moment to add additional burdens to an already tenuous economy.
Imported oil and global warming
There is no question that reducing the amount of energy we import is more important to voters than climate change. Almost three-quarters of voters (72%) selected it as more important than addressing global warming (20%), and fully 71% said that they would not support a plan to address global warming that resulted in increasing our dependence on foreign sources of energy. Even when we introduced the idea of emphasizing coal use, voters still chose domestic sources (58%) over moving faster on environmental goals (39%). The sentiments are pretty consistent across demographic and ideological groups. For example, self-identified liberals split 52% to 36% for reducing imported energy rather than addressing global warming. Most surprisingly, even among those who identified global warming as the most urgent global problem, reducing dependence on imported energy was ranked as more important (46% to 40%).
Consumers vs. Government
The central feature of the discussion to date has been which is the best way to drive the technology advancement that we might need to address potential global warming. There are, quite simply, two schools of thought on the subject. The first (most closely and unfortunately identified with the current administration) holds that consumer demand, coupled with appropriate investments and inducements will yield the necessary technology. The second holds that government mandates will identify a price for carbon which will bring forth technology.
The voters seem to believe that the consumer-driven approach is the best way. About 3 in 5 (57%) indicate that the best way to develop the needed technology is through consumer demand. Only about 37% indicate that government policies and mandates are the best way. Even self-identified liberals split for the consumer-drive approach (54% to 43%). The most surprising feature of the entire response set is that it is so clear despite the marginal competence of the current administration in explaining what is being done and our results to date compared to the Europeans. If there was even a modest understanding of those two items, we are confident that enthusiasm for a consumer-driven approach would be much greater.
American Exceptionalism
The spirit of American exceptionalism, which usually is our friend, in this instance, works against us. Simply put, it seems like anywhere from two-thirds to three-quarters of voters think that we should do (or not do) something on this issue, without reference to our trade competitors. Trying to square this attitude with the sentiments towards job losses is challenging. While we think that most people will resist any plan that results in too much job loss to anywhere, they are (at least for the moment) resistant to the idea of tying our response to those of other nations.
The silver lining on this sentiment is that there is also limited appetite to follow the EU (or whomever) off of any policy cliffs.
Taxes/Cap and trade
Few voters are confused about the potential to experience regulatory costs that are passed to them; about 4 in 5 (81%) think it “very” likely that if companies incur costs to address climate change, those companies will pass through the cost to consumers. This sentiment is probably historical and certainly informs subsequent responses on taxes and cap and trade. Simply put, when asked how they would prefer to reduce carbon emissions, about a third (33%) say taxes on consumers, with revenues directed to research on new technologies. One in five say taxes on consumers with offsetting tax reductions elsewhere. Just a shade less than one in five (19%) say government regulations on companies.
I realize that none of those answers is particularly appetizing (so do some of the respondents; 21% said “none of the above”). However, it does present us with the possibility of exploring alternative approaches should we be placed in a predicament where that might be wise. The reality is that fewer than one in five respondents selected the course of action being considered by the United States Senate; four in five rejected it. It seems clear to me that we have an opportunity to alter the debate about how best to proceed.
The Future
Almost all focus group participants indicated that their preferred approach would be to start slow (or incrementally), have some success, and then increase the pace of the actions. As noted above, there is concern over potential costs and job losses, and a contextual concern about the fragility of the economy. Consequently, there is not much sentiment for radical, immediate, or far-reaching actions. As noted above, participants have either a very limited or no idea about what is being done, but we are confident that once they are alerted to current actions, they may be satisfied with those. At the same time, we imagine that the other side has heard the same sorts of sentiments in their research. Accordingly, it seems logical to assume that they will shift tactics and rhetoric to more closely align with the sentiments and attitudes of the voters.
Demographic Notes
There were a couple of demographic features worth noting.
First, there is a group that identifies primarily with international threads of the discussion. They are more likely to think the EU is doing better. Their priorities more closely match the global priorities of the EU. They are more likely to view the science as settled. They are more likely to identify global warming as the most pressing global problem and were more likely to identify it as the most important environmental issue facing the United States. This group is mostly liberal and voted against Bush in 2004. For instance, among those who voted against Bush, 56% thought the EU is doing better at addressing global warming, compared to just 44% of the total sample. Comparatively, among those who voted for Bush it was a dead heat, with 32% saying the US is doing better, and 32% saying the EU is doing better.
However, it may be important to note that even this group was split on how best to address the issue (63% chose taxation, while 24% chose government regulation).
Second, there are obviously concerns about the potential regressivity of any approach lurking in contextual sentiments. For example, when asked about the necessary level of scientific certainty they would need to be comfortable to absorb job losses, African-American respondents’ median rose to 9.0 when informed about the possibility of job losses and 9.0 when informed about the possibility of higher prices (compared to medians of 8 in both cases for whites). Similarly, when asked about willingness to pay to address global warming, white respondents offered a mean response of about $556 per year. African-American respondents offered a mean of $339 a year.
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