No Red and Blue Divide When It Comes to Renewable Energy Innovation and CO2 Rules - by Andrew C. Revkin

Regular readers may recall my 2013 post describing how "energy agreement" is often "hidden by climate disputes" -  drawing on data from a sustained survey by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication.

I saw that work as invaluable because it illustrated that a focus on deep polarization over the level of risk posed by global warming could be distracting from the prospect of taking widely-supported steps that could be taken to address it.

Now the Yale analysts, with partners at Utah State University, have built an illuminating set of maps of American attitudes - right down to the congressional districts on a variety of important questions related to global warming and options for addressing it, including regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant and boosting government spending on research to improve renewable energy technologies.  The background science was published online Monday in Nature Climate Change.

Here are three mapped data sets (at the state level) that illustrate a vitally important point, to my mind:

First, most states are in the pastel middle ranges in terms of voters reporting that they are worried about global warming.  That's a finding that can be interpreted differently, in Rorschach ink blot fashion.  But I think it's most meaningful considered in the context of Gallup findings showing global warming still at the bottom of environmental concerns.  The bottom line is "meh" finding, as my younger son's generation might say.

But now look at the breadth of support across the United States for using pollution regulations to curb carbon dioxide, the main human-generated greenhouse gas:

And finally, there's even greater support for increasing government investments in research improving renewable energy sources:





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