Audience: Conservatives & Republicans

79% of voters are more likely to support a lawmaker who supports policies that encourage renewabl energy options (such as wind, solar, and waste to energy technologies), compared to 51% of voters who are more likely to support a lawmaker who supports policies that encourage the development of more fossil fuel energy, such as coal and oil. 
Voters are most likely (85%) to support a lawmaker who supports legislation that would provide additional ways for home or business owners to finance energy upgrades, such as improved insulation, lighting, or windows. 
77% of voters are more likely to support a lawmaker who wants to change North Carolina’s regulatory policy to allow for more competition and consumer choice. 
A pluarility of voters (38%) see climate change as a “serious problem” and think “immediate action” is necessary. An addiitonal 22% support “some action.” 
60% of voters recognize that the effects of climate change “have already begun to happen” and 59% understand climate change is “mainly the result of manmade pollution.”

Use emotionally positive images of climate change solutions to grab people’s attention. Using experiments with undergraduate students that measure individuals’ reaction time, researchers found that positive images of climate change, like windmills and solar panels, were better at grabbing participants’ attention than negative images of causes (smokestacks, air pollution) and effects (glaciers melting) of climate change. In fact, using negative images of climate change was no more attention grabbing than images irrelevant to climate change. The use of positive images may be even more important for grabbing the attention of those who are least disposed to care about the environment and climate change. So, when developing media and communication information, consider using positive images of climate change solutions.