Issue: Solar

As the global climate crisis intensifies, extreme heat events are becoming more frequent and severe worldwide. This escalating heat has placed the topic at the forefront of climate change discussions, with city governments increasingly concerned about the risks posed by extreme temperatures. To limit the impact on communities and safeguard public health, effective communication of heat risks, especially to vulnerable populations, is of paramount importance.

This post includes climate and environment headlines, data points, and key takeaways from recent public polls – including on prioritizing clean energy sources over fossil fuels, voters supporting investments in clean energy and energy efficiency, and clean energy in key states.

Voters in rural-heavy counties in Georgia and Ohio tilt toward supporting wind and solar farms, but attitudes are quite malleable. Inoculation against character concerns is hard, so it may be better to focus proactive messaging on the benefits of wind and solar farms. A plurality of voters start out supporting wind and solar farms in their community but fewer than half of voters have intense attitudes either way and one-quarter are completely neutral. While voters intuitively get the pollution reduction benefits of these farms, they are more skeptical of the benefits to themselves and farmers – and they are concerned about their ROI. Encouragingly, our messaging is effective at increasing the belief that wind and solar farms will provide benefits to farmers and families – and that they create enough energy to be worth it. However, efforts to inoculate people against concerns about the impact on community character in this research were unsuccessful. Opposition attacks have a real impact, but simple pushback that ties this disinformation to Big Oil and Coal CEOs is quite successful in defusing these attacks. Positive messaging is effective at building support, especially with Democrats, less conservative Republicans, and women.

MONDAY 4/10, 10AM PACIFIC/1PM EASTERN
With the passing of the IRA (Inflation Reduction Act), there is now a window to accelerate the deployment of clean energy in the US – but not without challenges. There is skepticism, confusion, equity considerations, NIMBY opposition, and most frequently just apathy. What is the best way to talk about clean energy that gets Americans excited?