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Indiana residents strongly favor renewable energy and net metering policies. 74% favor expanding the use of renewable energy after learning that “less than 10% of Indiana’s energy is generated by renewable sources” (including 63% of Republicans and 95% of Democrats). 75% favor net metering policies after hearing a brief description of the program (including 74% of Republicans and 84% of Democrats). Vast majorities would rather expand net metering as compared to ending it. 76% believe climate change is a threat (including 97% of Democrats and 60% of Republicans).

This post includes a roundup of climate and environment headlines, data points, and key takeaways from this week’s public polls – including new polling on the Build Back Better plan, federal conservation policies, and attitudes about the relative climate impacts of individual consumers and large companies. 

From one perspective, we’re ending 2021 a lot like we started it. In a pandemic, experiencing one extreme weather event after another, and anxious over how power is being wielded in Congress and the White House.
At the same time, there have been a significant number of policy victories at all levels of government while new funding resources and new horizons in climate leadership are creating transformational shifts within the climate movement. Shifts that have the potential to unlock the people power we are going to need to win – and secure – the transition to a clean energy future that we all need. Below you’ll find summaries of key trends in the climate movement for 2021 – and some of the Best of the Lab from this year.

American consumers are willing to reward and punish companies based on their corporate climate behavior, but they don’t always know which companies are good and bad. This survey from September 2021 showed that Americans reported both doing this with their recent, past consumer behavior and their intentional, future behavior. 33% of Americans said they have rewarded companies that are taking steps to reduce global warming by buying their products in the past 12 months, and 28% said they have punished companies that are opposing steps to reduce global warming by not buying their products. 41% said that, over the next 12 months, they intend to reward companies that are taking steps to reduce global warming more frequently than they do now. Americans said that the biggest barrier in preventing more of this kind of behavior was not knowing which companies to reward and punish.

Hispanic voters don’t approve of Donald Trump’s environmental policies. Among Hispanics who voted in 2020, just 44% approve of Trump “cutting environmental regulations”. Broken down by ideology, 46% of liberal Hispanic voters but 59% of conservative Hispanic voters approve of Trump “cutting environmental regulations”.