Resource Library

State-level climate initiatives have made headlines recently, most notably in Washington state where the latest effort to pass a carbon tax failed to get through the state legislature, although a carbon fee will be on the ballot this November. While some view it as a blue state-specific referendum on progressive climate policies, others suggest that carbon taxes and cap-and-trade policies in states like Washington and Oregon could potentially provide a blueprint for policymakers and grassroots advocates across the country. Today we review recent polling and recap lessons learned for public engagement on carbon tax policies.

Recent polling demonstrates broad support for wind energy in individual states, like Oklahoma and Indiana; across regions like the Mid-Atlantic and Inter-mountain West; as well as nationwide. However, opposition to wind energy in parts of the country is expanding.
As advocates, sometimes we discuss the promise of wind energy without a full understanding of what a significant ramp-up of wind power really looks like, and how it might impact communities where turbines are sited. By the end of 2015, 1.4 million U.S. homes were located within 5 miles of a utility-scale wind power project. As that number continues to grow, so does the importance for those of us enthusiastically evangelizing wind energy to understand the attitudes and opinions of those folks most impacted by its expansion.
This week we look at a recent survey of individuals living near U.S. wind power projects by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which reveals insights into how U.S. communities are reacting to the deployment of wind turbines.

The authors of this paper seek to clarify how African-Americans and Hispanics differ from Anglos when it comes to pro-environmental orientations, measured via a battery of questions about environmental and climate concern. Using a 2016 online survey, weighted to reflect the 2010 US Census for gender and race, the authors found that Hispanics reported higher environmental/climate beliefs than Anglos, with African-Americans in between. However, there were no significant differences among the three groups when it came to knowledge of pro-environmental behaviors, risk perceptions from climate change, or pro-environmental behavioral intentions.