Floridians Believe in Climate Change and Want Government Action
Florida residents concerned about climate change
Floridians are more convinced that climate change is happening than Americans as a whole and strongly support steps to address its impact, according to a new Florida Atlantic University survey.
The latest edition of the Florida Climate Resilience Survey found that 90 percent of respondents believe climate change is happening. The finding is consistent with eight previous surveys conducted by FAU’s Center for Environmental Studies (CES), which found that 86 percent to 92 percent of respondents had that belief.
In contrast, a recent Yale University survey found that 74 percent of Americans as a whole think climate change is happening.
“Floridians might be more likely to believe climate change is happening due to their experiences with hurricanes and other extreme weather,” said Colin Polsky, Ph.D., the founding director of FAU’s School of Environmental, Coastal, and Ocean Sustainability.
The survey also found that Floridians overwhelmingly support more government action to address the impacts of climate change, with 69 percent support for state action and 70 percent support for federal action.
“The obvious hypothesis to test is that recent personal experiences with weather events increase support for addressing climate change, regardless of party affiliation,” Polsky said.
The survey’s data appear to support this notion with 60 percent of Floridians reporting some level of negative impact by strong winds from a hurricane or tornado in the past 12 months, and 45 percent of Floridians reporting some level of negative impact from flooding in the past 12 months.
The survey did find a slight decline in statewide belief in the human-caused nature of climate change, which dropped to 57 percent from 65 percent since a March survey. But Polsky said the current survey’s overall findings suggest that support for action on climate change will strengthen as the state’s population continues to boom, with Florida adding more than 400,000 new residents last year alone.
The last two editions of the survey found that newer residents exhibit higher levels of belief in human-caused climate change than people who have lived in Florida longer than five years. Polsky believes these trends might explain the state’s investment in recent years of more than $1 billion in climate adaptation projects.
“It’s fair to conclude that state politicians feel insulated from backlash if they support actions to address climate change,” he said. “Since the state is so dominated by the Republican Party, it makes sense to consider calling Florida the first Republican state to openly fight climate change.”
CES has conducted the Florida Climate Resilience Survey since October 2019 and now does so twice each year. The latest edition of the survey was conducted in English and Spanish from Sept. 22 to 28. The sample consisted of 1,400 Floridians, aged 18 and older, with a survey margin of error of +/- 2.53 percentage points. The data were collected using an online panel provided by GreatBlue Research. Responses for the entire sample were weighted to adjust for age, race, income, education and gender, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Surveys. It is important to remember that subsets carry higher margins of error.
For more information, survey results and full cross-tabulations, visit www.ces.fau.edu/ces-bepi/ or contact Colin Polsky, Ph.D., at cpolsky@fau.edu.
-FAU-
Latest Research
- FAU Researcher Lands Grant for Personalized Cancer Radiation TherapyThe project, led by Wazir Muhammad, Ph.D., will employ AI, specifically deep reinforcement learning, to analyze multimodal data, improving cancer characterization and treatment for better patient outcomes.
- FAU/Mainstreet Poll: Harris Narrows Trump's Lead to 5 PointsNew FAU poll highlights current voter leanings that were examined immediately before U.S. President Joe Biden announced he was leaving the race.
- National Poll Shows Small Trump Bump Post-Assassination AttemptA new poll of the battleground states of Georgia and Virginia highlights current voter leanings that were examined immediately before and after the attempted assassination of former U.S. President Donald Trump.
- FAU Expert: These Banks Are at Higher Risk of a Depositor RunMore banks are at an increased risk of having a liquidity crisis caused from withdrawals by large uninsured depositors, according to an analysis from a finance expert at Florida Atlantic University
- Digital Self-Harm Surges Among U.S. Teens from 2016 to 2021A new study finds that digital self-harm, where individuals anonymously post or share hurtful content about themselves online, has increased more than 88% since 2016 among 13 to 17 year olds in the U.S.
- National Poll: 45% of Democrat Voters Say Biden Should Not RunA new poll conducted by Florida Atlantic University's PolCom Lab and Mainstreet Research USA examines the state of the presidential election as reverberations of last week's debate continue to play out.