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Heatmap’s inaugural survey finds broad support for climate action.
Americans are increasingly feeling the effects of climate change and overwhelmingly believe the United States needs to do more to address the issue, the inaugural Heatmap Climate Poll found.
Conducted in late February by Benenson Strategy Group, the poll arrives during a moment of heightened media attention to climate change. Earlier this week, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its synthesis report, which emphasizes the dangers posed by global warming as well as the need for governments to act swiftly and decisively. In the U.S., the implementation of President Biden's landmark climate law, the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, is well underway.
Overall, nearly three-quarters of all Americans say it is important for the United States to mitigate the effects of climate change, including 89% of Democrats and 61% of Republicans.
A plurality of Americans (47%) said they are feeling increasingly pessimistic about climate change, versus 28% who said they were increasingly optimistic and 24% who said it had no effect on them.
Half of Americans also attest to having been personally impacted by climate change, with 35% saying an immediate family member has experienced a serious climate-related event like a hurricane, tornado, blizzard, or flash flood that resulted in either personal harm or property damage.
“In more than two decades of polling Americans’ attitudes on a wide range of issues, including climate change, I have rarely seen such unequivocal support for action now by the U.S. government, to lead on mitigating the harmful effects of climate change on our planet,” says Joel Benenson, founder and CEO of Benenson Strategy Group. “Our survey shows that Americans want their politicians to do more, but fear they lack the will that is so urgently needed as people here at home and all over the world are increasingly impacted by extreme climate events.”
Indeed, Americans seem to have given up on government’s ability to make a difference. A plurality believes that individuals will have a greater positive effect on climate change in the near future than companies or the federal government.
Americans want corporations to do more but are skeptical of their motivations. Sixty-seven percent feel it is important for large corporations to mitigate the effects of climate change, but almost as many (64%) think their pledges to do so are just for appearances. Many also identify the sway that big corporations, lobbyists, and special interest groups have in Washington to be among the most significant obstacles to achieving renewable and sustainable solutions.
Americans were also largely in the dark about the details of the Inflation Reduction Act. Sixty-three percent reported knowing not much or nothing about the bill.
Americans reported varying degrees of interest in sustainability. Eighty percent acknowledged that sustainable consumer choices often involve some level of personal sacrifice; a surprisingly significant 27% of Americans either eat no meat (10%) or would like to stop eating meat in the future (17%). Almost half of Americans say they want to one day power their homes with solar panels (46%).
Interest in electric vehicles was also high. Nearly half of the respondents either currently drive an electric vehicle (8%) or would like to do so in the future (39%). Despite high levels of general interest, though, close to one in two Americans (45%) were unaware that the Inflation Reduction Act includes a provision to give up to $7,500 in consumer credit for the purchase of qualified vehicles.
The debate over how to proceed with Russia is dividing Americans. About half (52%) believe sanctions should remain in place as an effective way of punishing Moscow and limiting its ability to wage war in Ukraine, even if it means families ultimately pay more for energy in the U.S. The remaining respondents (48%) said sanctions should be lifted to reduce energy costs for American families. Separately, a plurality of respondents described the rising cost of living for families year after year as “an extremely serious problem" for climate change mitigation.
In the coming days and weeks, Heatmap will offer further analysis of the survey's results, including closer looks at the challenges of decarbonization, interest in electric vehicles, the hopes for individual action, and the toll of climate change on mental health.
The Heatmap Climate Poll of 1,000 American adults was conducted by Benenson Strategy Group via online panels from Feb. 15 to 20, 2023. The survey included interviews with Americans in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.02 percentage points. You can download the topline results below:
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Almost half of developers believe it is “somewhat or significantly harder to do” projects on farmland, despite the clear advantages that kind of property has for harnessing solar power.
The solar energy industry has a big farm problem cropping up. And if it isn’t careful, it’ll be dealing with it for years to come.
Researchers at SI2, an independent research arm of the Solar Energy Industries Association, released a study of farm workers and solar developers this morning that said almost half of all developers believe it is “somewhat or significantly harder to do” projects on farmland, despite the clear advantages that kind of property has for harnessing solar power.
Unveiled in conjunction with RE+, the largest renewable energy conference in the U.S., the federally-funded research includes a warning sign that permitting is far and away the single largest impediment for solar developers trying to build projects on farmland. If this trend continues or metastasizes into a national movement, it could indefinitely lock developers out from some of the nation’s best land for generating carbon-free electricity.
“If a significant minority opposes and perhaps leads to additional moratoria, [developers] will lose a foot in the door for any future projects,” Shawn Rumery, SI2’s senior program director and the survey lead, told me. “They may not have access to that community any more because that moratoria is in place.”
SI2’s research comes on the heels of similar findings from Heatmap Pro. A poll conducted for the platform last month found 70% of respondents who had more than 50 acres of property — i.e. the kinds of large landowners sought after by energy developers — are concerned that renewable energy “takes up farmland,” by far the greatest objection among that cohort.
Good farmland is theoretically perfect for building solar farms. What could be better for powering homes than the same strong sunlight that helps grow fields of yummy corn, beans and vegetables? And there’s a clear financial incentive for farmers to get in on the solar industry, not just because of the potential cash in letting developers use their acres but also the longer-term risks climate change and extreme weather can pose to agriculture writ large.
But not all farmers are warming up to solar power, leading towns and counties across the country to enact moratoria restricting or banning solar and wind development on and near “prime farmland.” Meanwhile at the federal level, Republicans and Democrats alike are voicing concern about taking farmland for crop production to generate renewable energy.
Seeking to best understand this phenomena, SI2 put out a call out for ag industry representatives and solar developers to tell them how they feel about these two industries co-mingling. They received 355 responses of varying detail over roughly three months earlier this year, including 163 responses from agriculture workers, 170 from solar developers as well as almost two dozen individuals in the utility sector.
A key hurdle to development, per the survey, is local opposition in farm communities. SI2’s publicity announcement for the research focuses on a hopeful statistic: up to 70% of farmers surveyed said they were “open to large-scale solar.” But for many, that was only under certain conditions that allow for dual usage of the land or agrivoltaics. In other words, they’d want to be able to keep raising livestock, a practice known as solar grazing, or planting crops unimpeded by the solar panels.
The remaining percentage of farmers surveyed “consistently opposed large-scale solar under any condition,” the survey found.
“Some of the messages we got were over my dead body,” Rumery said.
Meanwhile a “non-trivial” number of solar developers reported being unwilling or disinterested in adopting the solar-ag overlap that farmers want due to the increased cost, Rumery said. While some companies expect large portions of their business to be on farmland in the future, and many who responded to the survey expect to use agrivoltaic designs, Rumery voiced concern at the percentage of companies unwilling to integrate simultaneous agrarian activities into their planning.
In fact, Rumery said some developers’ reticence is part of what drove him and his colleagues to release the survey while at RE+.
As we discussed last week, failing to address the concerns of local communities can lead to unintended consequences with industry-wide ramifications. Rumery said developers trying to build on farmland should consider adopting dual-use strategies and focus on community engagement and education to avoid triggering future moratoria.
“One of the open-ended responses that best encapsulated the problem was a developer who said until the cost of permitting is so high that it forces us to do this, we’re going to continue to develop projects as they are,” he said. “That’s a cold way to look at it.”
Meanwhile, who is driving opposition to solar and other projects on farmland? Are many small farm owners in rural communities really against renewables? Is the fossil fuel lobby colluding with Big Ag? Could building these projects on fertile soil really impede future prospects at crop yields?
These are big questions we’ll be tackling in far more depth in next week’s edition of The Fight. Trust me, the answers will surprise you.
Here are the most notable renewable energy conflicts over the past week.
1. Worcester County, Maryland –Ocean City is preparing to go to court “if necessary” to undo the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s approval last week of U.S. Wind’s Maryland Offshore Wind Project, town mayor Rick Meehan told me in a statement this week.
2. Magic Valley, Idaho – The Lava Ridge Wind Project would be Idaho’s biggest wind farm. But it’s facing public outcry over the impacts it could have on a historic site for remembering the impact of World War II on Japanese residents in the United States.
3. Kossuth County, Iowa – Iowa’s largest county – Kossuth – is in the process of approving a nine-month moratorium on large-scale solar development.
Here’s a few more hotspots I’m watching…
The most important renewable energy policies and decisions from the last few days.
Greenlink’s good day – The Interior Department has approved NV Energy’s Greenlink West power line in Nevada, a massive step forward for the Biden administration’s pursuit of more transmission.
States’ offshore muddle – We saw a lot of state-level offshore wind movement this past week… and it wasn’t entirely positive. All of this bodes poorly for odds of a kumbaya political moment to the industry’s benefit any time soon.
Chumash loophole – Offshore wind did notch one win in northern California by securing an industry exception in a large marine sanctuary, providing for farms to be built in a corridor of the coastline.
Here’s what else I’m watching …