By Bill Becker

With the exception of Alfred E. Newman and those who are taking advantage of legalized pot, we Americans are very good worriers. We are even able to worry about several things at once. It’s a kind of emotional multi-tasking and we do it all the time.

Nevertheless, it’s a skill that President Obama consistently underestimates when he talks about the politics of global climate change. The most recent example came in his meeting earlier this month with high-net-worth supporters in San Francisco. As the New York Times reported it, the President lamented that the politics of the environment are “tough.”

“You may be concerned about the temperature of the planet, but it’s probably not your No. 1 concern,” the Times quoted him as saying. “And if people think, well, that’s shortsighted, that’s what happens when you’re struggling to get by.”

He made a similar statement last Nov. 14 in his first post-election news conference:

There’s no doubt that for us to take on climate change in a serious way would involve making some tough political choices, and you know, understandably, I think the American people right now have been so focused and will continue to be focused on our economy and jobs and growth that, you know, if the message is somehow we’re going to ignore jobs and growth simply to address climate change, I don’t think anybody’s going to go for that. I won’t go for that.

The idea that we live in a one-worry-at-a-time political environment is encouraged by public opinion polls that ask citizens to identify their top issues – in other words, what worries them most. Climate change routinely falls well down the list behind all things economic.

The polls corner their respondents into false choices, however, because most of the issues people are asked to rank are interrelated. Oil prices have a big impact on the economy and jobs. The extreme weather attributed to climate change, which in turn is attributed to our use of fossil fuels, results in more federal spending, which deepens the budget deficit and pressure on taxes. Climate impacts around the world already are undermining international security. Some of the money American consumers spend on gasoline ends up in the Middle East supporting terrorism. And as study after study has concluded, using energy more efficiently and making the transition to renewable energy not only slows climate change; it also stimulates the economy and creates jobs. Breaking these issues apart, stuffing them into stovepipes and asking people to rank them is not nearly as informative as pollsters and politicians make it out to be.

As intelligent as he obviously is, President Obama should have no trouble stitching these issues back together to help the American people see the interconnections that exist in the real world between energy, climate, economy, jobs, national security, government spending, and other issues on the pollsters’ lists.

During his November news conference, President Obama continued:

If, on the other hand, we can shape an agenda that says we can create jobs, advance growth and make a serious dent in climate change and be an international leader, I think that’s something that the American people would support. So you know, you can expect that you’ll hear more from me in the coming months and years about how we can shape an agenda that garners bipartisan support and helps move this — moves this agenda forward.

So let’s hear from you, Mr. President. Since it’s so hard to put carbon back in the smokestack or to put the pieces back after our super-storms, let’s have a national conversation about climate change in the coming months rather than the coming years. Don’t worry about us. We’re world-class worriers. It’s a skill that’s been passed down from generation to generation. We, like you, are able to handle more than one important issue at a time.

– Bill Becker is Executive Director of the Presidential Climate Action Project (PCAP), an initiative of Natural Capitalism Solutions to help the President of the United States take decisive action on global warming and energy security.

Gallup latest polling confirms that the public’s understanding and concern about global warming is on the rise. This matches the findings of other pollsters — see Yale Poll (10/12): “Large And Growing Majority Of Americans” Say “Global Warming Is Affecting Weather In The United States.”

The public’s awareness that humans are the primary cause of global warming has returned to pre-2010 levels (see chart above). This awareness matches our ever-strengthening scientific understanding — see It’s “Extremely Likely That at Least 74% of Observed Warming Since 1950″ Was Manmade; It’s Highly Likely All of It Was.”

The public’s (accurate) understanding of the scientific consensus on global warming is “back above 60%”:

Gallup explains what’s probably going on:

Americans’ concerns about global warming peaked at points in the late 1980s and the late 1990s, and again between 2006 and 2008, possibly related to strong environmentalist campaigns to raise awareness of the issue at those times — including the release of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” in 2006. Conversely, concerns receded in 2009 and 2010, particularly among Republicans and conservatives, corresponding with a flurry of publicity about scientists who doubt global warming is caused by human activities, as well as some controversy about global warming research. With all of this dying down somewhat in the last few years, attitudes are returning to previous levels, putting them near the long-term averages.

Gallup’s conclusion about the role of Gore’s movie matches that of academic research. As Dr. Robert J. Brulle of Drexel University described to me his 2012 study that examined the results of 6 different polling organizations over the years, “I think this should close down forever the idea that Al Gore caused the partisan polarization over climate change.”

Here is Gallup’s quarter-century polling on public concern about global warming:

Again, this matches the findings of other pollsters — see Rasmussen Poll (11/12): 68 Percent Of American Voters See Global Warming As A “Serious Problem” (up from 46% in 2009).

Though Republican party leaders are often known for being dismissive or skeptical of climate science, a new survey has found Republican voters don’t necessarily share their leaders’ views on climate and energy.

The survey, conducted by George Mason’s Center for Climate Change Communication, polled Republican and Republican-leaning independents and found the majority of respondents accept climate change is happening — a step some influential Republicans have yet to take — and 62 percent of those think the U.S. should take steps to address the problem.

Here’s what else the survey found:

• Republican voters support clean energy: 77 percent of respondents said they want America to use more renewable energy, and a large majority of them want the switch to happen immediately.
• They believe the benefits of clean energy outweigh the costs: achieving energy independence and saving resources for future generations were more important to a majority of respondents than the increased government regulation and free market interference that the survey cited as potential costs of a major change in energy sources. This is at odds with Republican leaders’ recent stances on renewable energy: during the 2012 election, presidential candidate Mitt Romney condemned the Obama Administration’s “war on coal,” and several Republicans in congress have opposed government funding for clean energy.
• Only about one-third of the respondents agree with the Republican party’s stance on climate change, a platform that in 2012 made no direct mention of climate change and lauded the economic value of coal and the benefits of the Keystone XL pipeline.

As scientific evidence of climate change’s immediate and future impacts has only grown over the years, many Republican leaders have become increasingly hostile toward clean energy initiatives and blind to the threats of climate change. The language of the 2012 Republican platform, for instance, was a far cry from the party’s 2008 platform, which acknowledged that human activity was increasing the amount of carbon in the atmosphere and reasoned that the “common sense” approach to the issue would be to take “measured and reasonable steps today to reduce any impact on the environment.”

But as the George Mason study demonstrates, public opinion hasn’t followed the party’s lead. A recent Stanford University poll found that 82 percent accept that the earth is warming, and 73 percent believe climate change-induced sea level rise poses a threat to the U.S. And a Pew poll released today found 65 percent of Americans think climate change is a “very serious” or “somewhat serious” problem. The Republican party has been said to be out of touch with voters on issues such as immigration and marriage equality — perhaps increasing public consensus can help the party evolve on climate change as well.