Support for clean energy cuts across the political spectrum, a new survey finds.
“Well above three-quarters of residents in both Red (77%) and Blue (80%) States believe that the government should offer incentives” for renewable energy businesses, such as tax credits, according to the survey released on Thursday.
Nearly three fourths of both red state and blue state respondents “are worried that there isn’t enough being done to reduce climate change.” Those are key findings of a new survey of more than 1,000 U.S. consumers commissioned by Swytch, “a blockchain-based platform that tracks and verifies the impact of sustainability efforts and actions on the worldwide level of CO2 emissions.”
These findings match those of a post-election survey by a GOP polling firm that found 75 percent of Trump voters support taking action to accelerate the development and use of clean energy.
Trump’s pro-pollution policies, however, are actually aimed at decelerating the development and use of clean energy — even if it means red state voters end up paying more for their electricity.
In fact, the survey published on Thursday found that a remarkable 38 percent of National Rifle Association (NRA) members have solar panels — more than twice the percentage of the general population (17 percent).
It also found that three-quarters of both NRA and Greenpeace members believe in rewarding businesses for producing clean energy.
Recent years have seen the emergence of a so-called “Green Tea Party” or Coalition — conservatives who support clean energy. Indeed a 2017 article in Environmental Sociology, “Green tea: clean-energy conservatism as a countermovement,” notes that “Clean-energy conservatism has emerged, in part, as a dissenting response to the alignment of conservatism with support for fossil fuels.”
At the same time, because solar power allows people to operate equipment and indeed, entire houses, off-grid, it has become very popular with survivalists and so-called “doomsday preppers” — who are preparing for a time when a catastrophe might disrupt the social order and bring down the national electric grid.
Articles such as “Best Portable Solar Panels & Solar Powered Products For Doomsday Preppers & Long Term Survival” are common online at survivalist websites, which typically also sell things like water filtration systems and guns.
In fact, the official NRA store online itself sells an “NRA Survival Solar Power Bank,” pointing out, “This powerful tool harnesses the power of sunlight to recharge your electronic devices — even when no electricity is available.”
Solar power’s benefits are universal.
