This is a guest post by Daniel J. Weiss, Senior Fellow at American Progress.
Climate progress auteur Dr. Joseph Romm recently noted the Earth is stuck in a “Groundhog Decade…where it’s always the hottest decade on record.” Temperature data from NOAA demonstrates that the ‘00’s were warmer than the ‘90’s, which were warmer than the ‘80’s, and so on. The data points in one direction: the Earth continues to warm.
Analogously, public opinion data on global warming also points in one direction: Americans support investments in clean energy, and want action to reduce global warming pollution. Poll after poll finds majorities support these measures, despite the worst economy in eighty years, and $100 million and growing of big oil and coal advocacy to defeat clean energy and global warming legislation.
Two just-released polls reiterate public support for clean energy and global warming pollution reductions. One is a nationwide poll by Yale University and George Mason University. The other is a poll of Massachusetts voters taken immediately after Republican Scott Brown was elected to the U.S. Senate to replace the late Democrat Edward Kennedy. This poll found that a majority Brown voters support reductions in global warming pollution.
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