Young voters overwhelmingly support climate change action, vote against deniers

Climate change, and climate change denial, stands to become a huge political issue according to poll results released on Friday by the League of Conservation Voters. The organization polled a bipartisan sample of voters under age 35, and found climate change concern to be very high, and that overwhelmingly the age group will vote for leaders with plans similar to the Obama administration policies.

Put another way, the results show young voters want to see action on climate change, and want to support leaders willing to take steps to address the threat.

They (66%) see climate change as a threat that must be addressed, and only 27% see the changes of the climate as a natural occurrence over which humans have no influence. Likewise 65% see climate change as either already affecting us now, or expect it to affect us within their lifetimes.

Fully 80% support the President taking action to address climate change. Of those who generally support the President, there is overwhelming support of his actions on climate change. Of those who are unfavorable to the President, 56% still support his efforts to address climate change.

The support for action on climate change will affect who they vote for, with 79% saying they’ll vote leaders who support action on climate change, and 73% saying they’ll vote against leaders who do not.

Even though the Republican politicians are largely opposed to action on climate change, or actively obstructing such action, over half (52%) of the young Republicans in the survey would oppose a leader who opposes President Obama’s climate change policy.

Climate change deniers will have a hard time getting youth votes, with 68% saying they would vote against a climate change denier. Even among young Republicans, 47% would vote against a climate change denier.

Would action on climate change help or hurt the economy? Nearly 2/3rds (65%) of those surveyed believe action on climate change will help the economy with new jobs, careers, and industries, while just 26% buy the Republican claim that it will hurt the economy due to burdensome regulations and the like.

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About David Herron

David Herron is a writer and software engineer living in Silicon Valley. He primarily writes about electric vehicles, clean energy systems, climate change, peak oil and related issues. When not writing he indulges in software projects and is sometimes employed as a software engineer. David has written for sites like PlugInCars and TorqueNews, and worked for companies like Sun Microsystems and Yahoo.