Showing a green mind-set on global warming may help politicians gain votes, according to one Stanford University analysis.
The experiments look at how voters perceive policy makers' stances on anthropogenic, or man-made, climate change. The results haven't undergone the peer-review process, but will be presented at a non-profit seminar later this week.
In one set-up, researchers surveyed approximately 1,000 people from Maine, Massachusetts and Florida last July, asking them whether they would vote for a hypothetical candidate running for a Senate seat based on the politician's climate change policies.
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The team wanted to see whether a candidate prioritizing climate change, disagreeing with it, or having no opinion affected voting behavior from Democrat, Republican and Independent respondents.
After looking at the results of the phone interviews, the research team found that respondents were more likely to vote for candidates with a green approach on climate change than those who did not believe action was needed.
Around 65 percent of respondents said they would vote for the candidate who "was silent" on climate change while 77 percent said they would vote for the candidate with a green position on the issue. This compares with roughly 48 percent of people who reported voting for a candidate with a non-green position on global warming.
The results point to a hidden political strategy, researchers say. Republican candidates may gain swing votes by adopting a green approach to climate change. Along these lines, conservatives have little to lose by adopting a green attitude because other issues, including the economy, are usually more important to the party's core voters, the authors write. In other words, it's unlikely that having green climate change policies will scare off loyal Republican voters. Instead, they may be more appealing to other voters outside the party.
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Though the parties tend to have different views on global warming -- and even more opinions about how to reduce greenhouse gases while maintaining a stable economy, the experiments challenge the notion that conservatives would lose voters by appearing more concerned with the environment. Some politicians in the party may even reinforce this stereotype by attacking front-runners with greener approaches than their own.
Worldwide, 35 percent of adults attribute climate change to human activities, while nearly half of that consider natural causes to be more responsible, according to one 2011 Gallup Poll report. The United States is the only country out of the group in which more people think nature -- not humans -- is responsible for global warming.
Photo by a.drian/Flickr.com
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