A large bipartisan majority of Americans would like to see the U.S. government take action to counter global warming, according to a new poll released by The New York Times, Stanford University and the environmental research group Resources for the Future.
The poll found that 77 percent of Americans believe the federal government should be doing a "substantial amount" to fight climate change. Ninety percent of Democrats held this view, 78 percent of independents and 48 percent of Republicans.
Two-thirds of respondents said they were more likely to vote for a candidate who pledges to fight climate change, which could have interesting implications for the upcoming 2016 race, especially in a Republican field where many candidates question climate science.
"The most powerful finding" in the poll, according to Stanford professor of political scientist Jon Krosnick, was that 48 percent of self-identifying Republican respondents said they are more likely to vote for a candidate who supports fighting climate change-related issues. Still, 47 percent of Republicans said they think policies meant to counter the effect of global warming will hurt the economy, reported the New York Times.
Many Republican presidential hopefuls remain vocal critics of the science behind climate change. As the Times noted, all but one 2012 Republican presidential candidate - Jon Huntsman - either questioned or outright denied scientific findings showing that global warming was anthropogenic in nature.
The poll did find that climate change wasn't a top issue amongst voters, but nonetheless, a candidate's position on climate issues still significantly influences how a person may vote.
"For example," the Times wrote, "67 percent of respondents, including 48 percent of Republicans and 72 percent of independents, said they were less likely to vote for a candidate who said that human-caused climate change is a hoax."
Even more Americans - 83 percent, including 61 percent of Republicans and 86 percent of independents - believe that if nothing is done to reduce carbon emissions, global warming will morph into a "very or somewhat serious problem."
A separate poll released Thursday by Pew Research Center found that 87 percent of scientists agree that climate change is mostly caused by human activity, but only half of the general public believed that to be true.
"There is a disconnect between the way in which the public perceives the state of science and science's position on a variety of issues, and the way in which the scientific community ... looks at the state of science," Alan Leshner, chief executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, told reporters, according to NBC News. "That's a cause of concern."
"It's not about whether the public is dumb or not. It's partly a function of the American educational system that does a terrible job ... at educating young people in science, math and technology," he added.
