Global warming may not be so powerful as a political issue. That’s what I take from the results of the Field Poll, that released a list of issues rated by the voters as to what is most important to them in the upcoming gubernatorial election. Global warming finished last of 12 issues queried.
The voters’ attitude toward global warming may very well determine the outcome of the proposed ballot initiative to suspend AB 32, California’s anti-global warming measure. The issue that topped all other concerns for poll respondents was jobs. Nearly 69% said jobs is the prime issue for gubernatorial candidates to focus their attention.
Given that supporters of suspending AB 32 argue that continuing to implement the measure would mean a loss of jobs, the combination of concern for jobs and the relative lack of concern for global warming as an issue could be good news for the measure’s backers.
Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, which is a prime supporter of the initiative to suspend AB 32, said "The fact that 'jobs and the economy' ranks first and 'global warming' ranks last in the latest Field Poll is a great boost to the effort to suspend AB 32. We know that once voters understand how damaging the implementation of AB 32 would have on employment, support for the measure goes way, way up."
Coupal makes his argument for the measure on this page today.
Breaking down the numbers on the global warming issue in the Field Poll offered some expected results, but some surprises as well.
While younger and more liberal voters saw global warming as a greater threat than older, more conservative voters as one might expect, the more educated and more well-off respondents found global warming a less important issue than less educated and those lower on the income scale.
One might surmise that any subset of voters placing global warming last in a list of concerns is that these voters made a connection between global warming reforms and their effect on the economy, although the pollsters did not test that connection.
The true test of voters’ attitude toward global warming will come in that proverbial last poll that counts -- on Election Day.
Delicious
Digg
Facebook
Twitter
Technorati
Job Booster? NOT
A study by two professors at California State University Sacramento showed that AB32 would likely result in large job losses and huge additional costs for energy to businesses and individual households.
Of course, CARB has released a study that says it will create some job growth. Even setting aside the obvious conflict of interest, how can they be seen as having any credibility? Mary Nichols held her over the phone news conference today with ridiculously restrictive conditions on questioners, demonstrating pretty clearly that she can't back up her positions. ONE question was allowed each journalist, with no follow up, before they were forcefully silenced on their phone line. Remember, Nichols is who KNEW that Hein Tran, who authored that abominable study on diesel emissions had faked his academic credentials. She even attempted to hide this fact from other CARB members!
And how about the governor touting the plans to construct new solar plants? A vast majority of those jobs will only last as long as it takes to build those plants, and then will go away as solar plants are not very maintenance intensive. Add to that the fact that over two thirds of those plants will be run by out of state or out of country companies, and you see that most of the profits gained will be leaving the state.
And all of this for what really amounts to a cult. The global warming fanatics show a religious fervor in defending something that has been discredited time and again, from the newly released data on weather stations to the admission by Phil Jones that there hasn't been any significant warming in the last 15 years.
The California Jobs Initiative is a wake-up call to all clear thinking Californians. Thank goodness that the people of this state seem to be getting it, as the field poll results indicate.
Your Crystal Ball is Cloudy