This story was originally published on Inside Climate News. It is reproduced as part of the Climate Desk Collaboration. The youth movement in the US has had an unsung partner on the front lines of the fight for political action to combat climate change. This partner is one with more experience, resources, and time to devote. Voters aged 65 or older
As part of the Climate Desk collaboration, this article, which was first published by Inside Climate News, is reproduced below.
The youth movement has had a mostly unappreciated partner on the front lines of the push for US political climate action—one with more experience, more resources, and frequently plenty of time to devote to the cause.
According to a recent 18-state study by the Boston-based Environmental Voter Project, or EVP, voters 65 and older are second only to those between the ages of 18 and 34 in naming climate and the environment as their highest social priorities.
These aging clean voters add up to a block in some states and have the potential to swing elections. According to the data, more than one-third of older voters in New Mexico, for instance, incorporate climate. One in four seniors in Colorado cast their ballots with the climate as their top priority. Climate voters 65 and older make up 5 % of the electorate in Pennsylvania, where state President Joe Biden won with a margin of victory of 1.2 percent, and Arizona.
In Arizona, a state where the national election was decided by 10,500 votes in 2020, EVP identified 230,000 climate voters 65 or older. According to Nathaniel Stinnett, senior director of EVP, politicians should be concerned about this data because they are aware that older Americans vote, volunteer, and donate at the highest levels. Politicians had greater follow suit as they become more concerned about climate change, or they’ll regret it on Election Day.
The results come at a time when senior citizens ‘ contributions to the climate movement are becoming more widely acknowledged. Older Americans staged what was billed as the first round of large-scale climate protests this spring, blocking off branches of banks that support the development of fossil fuels in almost 100 cities.
Author and climate activist Bill McKibben, who helped found the organization Third Act, which organized the bank protests, said that people are more than just concerned and are willing to take action. More than 75, 000 so-called “experienced Americans” who have volunteered to work on climate and other liberal campaigns make up the group, which turned 2 years older in September.
According to environmentalist Bill McKibben, politicians may “make the mistake of assuming they’re all Fox News viewers.”
Younger climate activists are motivated by fear for their future, but older ones, according to McKibben, who founded the youth-focused climate action group 350.org in 2008 with a group of college students.
He remarked,” It’s nearly a small’c’ kind of conservatism.” They are saying,” I like the world I was born into—a world with some ice on top, bottom, and the odd coral reef in between—and it hurts a lot to see it vanish. Of course, there is an incredible fear for one’s children and grandchildren.
Older citizens have, of course, long been popular figures in the climate movement. James Hansen, an 82-year-old original NASA scientist, keeps writing articles and giving speeches. An 80-year-old withdrew Anglican priest named Rev. After being constantly detained during Extinction Rebellion protests, Sue Parfitt has gained attention. Saalumarada Thimmakka, an Indian environmentalist who has received international recognition for her work in reforestation, officially discussed her plans to plant more trees days after having heart surgery this fall at the age of 116.
These remarkable older activists, who represent a far larger core group of older citizens who are passionate about climate change, are the tip of the iceberg, according to the EVP study. 16.4 % of registered voters in the 18 states that EVP examined were likely to rank” climate change” or” clean air, clean water, and the environment” as their top priority. Simply voters between the ages of 18 and 34, with 29.7 % ranking those issues first, had a higher percentage of what EVP refers to as” climate- first voters.”
According to the findings, there are more voters who give climate issues more weight than any other issue in both the oldest and youngest age groups examined. According to Stinnett, when EVP has examined the population loosely, as in a July 2022 battleground state poll, it has discovered that on average, 8 to 10 % of voters rank climate at the top of their list of concerns. In polling conducted in US swing states in October for the Telegraph newspaper in London, only 4 % to 6 % of registered voters ranked the environment as their top priority. Other surveys indicate that the national share of climate-first voters is even lower.
EVP sought to understand the voters for whom climate is truly a crucial issue, even though many recent surveys indicate that the majority of registered voters—close to 60 % —support action on global warming. For instance, according to Stinnett, the majority of voters may support year-round daylight savings time, but it’s unlikely that the same number would consider it a motivating factor.
He claimed that” the salience of an issue frequently determines who someone will vote for and who ultimately wins an election.”
For EVP, which is a get-out-the-vote group, identifying” climate- second” voters is crucial. EVP uses voter registration rolls and huge data to find voters who are enthusiastic about the environment and climate and then make sure they go to the polls rather than engaging in candidate advocacy. Stinnett claimed that during the course of that research, the group observed a regular pattern of voters 65 and older falling into the” climate- second” category.
In 2020, the turnout rate for seniors was 76 percent, compared to only 51 % for young voters.
At that point, EVP made the decision to delve deeper into older climate voters and, in collaboration with democratic data firm TargetSmart, polled more than 11,000 voters about their major concerns. To create forecast models that determine how likely it is for each voter in 18 states to prioritize climate as their top voting priority, they combined the results with another publicly accessible data. Only in states where its research has demonstrated that climate voters are likely to have an impact on elections does EVP work. Like predictive models are frequently used in political campaigns to plan targeted messaging using information gleaned from magazine subscriptions, consumer purchasing data, and other sources.
The findings of the EVP study are supported by some new findings from conventional polling. According to a Quinnipiac University poll conducted in November, 6 percent of both the oldest and youngest voters—roughly twice as many for voters 50 to 64—believed that climate change was the most pressing problem the nation was already facing. ( Across all age groups, the economy and threats to democracy were overwhelmingly ranked above all other issues in that poll. )
Additionally, 45 percent of voters 65 and older, including those aged 18 to 24, in an ecoAmerica survey conducted in July, said they were “very concerned” about climate, more than in any other age category. However, more than any other age group, 19 % of older voters in that same survey said they were” not concerned at all” about climate. In the oldest category, this decreased the average, or the total number of” concerned voters,” which may have caused politicians to “make the mistake of assuming they’re all Fox News viewers,” in McKibben’s words.
In actuality, according to Stinnett, older Americans tend to be both condescending and excited about the environment.
On climate change, there are n’t many older people in the mushy middle, he said.
Older climate-first voters will only become more significant as their numbers increase. According to the World Health Organization, the global population of people 60 years of age and older is projected to grow from 1 billion in 2020 to 1.4 billion by 2030 and to double by 2050.
Seniors for Climate Action Presently!, also known as SCAN, was established in Toronto in 2020. Older citizens have organized climate groups in the past, including the democratic US organization Elders Climate Act, which was founded in 2014. However, McKibben claimed that the climate movement as a whole has n’t organized older activists with the necessary vigor.
He claimed that older people make crucial climate allies for a variety of reasons. They have a better voting record, with 76 percent of voters turning out in 2020 as opposed to 51.4 percent for voters aged 18 to 24. Additionally, retirees have the time to devote to obscure but important tasks, according to McKibben, who observed state Public Utility Commission meetings for extended periods of time.
In addition to the economic savings they have amassed over the years, older people even have networks of contacts. According to the Third Act, the Baby Boomers ( those born roughly between 1946 and 1964 ) and the Silent Generation ( 1925 to 1945 ) own about 70 % of the country’s financial assets.
According to McKibben, “we’ve effectively prioritized a lot of work building up youth movements around climate.” ” I actively participated in all of that, and I wholeheartedly support it.” However, despite their intelligence, vitality, and idealistic tendencies, younger people lack the fundamental strength to bring about the change we require in the present. As part of the Climate Desk collaboration, this article, which was originally published by Inside Climate News, is reproduced around. The youth movement has had a mostly unappreciated partner on the top lines of the push for US political action on climate—one with more experience, more resources, and frequently plenty of time to devote to the cause. 65-year-old voters and
This story was originally published on Inside Climate News. It is reproduced as part of the Climate Desk Collaboration. The youth movement in the US has had an unsung partner on the front lines of the fight for political action to combat climate change. This partner is one with more experience, resources, and time to devote. Voters aged 65 or older
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/12/senior-citizens-environmental-voters-swing-states-study/
