Study after study has shown the disparate impact of climate change and other environmental crises on communities of color in the United States. Whether it’s urban heat waves or hurricanes, the effects routinely hit people of color harder than the general population.
But polling has also regularly shown that climate change remains a back burner issue for the vast majority of Black and Latino voters, falling behind the economy and other issues. It’s a challenging dynamic as Democrats look for the political momentum to get President Joe Biden’s climate agenda embedded in the Build Back Better Act over the finish line—and then turn to show how they delivered results ahead of the midterm elections.
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Results of a new survey released Tuesday suggest a way forward — if politicians and policymakers do a better job connecting the dots between climate change and the economy. The polling, commissioned by the think tank Third Way and non-profit groups WE ACT for Environmental Justice and GreenLatinos, shows that a majority of Black and Latino voters are concerned that climate change is happening, with some 64% of respondents saying felt they had already experienced the effects of climate change personally. The most effective messages, they reported, tended to focus on bread-and-butter issues, like local job growth and the affordability of energy and transportation.
“Black and Latino communities across the board—no matter what religion they are, no matter their socio-economic background—respond to the connection between climate and jobs and the economy,” says report co-author Jared DeWese, senior communications advisor at Third Way.
The polling, which surveyed 1,800 Black and Latino voters in the politically significant states of Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Florida, Georgia and Pennsylvania, tested a variety of messages about climate change. The message of “good-paying jobs in infrastructure, manufacturing, and transportation,” for example, was…
Source : time
