Commentary

Roper: Not-shock poll: Vermonters don’t care about Climate Change

By on • ( 24 Comments )
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Only 13 percent rate it as a top 3 issue.

by Rob Roper

The Vermont Climate Council – you remember that costly yet useless body of unelected (mostly) nut-jobs established by the Global Warming Solutions Act to come up with plans to tank our economy in a half-assed kamikaze mission to “save the planet” – met on October 5th to discuss some polling data. It did not, at least from their perspective, go well.

As Marta Churella of MassINC Polling Group delivered the bad news:

Even when we gave them three chances, addressing climate change just falls a lot further down on the priority list than cost of living issues, jobs, healthcare, education, childcare, housing, and protecting natural areas and farmland. Only 13 percent named climate as one of their top three issues, really the lowest of any of the ones that we tested.

Sad trombone slide.

What was the number one issue chosen by the 800 survey respondents? “Lower the cost of living” at 77 percent. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that taxes/fees/surcharges on fossil fuels to fund massive greenhouse gas reduction projects will increase the cost of living for, well, everyone not a hermit living off the grid and foraging for all their food. The GWSA and all its spawn policies are the polar opposite of lowering the cost of living.

Other issues at odds with the climate agenda that are of higher priority are “creating jobs and economic development” at 54 percent. Raising the cost of gasoline and diesel (as we have seen courtesy of the Iran war) via taxes and fees, is an economic drag. Building more housing at 32 percent. A lot of those machines you need to dig foundations, mix cement, etcetera run on you know what: fossil fuels. And protecting natural areas and farmland at 24 percent, presumably from hideous and destructive things like solar fields and industrial wind turbines.

So, it’s not surprising that when asked, “When thinking about the energy that powers your appliances, heats your home, and fuels your vehicle, which of the following is most important. How about second most important?” the number one answer by a landslide was “Keeping energy costs down.” Twice as many, 68 percent, as the 34 percent for minimizing greenhouse gases, which was tied with “reliability.”

But even that 34 percent comes into question because later when asking about whether the state should focus more on adaptation (preparing for the effects of climate change) or mitigation (reducing greenhouse gasses that supposedly, but not really, reduce climate change) only an astonishingly measly 4 percent prioritized greenhouse gas reduction.

Getting back to that whole cost of living issue, more bad news for the Climate Counselors came from MassINC’s Rich Parr,

As you might expect, given the lower priority there wasn’t a ton of appetite for spending more on climate change in this survey. 35 percent wanted to spend less, that’s the plurality. 26 percent wanted to spend more. 17 percent wanted to keep spending levels even.

So, a majority of Vermonters (52 percent) don’t want to spend ANY more money on this wackadoodle agenda, and over one third – the largest chunk of the citizenry — want cuts to what we’re currently spending. That’s, again, twice as many as the people who at least say they want to pour more of our money down this rat hole.

I said in the title of this piece that these results were not a shock because these types of numbers aren’t new. Back in September 2023, for example, the Department of Public Services ran a survey that showed overwhelming majorities of Vermonters wanted state energy policy to focus on – you guessed it – affordability and reliability. And later that year Campaign for Vermont ran a poll and discovered that a 50 percent of Vermonters weren’t willing to pay ANYTHING extra in the form of taxes or fees to fund this climate change agenda, another 15 percent weren’t willing to spend more than $10 a year (that a whopping 83¢ a month), and 23 percent weren’t willing to go over $100 a year.

One last non-shocker item from the MassInc data: the Vermont Climate Agenda screws poor people. We know this and have known this. Lower income Vermonters tend to live in older housing stock that is more reliant on oil or kerosene for heating, and tend to live in rural settings that require more driving, so taxing it hurts them more. And the subsidies offered for rebates on things like heat pumps, electric vehicles, etcetera are really just wealthfare programs that transfer money from poorer folks to those with higher incomes.

As Jackie Pratt of Stowe Electric explained, “When we survey our customers ZERO percent of low-income customers actually intend to use our rebates because they can’t afford to purchase the thing they’re going to get a rebate on.” Which means (duh) low income Vermonters can’t afford to have low-up-front cost options for appliances and vehicles mandated or regulated away. Again, we’ve known this for a long time, it’s just never reflected in the policies that pass because climate activists don’t care. As the former Senator Mark MacDonald famously said about this agenda, “We don’t do things based on helping poor people. We do things based on saving the world,” and if poor people need to be sacrificed on this altar, so be it.

That attitude hasn’t changed. After those 2023 and 2024 polls, what did the legislature do? Listen to the people? Of course not, don’t be silly. The supermajority Democrats passed the Renewable Energy Standard raising the cost of electricity and passed Act 18, the Clean Heat Standard by which they intended to increase the cost of home heating fuels. Then in November 2024 they lost a historic number of house and senate races but, maintaining their majority, still refused to repeal any of these laws, and moved forward with the idea of implementing a Cap & Invest carbon tax on transportation and home heating fuels — which would be disastrous.

Maybe this time, when the legislature comes back in January 2027, depending upon who prevails in the November 2026 elections, they will actually listen to the people and start to jettison this unpopular, unrealistic agenda once and for all. We shall see!

Discover more from Vermont Daily Chronicle

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Categories: Commentary

24 replies »

  1. Gee whiz, Rob. You seem to have taken the nasty writer course at the Deep Right School of Language. And to think I hired you as a writer when you guys landed in Vermont. Your opening paragraph is mean and nasty. Your talent is deeper than this.

    • ……….”the Deep Right School of Language.”……..lol! And this……”Sad trombone slide.”….. Another lol! He seems to be “Attacking” rather than “Discussion”. Bottom line, he’s basically right. And I agree with you on his “Talent is deeper than this”…….

    • It’s not mean and nasty. “Costly” is accurate. We pour a couple million a year into this group. “Yet useless” also accurate. Their job was to come up with a plan to meet the mandates put forward in the GWSA and now over 5 years later they haven’t produced anything that looks like a plan to do so. And the legislature that created the CC has all but abandoned any attempts to meet its own mandates, so why to we still need the CC? “Unelected”, just true. “(Mostly) nut-jobs” I stand by that as the majority of the people — not all — appointed to this body by the legislature are zealots who don’t listen to facts or science or math or even the people of Vermont as evidenced by their own polling data. “A half-assed kamikaze mission to ‘save the planet'” it is that. If they were actually put forward a plan to meet the GHG reduction goals in the GWSA, which they never will because the second people see what it would take in terms of taxes, economic upheaval and lower standards of living there would be a revolt — AND even if we did it, destroying our economy in the process, it would not impact future climate trends one iota. It’s a stupid idea.

      So, no, it’s not mean and nasty. It’s a light hearted approach to discussing a serious topic in hopes of generating interest and discussion. Thanks for discussing!

  2. Vermonters may not care about Climate Change, but you better believe Climate Change cares about them. The impacts of Climate Change on this state will be substantial. Less natural snowfall for resorts, potential for wildfires, loss of crops due to unexpected events, smoke from Canada, valley river floods, Cyanobacteria in our lakes, tick borne diseases, mosquitoes, and the list goes on of how Mother Nature is going to exact her revenge on Vermonters for their lack of “caring.”

    • We don’t like this cultural Marxist climate, surely! We definitely don’t want that climate change! Regardless of how strongly some plan, want and are indoctrinated toward it.

    • Bob –

      The list you describe is already underway with many occurring for decades.

      Earth’s climate has never been static. We are emerging from an ice age, and ice-core samples and sediment records clearly show the planet has experienced substantial climatic fluctuations, including periods considerably warmer and colder than today.

      Civilization developed in a climate that was already changing, and people have survived and adapted to conditions far harsher than what is confronting us today.

      Short of a truly catastrophic planetary event, like an asteroid impact, super volcano, pole shift or crust displacement, humanity has demonstrated a remarkable capacity to survive, adapt, and rebuild. Even after enormous natural catastrophes, life has continued.

      Using fear, guilt, and the suggestion that nature is punishing people are not substitutes for scientific perspective, historical context, or practical solutions.

  3. Climate Change and the Great Pumpkin have a lot in common. They ain’t coming.

    • I know huh? All the events Bob listed have happened every year since man walked the earth, but suddenly the world is going to end, which is the oldest population control trick on the planet! Just ask the Aztecs! Just ask all the other cult followers who drank the cool aid! It seems every election cycle the world is going to end in ten years, just give us all your money and we’ll fix everything!

  4. And what ever you do, don’t talk about the common sense, the reality of the message being discussed,attack the writer for his grammar or tone! Call him names! He’s a climate racist!!!!! Yeah because your rebuttal is so pathetic we can’t actually have a discussion about topics that matter and are based in reality of everyday people. That type of argument doesn’t fly amping those who are free and allowed to freely speak and respond. Please try a bit harder.

  5. Before everyone gets too excited, this poll shows the results in percentages and not how many people were asked vs. how many answered. Was it 100, 500, 10,000 Vermonters. A bit more information would be appreciated. Also, is the climate changing or just going through another cycle?

    • “What was the number one issue chosen by the 800 survey respondents” found in the commentary above

  7. I have given up trying to bring light and truth to the climate change believers. It is akin to the “theory” that the sun will rise tomorrow morning. Our climate has always changed. I realize I will never convince these illiterate believers that they have been duped so I now put them in the same milk pail as the flat earth and the moon landing folks. Remember, “they are the science”.

    • I know how you feel. I feel the same way when I try to explain to trump supporters how bad tRump is for the country and the world, and that he is accomplished little to make America a better place

  8. The only climate change you are going to see this winter is when your house gets cold because you can not afford to buy your six dollar per gallon number two fuel oil. Comment from Richard Day. This is going to be a very interesting winter.

  9. Maybe we should impose a hefty carbon tax on Senators who constantly fly on private jets?

  10. Maybe we should impose a hefty carbon tax on the use of private jets by senators who lost touch with his constituents?