UVa forum reveals Virginians’ views on climate change

By Aaron Lee

Published: October 21, 2008

A survey released Tuesday shows three out of four Virginians feel the Earth’s climate has grown warmer in the last 40 years.

The results came as part of a panel discussion on climate change at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs and is, according to officials, the first gauge of Virginians’ attitudes toward climate change.

The telephone survey of 660 Virginians was conducted in early September and suggests that 40 percent of Virginians believe human activity — burning fossil fuels — is responsible for warmer weather.

And while 20 percent of respondents said the temperature increase was part of the Earth’s natural cycle, one in three people believed the warming was likely a combination of natural and humans forces.

In addressing ways to combat climate change, 50 percent of those surveyed said the federal government should shoulder the largest portion of the responsibility.

However, the report did show that Virginians were cool to the idea of raising taxes on fossil fuels and gasoline as proposed policy options to combat greenhouse gas emissions.

Although Barry Rabe, a visiting scholar at the Miller Center from the University of Michigan who worked on the survey, said generally state and local governments are the most effective at enacting policy changes aimed at reducing emissions. Rabe cited California as having one of the most ambitious policies in the world for trying to curb auto emissions.

In Virginia the amount of emissions between 1990 and 2005 has increased 38 percent, the survey report said. That’s more than twice the national average — 16 percent — during the same time period, with Virginia ranking 15th in 2005 among states with the highest in emissions, the report said.

Christopher Borick, director of the Institute of Public Opinion at Muhlenberg College, worked on the survey and said 25 percent of people cited the primary reason for their belief in rising temperatures came from taking stock of the weather around them.

The survey also showed Virginians surveyed cited news about climate change and images of melting glaciers and polar ice as other top reasons they think the Earth is warming.

Virginia Secretary of Natural Resources Preston Bryant Jr. was part of Tuesday’s panel and said that transportation and power plants are responsible for about two-thirds of emissions statewide.

Bryant said Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s Virginia Governor’s Commission on Climate Change, established in late 2007, will release recommendations by the end of the year about reducing the state’s emissions 30 percent by 2025.

The release of the survey results on Tuesday is part of a larger, national survey conducted among 2,000 people.

The results of the national survey will be released in December during the National Conference on Climate Governance being held at the Miller Center.