Summary findings:

• A large majority of Americans (87%, down 5 percentage points since Fall 2012) say the president and the Congress should make developing sources of clean energy a “very high” (26%), “high” (32%), or medium priority (28%). Few say it should be a low priority (12%).                                                                                                  
• Most Americans (70%, down 7 points since Fall 2012) say global warming should be a “very high” (16%), “high” (26%), or “medium priority” (29%) for the president and Congress. Three in ten (28%) say it should be a low priority.

• Six in ten Americans (59%) say the U.S. should reduce its own greenhouse gas emissions regardless of what other countries do. Relatively few (10%) say the U.S. should reduce its emissions only if other industrialized and/or developing countries do - and only 6 percent of Americans say the U.S. should not reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.

• Americans say that corporations and industry (70%), citizens themselves (63%), the U.S. Congress (57%), and the President (52%) should be doing more to address global warming.

• Majorities of Americans support:
  • Providing tax rebates for people who purchase energy-efficient vehicles or solar panels (71%);
  • Funding more research into renewable energy sources (70%);
  • Regulating CO2 as a pollutant (68%);
  • Requiring fossil fuel companies to pay a carbon tax and using the money to pay down the national debt (61%);
  • Eliminating all subsidies for the fossil-fuel industry (59%);
  • Expanding offshore drilling for oil and natural gas off the U.S. coast (58%);
  • Requiring electric utilities to produce at least 20% of their electricity from renewable energy sources, even if it costs the average household an extra $100 a year (55%).

• Support for some of these policies, however, has fallen since 2008, including funding renewable energy research (-21 percentage points), expanding offshore drilling (-17 points), and tax rebates for energy efficient vehicles and solar panels (-15 points).

• Half of Americans (50%) have never heard of the Keystone XL pipeline. Moreover, few Americans say they are following the issue closely (18%). Among those Americans who have heard of the Keystone pipeline, about two in three support the project (63%).

The report includes an Executive Summary and reports trends in key indicators over the past several years. It can be downloaded here:

 Public Support for Climate and Energy Policies in April 2013

New survey from the Center for Climate Change Communication: Extreme Weather and Climate Change in the American Mind.

 Some highlights:

• About six in ten Americans (58%) say “global warming is affecting weather in the United States.”

• Many Americans believe global warming made recent extreme weather and climatic events “more severe,” specifically: 2012 as the warmest year on record in the United States (50%); the ongoing drought in the Midwest and the Great Plains (49%); Superstorm Sandy (46%); and Superstorm Nemo (42%).

• About two out of three Americans say weather in the U.S. has been worse over the past several years, up 12 percentage points since Spring 2012. By contrast, fewer Americans say weather has been getting better over the past several years - only one in ten (11%), down 16 points compared to a year ago.

• Overall, 85 percent of Americans report that they experienced one or more types of extreme weather in the past year, most often citing extreme high winds (60%) or an extreme heat wave (51%).

• Of those Americans who experienced extreme weather events in the past year, many say they were significantly harmed. Moreover, the number who have been harmed appears to be growing (up 5 percentage points since Fall 2012 and 4 points since Spring 2012).

• Over half of Americans (54%) believe it is “very” or “somewhat likely” that extreme weather will cause a natural disaster in their community in the coming year.

• Americans who experienced an extreme weather event are most likely to have communicated about it person-to-person - either in person (89%) or on the phone (84%). 

Embarrassing report on how coal power plants pollute more in black and poor communities than in white, middle-class areas. The Fourcorners Power Plant in New Mexico, for example, is located in one of the poorest communities in the United States - the average income is just over $6,000 per year. Over 66% that live near the plant are Native Americans. And nearly 20% of the people that live near the plant have a various forms of lung disease.

This report exposes environmental injustices in the U.S. Not only are these polluting plants allowed, politicians defend them from being regulated by fighting for pollution loop-holes, light penalties, and weak permitting.

The NAACP’s powerful report is well worth your time.

Food and fuel prices too high? Blame Obama. His senate voted down farmer/drought relief bill then go on 5-week vacation. This time you can blame the Obama administration for not getting their shit together.

The rival parties fail to pass even a scaled-down stopgap measure before the August recess.

Even as the drought worsened in the Midwest and Great Plains, Congress proved unable to provide relief for farmers and ranchers before leaving for a month of campaigning.

The House on Thursday approved a scaled-down $383-million package primarily to help ranchers whose livestock losses and feed costs are mounting as arid conditions make land unusable for grazing. But the Senate declined to consider the bill before recessing, preferring a broader bipartisan measure that it passed overwhelmingly last month.

The vote in the House was 223 to 197, with 35 mostly farm-state Democrats joining Republicans in support. Most Democrats held out for the broader bill.

“This House should not go home while literally hanging our ranchers out to dry without a safety net to get through this drought,” said freshman Rep. Kristi Noem (R-S.D.), who is from a ranching family.

Democrats, who control the Senate, prefer the broader farm bill, which would provide more robust drought relief to other agricultural sectors. Democrats also object to the GOP’s plan to offset the costs by cutting conservation funds.

“It’s deeply troubling that the House would leave farmers and small businesses in the lurch,” said Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee. “House leadership is doing what Congress always does — kicking the can down the road instead of coming together to solve problems.”

The National Drought Mitigation Center said Thursday that arid conditions continued to intensify in Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Arkansas.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced new aid for farmers and ranchers earlier this week. More than half the nation’s counties have federal disaster designations, largely because of drought.

“It’s hard to believe that it’s getting worse, but it is, even with some rain in the region,” said Brian Fuchs, a climatologist with the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.