Popular support for carbon offset

Global warming is a generational issue, and most people around the world realize that humans have caused it.  A significant group of people which doesn’t, however, is the Republican Party in the United States of America.  Because of that group’s pivotal ignorance, Americans oft think of preserving the Earth as a “carbon tax”  and so we have legislative anathema.

But it turns out that Americans are not hostile to the environment.  In fact, we support policies “that would increase the cost of certain carbon-producing activities but would use the proceeds to fund alternative energies or carbon capture and sequestration” according to the Association for Psychological Science.  The key to this reasonableness, however, is to call any proposed policies a carbon offset.

I’ve argued pretty consistently that one of the keys to enacting Progressive policies is framing.  The word “tax” is anathema to Americans, but the details of the policies that taxes fund poll very well, and the research to prove that is here:

In the “offset” condition, Democratic, Republican, and Independent volunteers tended to select the more expensive, albeit environmentally-friendly, product. They were also equally likely (across party) to support making the cost increase mandatory. However, in the “tax” condition, while Democratic volunteers still opted for the costlier item, Republican and Independent participants were more likely to choose the cheaper item, and did not support legislation.

In other words, framing matters.  Most Americans support Progressive policies, but Republicans are incredibly adroit at convincing us otherwise.