Climate Change Barely Registers Among Americans’ List of Top Concerns, Gallup Poll Shows

H. Sterling Burnett

Just 1 percent of Americans surveyed identified the combined category of “Climate change/Environment/Pollution” as “the most important problem facing this country today,” in a newly released Gallup poll.

Coronavirus the Top Concern

The Wuhan Coronavirus remained the top concern among the 1007 adults polled by Gallup between July 1 and July 23, with 30 percent of those surveyed identifying it as “the most important problem facing the country today.” “Government/Poor Leadership,” came in a distant second among the list of concerns, with 23 percent of respondents saying it is the top problem facing the nation.

All economic problems combined were identified by 9 percent of those polled as the most important problem facing the country, with 4 percent saying the “Economy in general” is the top problem and 2 percent saying “Unemployment/Jobs” is the nation’s top concern.

With protests and riots continuing to plague parts of the county, “Race Relations/Racism” ranked as the third most important problem facing the country, with 16 percent of respondents listing it as such. This represents a significant increase in concern about race relations since April, at which time only 1 percent those polled said it was America’s top problem.

Climate Ties for Last

Only 1 percent of those polled identified all environmental issues combined, including climate change, as the most important problem facing the country.

This result indicates strong disagreement with Democrat Party leaders who regularly refer to climate change as the most dangerous threat facing the United States and the world, and with presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, who said, “There’s no more consequential challenge that we must meet in the next decade than the onrushing climate crisis,” when presenting his Plan for a Clean Energy Revolution and Environmental Justice.

Five percent of poll respondents ranked “Crime/Violence” as the nation’s most important problem, 3 percent cited the “Judicial System/Courts/Laws,” and 2 percent said “Ethics/Morals/Religious/Family Decline,” “Lack of respect for each other,” “The media,” or “Healthcare” is the most important problem facing the country, ahead of environmental problems in general and climate change in particular.

This article was originally published at HeartlandDailyNews.com.

Kamala’s Dangerous Agenda

By Peter Murphy CFACT

Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden, has made his vice presidential choice, and he chose wisely among a half dozen considerations who are women of color: U.S. Senator Kamala Harris of California. Congratulations to her.

Sen. Harris is a “wise” choice from a Democratic political standpoint – she is presentable on the national stage and malleable on policy issues. She also fully embraces man-made global warming to the extent America and the world should rapidly transition to “renewable” energy from carbon-emitting fossil fuels. Hence, Sen. Harris readily signed on as a co-sponsor of the Green New Deal early in 2019.

Ms. Harris’ own presidential campaign crashed and burned last year for reasons that do not reflect well on her, as reported in the New York Times at the time. Nonetheless, the experience prepares her for this new, high profile role.

I met Sen. Harris at an event in New York in early 2017 shortly after she became Senator. Her presence left me no doubt she was running for president, as had another first-term senator named Barack Obama. Her similar ambition has thus far borne fruit.

As I have written, the Democratic Party is all in on an extreme climate agenda. Nearly every candidate who ran for the Party’s presidential nomination proposed some version of the Green New Deal, which only differed on how many trillions of dollars it would cost.

Neither Biden nor Harris is a political “moderate” or “pragmatic” despite the coordinated, dishonest attempts by mainstream media organs to label them such. Rather, they are liberal politicians who reflect the prevailing positions and progressive direction of their Democratic Party; Harris even more so, according to her most leftward Senate voting record.  They are who they are – why pretend otherwise?  This is not the Democratic Party of Bill Clinton in the 1990’s, much less the economic Party of JFK in the early 1960’s.

In 36 years as a U.S. senator from Delaware, Joe Biden was not among the Senate’s extreme environmentalists. None of that matters today, as he has dutifully evolved.  His climate agenda reflects the extremist vision of Sen. Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Kamala Harris made her bones (figuratively speaking) in San Francisco politics, is now thrice elected statewide, and a leader of California’s political class. The state’s energy and environmental policies are her policies for the nation.

Sen. Harris’ home state leads the way in environmental extremism. CFACT has well documented the costly and destructive climate policies of the Golden state, which has the nation’s highest energy costs and is driving away the middle class and businesses to other states. California is steadily becoming an unlivable place unless you are super-wealthy (e.g., Hollywood actors and Silicon Valley techies) on the public payroll, or dependent on the state’s vast welfare system.

On the issue of hydro-fracturing of natural gas, Sen. Harris supports a nationwide ban, which goes further to the extreme than her own state that allows it on a limited basis. Her stance also contrasts with the Obama administration, which understood its economic and political importance, and Biden, who has more recently equivocated on the issue.

According to the Global Energy Institute, a nationwide fracking ban would eliminate more than 19 million jobs by 2025 and reduce America’s economy by $7 trillion. Energy prices would sharply increase, not just for natural gas, and would add nearly $5,700 to the cost of living for the average American. Plus, carbon emissions, the bane of all things global warming, would increase since the global production and consumption of oil and coal would expand.  [Addendum:  Vlad Putin’s Russia, a major oil producer, would be delighted, along with Middle Eastern dictatorships like Iran.]

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris embrace climate extremism because it is Democratic Party dogma and a priority of its billionaire donor class. Accordingly, they are no less committed to “fighting climate change” by reordering the nation’s economy, with the job losses, higher cost of living, and curtailment of freedom that would result.

Not since 1944 has a vice-presidential nominee loomed so large. That year, President Franklin Roosevelt, whose physical health was rapidly declining, replaced incumbent V.P. Henry Wallace, a socialist, with Sen. Harry Truman. Eleven weeks into the new term, FDR died and Truman became president.

If elected president, Joe Biden will turn 78 and be older than was Ronald Reagan at the end of his eight-year presidency. His cognitive decline is increasingly obvious. A President Harris could come soon, without Biden physically dying.  Such would make history, and have transformative, deleterious consequences if she or Biden beforehand impose their climate policies on America.