Charles Rotter
This analysis draws on the recent survey research conducted and published by Roger Pielke Jr. and Ruy Teixeira in their report, The Science vs. the Narrative vs. the Voters: Clarifying the Public Debate Around Energy and Climate, released through the American Enterprise Institute. Pielke and Teixeira—well known for their commitment to empirical rigor over popular narrative—commissioned the AEI 2024 Energy/Climate Survey to cut through the confusion surrounding American attitudes on climate and energy. Their work, summarized and discussed here, sheds light on the true state of public opinion—grounding the debate in data, not dogma. For further details and direct commentary from the authors, see Roger Pielke Jr.’s discussion on his Substack: What Americans Really Think About Energy and Climate.
This survey is a much-needed injection of empirical reality into a debate that has veered off into the land of magical thinking, group hysteria, and, frankly, wishful technocratic authoritarianism. The survey cuts through the fog of talking points and exposes the gaping chasm between what actual voters think, what the science technically claims, and the overwrought narrative hawked daily by politicians, media, and green activists.
Let’s begin by examining the survey’s core findings. Over 3,000 registered voters were asked about their views on extreme weather, climate projections, energy priorities, willingness to bear the costs of fighting climate change, and their own consumer behavior. The findings are, to put it charitably, an embarrassment for central planners who fancy themselves philosopher-kings of the energy transition.
First, the American public does not support a “rapid elimination of fossil fuels.” In fact, the majority backs an “all-of-the-above” energy policy—one that includes not just solar and wind, but also natural gas, oil, and even nuclear energy. This is not some fluke. It is the consistent preference of nearly every demographic group. According to the survey, “a majority of each group prefers an energy strategy characterized as ‘all of the above’ versus a ‘rapid green transition’ or opposition to ‘green energy projects’”. Even among Democrats, the appetite for ditching fossil fuels entirely is, at best, lukewarm.
The “narrative,” as the authors describe it, is the high-octane stuff peddled by politicians, NGOs, and a media industry that has made a business model out of catastrophe. It is the belief that, unless we immediately decarbonize everything, humanity will plunge off a “climate tipping point” into apocalypse. The problem, as the survey finds, is that this is not only unsupported by the scientific consensus (yes, even the IPCC steers clear of doomsday language), but it’s also not shared by the voters whom these activists and bureaucrats claim to represent.
Consider the disconnect: “When asked, ‘Does the IPCC think there is a tipping point beyond which temperature rise from the current day will produce catastrophic results for human civilization?,’ most respondents answered yes. This finding clearly indicates that most people believe there is a point beyond which the IPCC has identified catastrophic outcomes for humanity (Figure 3)”. In reality, the IPCC—ever careful in its language—explicitly does not link warming to existential catastrophe or define such a tipping point. The catastrophe narrative, it turns out, is mostly a work of fiction—a Hollywood production in search of facts.
The blame for this state of confusion, the authors argue, lies with decades of hyperbolic activism and media repetition. Since Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth in 2006, the climate movement has pushed worst-case scenarios and ignored nuance. The mainstream media, “pressured by organizations such as Gore’s Climate Reality Project, Greenpeace, and the Sunrise Movement,” has “formally adopted such language and align[ed] their perspective with that of the activists”. At this point, news outlets have been browbeaten into swapping out “climate change” for “climate emergency”—a rhetorical sleight of hand designed to nudge public opinion, not to reflect sober scientific assessment.
Let’s talk energy sources. Despite the fever dreams of the anti-fossil fuel lobby, Americans are far from ready to embrace a quick end to oil and gas. Table 2 of the survey ranks energy preferences: solar and wind do well, but so does natural gas, and nuclear hangs in there too. The only real loser is coal, but the real story is the persistence of support for a mixed portfolio. The report notes, “A significant amount of support for each energy source—except coal—helps to explain why an all-of-the-above approach to overall energy policy finds strong support across groups”. Demonizing natural gas may be trendy among activists, but voters aren’t buying it. In fact, the survey points out that the much-vaunted reduction in U.S. emissions was “driven primarily by substituting natural gas for coal,” with renewables playing second fiddle.
Now, it would be one thing if the general public was simply uneducated on the science. But the survey finds that, even where Americans misunderstand the technical details—like the IPCC’s projections of temperature rise—their instincts are more grounded than the fevered imagination of the political class. While only 10 percent could accurately quote the IPCC’s topline temperature projection, this knowledge gap has little to do with public skepticism. The truth is that voters just don’t view projected temperature increases as particularly salient to their daily lives.
If there is a consensus, it’s around priorities: Americans care about energy cost and reliability, not about satisfying the moral preening of climate activists. Given four choices, “37 percent of voters said the cost of the energy they use was most important to them, and 36 percent said the availability of power when they need it was most important. Just 19 percent thought the effect on climate of their energy consumption was most important”. Among working-class voters, the emphasis on affordability and reliability is even more stark: “41 percent…said the cost of the energy they use was most important, and 35 percent said the availability of power when they need it was most important.” The notion that the U.S. public is ready to sacrifice comfort and prosperity for planetary salvation simply does not withstand scrutiny.
This is reflected in willingness to pay for climate action, which collapses the moment real costs are introduced. A measly $1 monthly surcharge to “fight climate change” garners support from less than half of voters. Raise that to $20 or $40, and support plummets into the teens, with opposition swelling to 70 percent or more. As for expensive household retrofits or electric vehicles? Voters overwhelmingly reject the idea. “Voters by 17 percentage points (52 percent to 35 percent) say they are opposed to phasing out new gasoline cars and trucks by 2035. … Many more voters are upset (48 percent) than excited (21 percent) by the idea of phasing out production of gas-powered cars and trucks”.
For the climate policy establishment, this must feel like heresy. After all, they have spent years attempting to manufacture public support by promoting every hurricane, flood, or heat wave as proof of impending doom. Yet the AEI survey shows that the public isn’t as easily manipulated as the central planners hoped. For most, their day-to-day needs far outweigh the green utopian promises of a carbon-free world.
The fundamental lesson here is a simple one: reality bites. The dream of a rapid “green transition”—net-zero by 2050, complete decarbonization, and the abolition of fossil fuels—remains just that: a dream. The technical, economic, and political hurdles are immense. As energy expert Vaclav Smil (quoted in the report) says, “People toss out these deadlines without any reflection on the scale and the complexity of the problem. … What’s the point of setting goals which cannot be achieved? People call it aspirational. I call it delusional”.
The AEI survey’s conclusion is a harsh but necessary corrective. Americans do not share the catastrophist worldview of the climate priesthood. They are not eager to immolate their standard of living on the altar of planetary salvation. They want abundant, cheap, reliable energy, and they have little patience for schemes that threaten that reality in service to speculative fears. Policymakers ignore this at their peril.
If there is any hope for sensible policy, it lies not in ever more hysterical appeals to “crisis,” but in aligning with the public’s desire for prosperity, freedom, and security. As the authors put it: “Climate policy will be much more effective if it works in the direction of public opinion, rather than against it. Simple. And also true”.
That’s a message the architects of net-zero schemes and top-down green revolutions might want to ponder before issuing their next set of commandments. The voters, after all, have other priorities—and, for once, they are right.
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