Broad climate change concern in Florida linked with recent extreme weather
Report reveals bipartisan support for climate infrastructure improvements
2023-05-10
(Press-News.org) An increasing number of Floridians agree that human actions are causing climate change, including a record number of Florida Republicans, according to a new survey from Florida Atlantic University. This finding reinforces the trend observed in the prior seven Florida Climate Resilience Surveys, conducted by FAU’s Center for Environmental Studies within the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science.
Three main messages emerge from this latest poll. First, climate change is no longer an effective partisan wedge issue. Virtually all respondents (90 percent) believe climate change is happening, with 65 percent attributing the causes to human actions, including 49 percent of GOP voters. This belief is leading to concern for the future: 61 percent of Floridians are moderately-to-extremely concerned about flooding worsening due to climate change, and 68 percent are moderately-to-extremely concerned about hurricanes worsening due to climate change.
Second, this belief in and concern about human-caused climate change appears to be translating into support for policies to reduce emissions and reduce impacts. For example, a majority of Floridians (52 percent) support a hypothetical $10/month tax to strengthen Florida’s infrastructure to weather hazards. Younger Democrats and Republicans are leading this trend, with 64 percent of GOP or Democratic voters under age 35 in support. In addition, 71 percent of Floridians currently support the teaching of climate change causes and impacts in public K-12 classrooms. Finally, the Aug. 16, 2022 Federal Inflation Reduction Act enjoys broad support (55 percent) in Florida, with only 16 percent opposed. This act includes significant new funding and other incentives to accelerate the transition to a clean economy, especially in electricity generation and transportation fuel.
Third, the explanation for this emerging consensus may be grounded in people’s lived experiences with weather events. The preceding hurricane season included two major storms impacting Florida. Hurricane Ian made landfall on Sept. 23, 2022 in Southwest Florida, and Nicole on Nov. 7, 2022 on Florida’s East coast. According to NOAA, both storms caused significant financial and physical damage, totaling more than $112 billion and an estimated 157 deaths. Approximately three-quarters (77 percent) of Floridians have been exposed to at least one weather hazard in the past 12 months. Almost half of respondents (47 percent) were impacted by flooding in the last 12 months, and an even greater proportion (67 percent) by strong winds from hurricanes or tornadoes.
The survey was conducted in English and Spanish on March 14. The sample consisted of 1,400 Floridians, age 18 and older, with a survey margin of error of +/- 2.62 percentage points. The data were collected using an online panel provided by GreatBlue Research. Responses for the entire sample were weighted to adjust for age, race, income, education and gender, according to the 2020 United States Bureau of the Census American Community Surveys. It is important to remember that subsets carry higher margins of error.
For more information, survey results and full cross-tabulations, visit www.ces.fau.edu/ces-bepi/ or contact Colin Polsky, Ph.D., at cpolsky@fau.edu.
- FAU -
About Florida Atlantic University:
Florida Atlantic University, established in 1961, officially opened its doors in 1964 as the fifth public university in Florida. Today, the University serves more than 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students across six campuses located along the southeast Florida coast. In recent years, the University has doubled its research expenditures and outpaced its peers in student achievement rates. Through the coexistence of access and excellence, FAU embodies an innovative model where traditional achievement gaps vanish. FAU is designated a Hispanic-serving institution, ranked as a top public university by U.S. News & World Report and a High Research Activity institution by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. For more information, visit www.fau.edu.
END
[Attachments] See images for this press release:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2023-05-10
WASHINGTON—Anzela Niraula, Ph.D., of the University of Washington in Seattle, won the Endocrine Society's 2023 Endocrine Images Art Competition for her image of the microglia mandala.
This contest celebrates the beauty of endocrine science, and entries were judged based on aesthetic value and significance to endocrine research.
Niraula’s image of the microglia won the grand prize this year out of more than 25 entries. The image shows microglia and POMC neurons in close proximity within the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus. Microglial regulation of POMC neurons holds significant implications ...
2023-05-10
Researchers from University of International Business and Economics, University of Groningen, University of Cologne, and University of Chinese Academy of Sciences published a new Journal of Marketing article that examines the drivers of brand extension success.
The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled “A Meta-Analysis of Brand Extension Success: The Effects of Parent Brand Equity and Extension Fit” and is authored by Chenming Peng, Tammo H.A. Bijmolt, ...
2023-05-10
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Imagine you could travel to only 1% of the city where you live – areas that were easily accessible to other residents.
That’s the situation for manual wheelchair users traveling by public buses in Columbus, a first-of-its-kind study finds. The situation for those with powered wheelchairs is only somewhat better – the study found they have access to about 25% of the areas available to the general bus ridership.
But the main problem isn’t with the bus system itself – the key obstacle is with the sidewalks and other infrastructure that wheelchair users need to get from ...
2023-05-10
Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a founding member of Mass General Brigham, today announces a historic $100 million gift from eminent biotechnology entrepreneur Gene Lay, MS, DVM, founder and CEO of BioLegend, Inc., through the Laygend Foundation. The landmark gift—the largest in the Brigham’s history—will establish The Gene Lay Institute of Immunology and Inflammation of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), also a founding member of Mass General Brigham, and Harvard Medical School (HMS). Vijay Kuchroo, DVM, PhD, an immunologist and principal investigator at the Brigham, will serve as inaugural director of the institute, which will be ...
2023-05-10
Barcelona, Spain – 10 May 2023: A small randomised trial in patients with post-COVID syndrome has found that hyperbaric oxygen therapy promotes restoration of the heart’s ability to contract properly. The research is presented at EACVI 2023, a scientific congress of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).1
“The study suggests that hyperbaric oxygen therapy can be beneficial in patients with long COVID,” said study author Professor Marina Leitman of the Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University and Shamir Medical Centre, Be'er Ya'akov, Israel. “We used a sensitive measure of cardiac function which is ...
2023-05-10
An international study led by MELIS-UPF researchers from the Infection Biology and Molecular Virology laboratories has identified and characterized Schlafen 12 (SLFN 12) as a novel HIV restriction factor. SLFN 12 shuts down viral protein production and helps virus-infected cells to escape from anti-HIV therapy and immune responses. These findings pave the way for improving therapeutic strategies that aim to cure HIV infections.
Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infections, if left untreated, lead to the gradual destruction of the immune system, AIDS, in its final stages. Worldwide, some 650,000 ...
2023-05-10
A new drug delivery system delivers an antioxidant directly to mitochondria in the liver, mitigating the effects of oxidative stress.
Mitochondria are microscopic organelles found within cells, and are well-known as the “powerhouse of the cell.” They are by far the largest producer of the molecule adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which provides energy to many processes in living cells. The process by which mitochondria synthesize ATP generates a large amount of reactive oxygen species (ROS), chemical groups that are highly reactive.
In a healthy cell, the ROS are controlled by the mitochondria; however, when this balance is lost, the excess ROS damages the mitochondria ...
2023-05-10
With each breath, humans exhale more than 1,000 distinct molecules, producing a unique chemical fingerprint or “breathprint” rich with clues about what’s going on inside the body.
For decades, scientists have sought to harness that information, turning to dogs, rats and even bees to literally sniff out cancer, diabetes, tuberculosis and more.
Scientists from CU Boulder and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have made an important leap forward in the quest to diagnose disease using exhaled breath, reporting that a new laser-based breathalyzer powered by artificial intelligence (AI) can detect COVID-19 in real-time with ...
2023-05-10
May 10 2023, Utrecht (The Netherlands) - When corona patients themselves measure the oxygen level in their blood at home, this is well applicable through the general practice. This was shown in a study conducted by UMC Utrecht during the pandemic. The study showed that patients could easily perform the oxygen measurement themselves at home, they felt safe doing so and the number of GP or hospital visits did not increase. The researchers believe that - by enabling care close to home - patients experience more control and that it contributes to relieving caregivers and keeping ...
2023-05-10
A new paper in the European Journal of Endocrinology, published by Oxford University Press, indicates that overweight boys tend to have lower testicular volume, putting them at risk for infertility in adulthood.
Infertility weighs on both the psychological health and the economic and social lives of people of childbearing age. Infertility affected 48 million couples in 2010. Although observers often overlook male infertility, researchers believe it is a factor contributing to couple infertility in about half of all cases. Yet ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Broad climate change concern in Florida linked with recent extreme weather
Report reveals bipartisan support for climate infrastructure improvements
