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Latinos, African Americans willing to pay more to slow climate change
By Khalil Abdullah
New America Media
April 22, 2010
Latino and
African-American communities in the United States increasingly share
similar views on the negative impact of climate change and call for
government support for a green economy, according to two recently
released polls.
Polls say these results
may be factors determining which candidates get these ethnic votes in
the mid-term November elections.
Among Nevada’s Latinos,
for example, 93 percent of Republicans said, “take action now” on
climate change, a higher rate even than the state’s Latino independents
(89 percent) and Democrats (88 percent). In Florida, 80 percent of
Latino voters said the issue of climate change would affect their
decision of who to vote for in the U.S. Senate race. In Nevada and
Colorado, 67 and 58 percent, respectively, made the same assertion.
The Latino poll was
conducted by the National Latino Coalition on Climate Change (NLCCC) on
the views of Latino voters in Colorado, Florida, and Nevada; the poll on
African-American voters in Arkansas, Indiana, Missouri, and South
Carolina was conducted by the Joint Center for Political and Economic
Studies.
While jobs and the economy
are still leading concerns among the two ethnic groups, when asked what
came closest to their view about whether “efforts to reduce global
warming by switching to clean energy … will create new American jobs, “
64 percent of Colorado’s Latino voters, 66 percent of Florida’s, and 72
percent of Nevada’s agreed.
David Bositis, the Joint
Center’s veteran pollster on African-American voting patterns, said that
while the economy is still the top issue for black voters, climate
change is in importance.
Bositis said the African
Americans surveyed – in Arkansas, Indiana, Missouri, and South Carolina
-- tend to be more conservative and less financially well off than their
counterparts in more affluent states. As a result, Bositis said the most
important finding was the stated willingness to pay higher electric
utility bills if electricity generators had to charge more for cleaner
but more expensive fuels or technologies that would ameliorate global
warming.
Those with higher incomes
were willing to pay more, yet the data were remarkably strong even among
low-income African Americans surveyed. “Solid majorities in all four
states – between 55 percent in South Carolina and 64 percent in Indiana
– are willing to pay an additional ten dollars a month to fight global
warming,” he said.
The survey of Latinos also
showed their willingness to pay more.
Latinos also showed a
heightened awareness linking droughts and extreme weather events with
climate change.
Frank Stewart, a member of
the Joint Center’s Commission to Engage African Americans on Climate
Change and president of the American Association of Blacks in Energy, an
organization representing 1,800 senior executives in the energy
business, said the debate among African American and Latino
constituencies about whether climate change is real is all but over.
“We’re no longer looking at the science,” Stewart said. At issue, he
argued, is for communities to become more knowledgeable about climate
change in order to make informed decisions about the transformations
that will be necessary in the energy field.
The economic cost of
facing climate change is not the sole rationale for demanding immediate
action. “There is a very, very clear link between our climate and our
health,” said Dr. George Benjamin, executive director, American Public
Health Commission and also a member of the Joint Center’s Commission. He
said the effects of climate change can have disproportionate adverse
health consequences for African Americans and Latinos who have higher
rates of asthma and other medical conditions.
Benjamin also cited the
link between income status and health, mentioning a 1995 Chicago heat
wave that left 600 people dead. Many of the dead were low-income
African-American elderly, some of whom did not turn on their air
conditioning for fear of being unable to pay a higher bill. Today,
Benjamin said 22 percent of Latinos live below the poverty level. Four
percent don’t have health insurance, making them and other low-income
Americans less able to financially deal with the effects of toxic
ecologies that can lead to “tragedy happening in our urban settings.”
While financial reform
proposals have ascended to the media limelight since the passage of
healthcare reform legislation, the on-going Congressional debate over
the best mechanisms -- like cap and trade -- to lower carbon emissions,
may yet affect November’s races.
Rafael Fantauzzi,
vice-chair of NLCC and president of the National Puerto Rican Coalition,
Inc., said pollsters of the Latino voters already knew that immigration
was critically important to that community in determining support for
November’s political candidates, so views on that topic were not sought.
However, he said the
intersection of today’s leading issues can play out at the ballot box.
For instance, he said that 48.5 percent of Puerto Ricans are living
below the poverty line and, due to the lack of jobs on the island, many
are migrating to Florida, New York, Connecticut, or Illinois. Because
they are American citizens, they can vote in those states, an impact he
said was already seen in the 2008 election when Puerto Rican voters in
and around Orlando tipped Florida for President Barack Obama. “Latinos
are involved in every issue that affects them,” Fantauzzi said, and, on
climate change, “they definitely want to see something done.”
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