Most Americans Disagree With Their Congressional Representative On Climate Change

According to new research from the Center for American Progress Action Fund, more than six in ten Americans are represented by someone in Congress who denies the reality of climate change.
Following the second straight year that earned the title of hottest year on record, 59 percent of the Republican House caucus and 70 percent of Republicans in the Senate deny the scientific consensus that climate change is happening and humans are the main cause. There are 182 climate deniers in the 114th Congress in 2016 — 144 in the House and 38 in the Senate. According to the U.S. Census, that means 202,803,591 people are represented by a climate denier in Congress.


The record of denial, combined with data on campaign contributions and climate-influenced natural disaster declarations, is presented in a spiffy new map, embedded above. Click on a state to unveil more information. Data nerds will be happy to find the “See the data” link in the bottom left, where all the information can be viewed all in one place.

It has been a year since this research was last conducted, and since then 14 House members have revealed themselves to be climate deniers from their public statements. The number stayed the same in the Senate, though there was an exchange. Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) took herself off the list last October when she said “I believe that it is a real issue, that obviously man-made activity is contributing to carbon dioxide emissions and that we should be of course working on solutions that I hope are common-sense solutions.” Ayotte swapped her place with Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV), who said that while “there always has been [climate change], there always will be,” the human contribution to that change is “up for debate.”


The general public is way ahead of Congress — a recent poll found that 76 percent of Americans said they believed global climate change is occurring, including 59 percent of Republicans. And 67 percent support President Obama’s plan to regulate power plants to cut carbon emissions.

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TheDemSocialist said:

Read more @: Most Americans Disagree With Their Congressional Representative On Climate Change

Whats driving this unpopular view that now dominates both the House and Senate? Its simple, $$$$$$$/campaign contributions. The vast majority of the American public is definitely on the side that accepts science and accept that climate change is happening and one of its main drivers is human activity, but most of our representatives deny this view.

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