Leah C. Stokes’s research while affiliated with University of California, Santa Barbara and other places

Addressing climate change requires societies to transition away from fossil fuels toward low-carbon energy, including renewables. Unfortunately, large wind projects have proven politically controversial, with groups opposing them across advanced economies. To date, there are few large-scale, systematic studies to identify the prevalence and predictors of opposition to wind energy projects. Here, we analyzed a dataset of wind energy projects across the United States and Canada between 2000 and 2016. We found that during this period, in the United States, 17% of wind projects faced significant opposition, and in Canada, 18% faced opposition, with rates in both countries growing over time. Opposition was concentrated regionally in the Northeastern United States and in Ontario, Canada. In both countries, larger projects with more turbines were more likely to be opposed. In the United States, opposition was more likely and more intense in areas with a higher proportion of White people, and a smaller proportion of Hispanic people. In Canada, opposition was more likely and more intense in wealthier communities. The most common tactics used to oppose wind energy were court cases, legislation, and physical protests. The number of people engaging in opposition to wind projects is likely small: Across articles that cited the number of individuals engaging in protests, the median number was 23 in the United States and 34 in Canada. When wealthier, Whiter communities oppose wind projects, this slows down the transition away from fossil fuel projects in poorer communities and communities of color, an environmental injustice we call “energy privilege.”

It is now well established that fossil fuel companies contributed to undermining climate science and action. In this paper, we examine the extent to which American electric utilities and affiliated organizations’ public messaging contributed to climate denial, doubt, and delay. We examined 188 documents on climate change authored by organizations in and affiliated with the utility industry from 1968 to 2019. Before 1980, electric utilities’ messaging was generally in-line with the scientific understanding of climate change. However, from 1990 to 2000, utility organizations founded and funded front groups that promoted climate doubt and denial. After 2000, these front groups were largely shut down, and utility organizations shifted to arguing for delayed action on climate change, by highlighting the responsibility of other sectors and promoting actions other than cleaning up the electricity system. Overall, our results suggest that electric utility industry organizations have promoted messaging designed to avoid taking action on reducing pollution over multiple decades. Notably, many of the utilities most engaged in communicating climate doubt and denial in the past currently have the slowest plans to decarbonize their electricity mix.

As climate change accelerates, governments will be forced to adapt to its impacts. The public could respond by increasing mitigation behaviours and support for decarbonization, creating a virtuous cycle between adaptation and mitigation. Alternatively, adaptation could generate backlash, undermining mitigation behaviours. Here we examine the relationship between adaptation and mitigation in the power sector, using the case of California’s public safety power shut-offs in 2019. We use a geographically targeted survey to compare residents living within power outage zones to matched residents in similar neighbourhoods who retained their electricity. Outage exposure increased respondent intentions to purchase fossil fuel generators while it may have reduced intentions to purchase electric vehicles. However, exposure did not change climate policy preferences, including willingness to pay for either wildfire or climate-mitigating reforms. Respondents blamed outages on their utility, not local, state or federal governments. Our findings demonstrate that energy infrastructure disruptions, even when not understood as climate adaptations, can still be consequential for decarbonization trajectories. Climate change adaptation policies could influence public decarbonization behaviours positively or negatively, impacting further mitigation and adaptation efforts. This study examines public responses to planned power outages in California and finds that the outages shaped some energy behavioural intentions but did not alter climate or energy policy preferences.

Congress hears more and more from everyday citizens. How do modern Congressional offices use this information to represent their constituents? Drawing on original interviews and a survey of Congressional staff, we explore how representation works in practice when new data and tools, such as databases and downscaled public opinion polls, are available. In contrast with established theories that focus on responsiveness, we show that representation is a two-way street. Congressional offices both respond to incoming constituent opinion and reach out to elicit opinions from stakeholders. Offices record correspondence into databases, identifying the most salient issues and the balance of opinion among correspondents. They tend not to use polls on policy. To understand the opinions of electorally influential constituencies, staffers also proactively reach out to stakeholders and experts in a practice we call provoked petitioning. If the Washington pressure system is a chorus, Congressional staff often serve as conductors, allowing well-resourced and organized constituents, including interest groups, to sing with the loudest voices. While Congress has some new tools and strategies for representation, its modern practices still reinforce existing biases.

Unmitigated climate change threatens to disrupt energy systems, for example through weather- and wildfire-induced electricity shortages. Public responses to these energy crises have the potential to shape decarbonization trajectories. Here, we estimate the attitudinal and behavioral effects of Californian power shut-offs in 2019, intended to reduce wildfire ignition risks. We use a geographically targeted survey to compare residents living within outage zones to matched residents in similar neighborhoods who retained their electricity. Outage experience increased respondent intentions to purchase gas or diesel generators and home battery systems, but reduced intentions to purchase electric vehicles. Respondents blamed outages on their utility, not local, state, or federal governments. However, outages did not change climate policy preferences, including willingness-to-pay for either wildfire or climate-mitigating reforms. Our findings show that, in reaction to some climate-linked disruptions, individuals may undertake adaptive responses that, collectively, could exacerbate future climate risks.

A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-021-00785-x.

Building an academic career increasingly calls for greater public engagement, particularly in subjects with more societal relevance such as climate change. Leah Stokes discusses some of the difficulties she has faced in striking a balance between her academic responsibilities and her public work.

Despite the gravity of the climate threat, governments around the world have struggled to pass and implement climate policies. Today, politicians and advocates are championing a new idea: linking climate policy to other economic and social reforms. Will this approach generate greater public support for climate action? Here, we test this coalition-building strategy. Using two conjoint experiments on a representative sample of 2,476 Americans, we evaluate the marginal impact of 40 different climate, social, and economic policies on support for climate reforms. Overall, we find climate policy bundles that include social and economic reforms such as affordable housing, a $15 minimum wage, or a job guarantee increase US public support for climate mitigation. Clean energy standards, regardless of which technologies are included, also make climate policy more popular. Linking climate policy to economic and social issues is particularly effective at expanding climate policy support among people of color.