Pirate's Cove

It’s really easy to say that climate change is Evil and something Needs To Be Done. It’s something else entirely when you have to pay for your beliefs, right?

N.J. residents support climate change defenses but don’t want to pay for them, new poll finds

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On the precipice of the 10th anniversary of Sandy and over a month after the one-year anniversary of the remnants of Hurricane Ida, a new Rutgers-Eagleton Institute of Politics poll found many residents said anyone but them.

According to the poll, 78% of the 1,002 New Jersey adults surveyed over the phone between Oct. 14 and Oct. 22 said they believed in climate change and nearly the same percentage considered it a “very serious” or “somewhat serious” issue.

However, when asked which residents should pay a “major share” of added costs to make the Garden State more resilient to climate change, numbers varied.

Based on poll results, 45% said upper-income residents who live in risky areas like flood zones should pay a “major share” of the costs. When asked the same question about middle- and lower-income residents living in risky areas, 9% said a “major share” should pay, an excerpt from the 132-page summary of the poll stated. Meanwhile, 46% said this same group should pay a “minor share” and 42% said they should pay “no share at all.”

Those rich folks do pay the major share after big events like Superstorm Sandy. It’s their taxes, especially property taxes, that helped rebuild so many of those Jersey Shore areas.

Instead of shouldering resiliency costs, residents would prefer to have the federal government, fossil fuel companies and producers, as well as other businesses take on the costs, the poll indicates.

Where do they think that federal government money comes from? Are these same people giving up their own use of fossil fuels? Do they think businesses won’t pass on their higher costs?

“This is not something unique to New Jersey, this is what we see with everyday citizens across the country,” Koning added.

Jessica Roman, a research associate at Rutgers-New Brunswick, also highlighted that residents “don’t want the funding coming out of their own pockets, especially in a time of rising inflation.”

So, pretty much the norm. I have multiple articles blogged, and many saved to Pocket, that show this same thing again and again.