Two-thirds of Oregonians now say climate change is inevitable

Two-thirds of Oregonians believe climate change policies have little to no chance of preventing ecological disaster, according to a recent poll.

The poll of 1,154 adult state residents, conducted Aug. 7-19 through moderated online panels by the nonprofit Oregon Values and Beliefs Center, and reported by Portland’s KOIN-6 News Channel only this week, found that 66% believe climate change is unstoppable regardless of human mitigation efforts.

Within that number, 45% of respondents said there’s only a slight chance and 21% believe there’s no hope at all that human beings can solve climate change soon enough to prevent ecological disaster.

Two-thirds of Oregonians — 67% — also said human beings have small or no chance of stopping forest fires before it’s too late.

“People are more pessimistic about forest fires and the climate crisis than about solving communicable diseases like Covid (33%), voting rights and secure elections (40%), racial discrimination (58%), or population growth (62%),” the study’s authors wrote in their summary.

At the same time, 64% said they believed in the reality of human-caused climate change, continuing a polling trend in which Oregonians believe simultaneously in the problem and in the futility of government and private efforts to solve it.

Most respondents likewise attributed hotter and longer summers, wildfires, and droughts to climate change

While most Oregonians support state-mandated reductions in fossil fuels, only 51% said they would be willing to pay 25 to 50 cents more for gasoline at the pump to support a fossil fuels tax in that range.

Nearly half — 47% — feel uncertain about geoengineering strategies to combat climate change, and respondents were split into thirds about supporting, opposing, and not being sure about nuclear energy.

Finally, 77% of Oregonians believe environmental protection should take priority over the economy, a 20% spike from the number who said so in 2013.

The margin of error was 1.7% to 2.9% and the survey chose respondents to match the racial demographics of a state long saturated by climate change warnings about global warming and acidifying Pacific coastal waters.