{"id":42100,"date":"2022-02-18T10:18:58","date_gmt":"2022-02-18T17:18:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/coloradans-worried-about-water-wildfires-and-cost-of-living-new-poll-shows\/"},"modified":"2022-02-18T17:18:58","modified_gmt":"2022-02-18T17:18:58","slug":"coloradans-worried-about-water-wildfires-and-cost-of-living-new-poll-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/coloradans-worried-about-water-wildfires-and-cost-of-living-new-poll-shows\/","title":{"rendered":"Coloradans worried about water, wildfires and cost of living, new poll shows"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Snow-covered
Snow-covered La Plata Mountains in January 2020. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file)<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Public concern about climate change and challenges involving water quantity and quality have increased sharply during the past decade, with more than 70% of Coloradans now viewing drought, inadequate water supplies and low levels in rivers and streams as a serious issue, according to new results from a long-term poll run by Colorado College.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe definitely see some extreme concerns about water,\u201d pollster Lori Weigel of New Bridge Strategy said. \u201cWe\u2019re consistently seeing now folks really concerned about droughts and reduced snowpack.\u201d<\/p>\n

The telephone and online interview polled 3,440 residents of eight Mountain West states. Weigel led the study with pollster Dave Metz of Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates for Colorado College\u2019s State of the Rockies Project, which aims to enhance the public\u2019s understanding of socioeconomic challenges in the Rocky Mountain West.<\/p>\n

In particular, concern over inadequate water supplies is up 30 percentage points since the poll was first conducted in 2011. Alarm about climate change is up 25 percentage points compared to responses from 12 years ago. \u201cWe called it global warming in the very first survey,\u201d Weigel said. \u201cThis has really inched up quite dramatically over the years.\u201d<\/p>\n

During its first few iterations, the poll sampled residents in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico and Montana. The poll has since expanded to include Idaho, Nevada and Arizona. \u201cThis is a tool for policymakers and the public to gauge citizen attitudes,\u201d said Katrina Miller-Stevens, director of the State of the Rockies Project.<\/p>\n

Heading into an election year, there\u2019s greater attention on policy, and Metz said high numbers of Republicans, Democrats and independents indicated that a public official\u2019s stance on conservation issues will be an important factor in determining who they vote for. \u201cWhat really stands out is the degree to which, despite all the change in the world, the levels of support we\u2019re seeing for most of these ideas has remained very steady, Metz said.<\/p>\n

This year, for example, 86% of respondents said a politician\u2019s stance on the environment was either \u201cimportant\u201d or \u201cvery important,\u201d with 41% making up the latter category. In 2016, only 31% of respondents identified this issue as \u201cvery important.\u201d<\/p>\n

A possible explanation, Metz said, is that a significant number of people indicated that they changed where and when they recreate outdoors due to crowding or the impacts of climate change. Those numbers were highest in Colorado, where 58% of respondents said they made adjustments because of crowding and 31% shifted because of climate change factors.<\/p>\n

One question that was new to this year\u2019s survey, and also received high levels of concern, was about the rising cost of living, which more than 70% of respondents deemed either \u201cextremely\u201d serious or \u201cvery\u201d serious in every state except Nevada. In Colorado, that figure hit 73%; both Idaho and Montana topped 80% on this question.<\/p>\n

\u201cYounger people and more Republican voters register that as a more serious problem,\u201d Weigel said. \u201cIt\u2019s definitely a top-tier concern.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, given that the poll was conducted in the days after the Marshall fire, Coloradans also indicated a high level of concern about wildfires. In Colorado, 76% of respondents said they were either \u201cextremely\u201d concerned or \u201cvery\u201d concerned about \u201cuncontrollable wildfires that threaten homes and property.\u201d Montana was the only other state in which the concern registered that high, also at 76%.<\/p>\n

On the question of how to address water quantity challenges, respondents overwhelmingly favored using water more wisely (81%) as opposed to diverting water from rivers in less populated areas toward more densely populated communities (14%).<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a very clear mandate across the Mountain West that they want to focus on conservation,\u201d Weigel said.<\/p>\n

Among Coloradans, 86% supported \u201ccreating new national parks, national monuments, national wildlife refuges and tribal protected areas to protect historic sites or areas for outdoor recreation. And 83% of Coloradans supported a national goal of \u201cconserving 30% of land and inland waters in America, and 30% of its ocean areas by 2030.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to covering Colorado issues. To learn more, go to coloradosun.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Telephone and online interview polled 3,440 residents of eight Mountain West states<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42101,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[120,233,402,28,453,3567,295,294,258,84],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-42100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado","tag-coloradosun-com","tag-drought","tag-headlines","tag-housing-and-urban-planning","tag-survey","tag-water","tag-water-supply","tag-western-slope","tag-wildfire"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42100"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=42100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}