Article
Households with solar installations are ideologically diverse and more politically active than their neighbours
Nature Energy
(2019)
Abstract
Climate risk mitigation requires rapid decarbonization of energy infrastructure, a task that will need political support from mass publics. Here, we use a combination of satellite imagery and voter file data to examine the political identities of US households with residential solar installations. We find that solar households are slightly more likely to be Democratic; however, this imbalance stems primarily from between-neighbourhood differences in partisan composition rather than within-neighbourhood differences in the rate of partisan solar uptake. Crucially, we still find that many solar households are Republican. We also find that solar households are substantially more likely to be politically active than their neighbours, and that these differences in political participation cannot be fully explained by demographic and socioeconomic factors. Our results demonstrate that individuals across the ideological spectrum are participating in the US energy transition, despite extreme ideological polarization around climate change.
Disciplines
Publication Date
2019
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-019-0498-8
Citation Information
Mildenberger, M., Howe, P.D. & Miljanich, C. Households with solar installations are ideologically diverse and more politically active than their neighbours. Nat Energy 4, 1033–1039 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-019-0498-8