Florida voters kept party lines when asked about the politics of environmentally conscious behaviors.
PIE Center researcher Alexa Lamm, also an assistant professor of public opinion analysis in the UF/IFAS Department of Agricultural Education and Communication, surveyed members of the general public and asked them to describe their reactions to governmental oversight of environmental issues.
“What we were really interested in is how the public felt about the government trying to influence them in some way,” Lamm said. “This part of the survey is measuring environmental policy effort, whether participants perceive the government is imposing strategies such as deciding when they can water their lawns or forcing them to adopt certain behaviors or making them feel guilty.”
Overall, respondents were undecided about the government’s influence on their personal habits. When examined based on educational status, participants with less than a high school education agreed the government had an influence on their involvement in environmentally conscious behaviors. Participants with at least a high school degree were neutral in their opinions.
The participants surveyed by the PIE Center were reflective of the overall demographics of Florida to ensure the opinions were representative of the state. When the PIE Center inspected the results based on Floridians’ political values and party affiliation, it found that conservatives and Republicans believed the government influenced their behaviors.
Another series of questions asked participants to indicate how much freedom the government gave them to choose how they interacted with the environment.
When broken down by educational level, those with four-year or graduate degrees said they had the freedom to choose. Liberals and Democrats felt similar. Lamm said the results were not surprising, but the confirmation was necessary.
“We kind of knew that, but having the facts and having that data to support that gives us some more ability to talk to decision-makers about what their specific constituents are looking at and concerned with,” Lamm said.
Lamm and PIE Center Director Tracy Irani plan to conduct quarterly surveys measuring the Florida public’s opinions on issues such as immigration, as well as invasive and endangered species. The opinion polls will be repeated annually to track change in opinion over time.
The research report developed for the survey presents findings without recommendations, Lamm said, in an effort to leave some interpretation up to the readers and decision-makers.
“What we hope to offer as the PIE Center is a very rigorous, reliable way of knowing what the public thinks at a certain point in time,” she said. “Rather than making a lot of assumptions, now decision-makers actually know.”
