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Dr. Mark Pack's avatar

How much of the dip in support do you think is simply due to 2030 getting nearer? I suspect there is a natural cycle where a date far in the future for any restriction/ban or similar usually sees its support drop as the date becomes nearer and so the potential loss or inconvenience to people feels more immediate?

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Strong Message Here - Substack's avatar

Yes i think there is some of that, but if you look across the board there is a trend in policies that just sound a bit inconvenient, expensive or 'faff' like declining slightly - hopefully this link works to show it: https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F324ded86-f8c3-419b-b174-eb9ea4864295_2440x1522.png

So i think most of it is the shifting context in terms of cost of living and people feeling a bit squeezed. I don't think this is a problem specific to climate necessarily.

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Steven Jonas's avatar

There is an implication from the graphs that older people in lower socio-economic groups are more hostile to EVs than younger people in higher socio-economic groups. I suspect that there's also lower enthusiasm for EVs the further away from large conurbations the person asked lives.

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Strong Message Here - Substack's avatar

Hey - there is a bit more info on this in the full research. It's definitely true that age has an independent effect here, even controlling for political ideology or income older voters are more sceptical of EVs generally. I suppose this could be a more inherent small-c conservatism.

In the full research you'll see crossbreaks for urban/suburban/rural - in short the big divide is urban vs the rest, rather than rural per se, but yes your broad point is right.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1g3D52o4otBjZ1pSP6zPSwpgD58scYCvz/edit#slide=id.p1

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