PALO ALTO, Calif., Aug. 3 (UPI) -- Large majorities in three U.S. states say global warming is a threat and they support government efforts to control greenhouse gas emissions, a poll indicates.
More than three quarters of the residents of Florida, Maine and Massachusetts contacted in a Stanford University poll think that if the world has been warming, it has been due primarily or at least partly to "things people do," a university release said Tuesday.
And similar numbers agree the U.S. government should take action to limit the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by businesses, the poll found.
Respondents also said they would vote for candidates who publicly support efforts to combat climate change, indicating they were more likely to vote for a candidate who made public statements of support than one who had not.
"These in-depth studies of three interesting states suggest that in these key regards, they closely resemble the nation overall and support the notion of climate protection legislation," said Professor Jon Krosnick, a senior fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford who conducted the poll.
Most respondents said they believed programs to combat global warming would not have a negative effect on their state's or the nation's economy.
"This result contradicts the claim that most residents of these states believe that climate change legislation will be a jobs-killer," Krosnick said.
The telephone poll was conducted between July 9 and July 18 with 600 randomly selected adults from each state.
No margin-of-error figure was reported.
