County residents offer climate change opinions

Iowa falls right in the middle of the road when it comes to assessing the existence of climate change and its impact, according to a new interactive tool released by the Yale Climate Project.
The tool, a map that shows how people answered a series of questions about climate change, breaks down the responses at the national, state and county level, as well as by Congressional district. Calhoun County residents tended to show slightly more skepticism about global warming than the state’s residents as a whole. One area in which Calhoun County and Iowa residents offered some surprising responses, said Eugene Takle, director of the Climate Science Program at Iowa State University, had to do with alternative energy sources.
“There’s a high percentage of people interested in investing in renewable energy research,” Takle said.
In all, 79 percent of Iowa residents and 76 percent of Calhoun County residents said they supported such research. Almost two-thirds of both groups – 63 percent statewide and 58 percent locally – said they supported requiring energy providers to procure at least 20 percent of the electricity they sell from renewable resources. 
Read more in the April 15 edition.