Near the Mississippi River, Tower Rock is now
accessible via foot. Rural voters remain divided on cause of drought. (Photo by Jeff Roberson, AP) |
Raquel Krach is a rice farmer in the Sacramento Valley who told Dolby she planted considerably less rice because of the drought. Dolby reports, "The 53-year-old Democrat said it’s clear to her that climate change is responsible. But she says that notion is a deeply divisive one in her community." Kraus said, "Everyone is very clear on [the fact] that there’s no water and that there’s a drought. Whether they attribute that to climate change is different.”
An AP poll "shows that despite nationwide climate crises — from hurricanes to wildfires to droughts — there’s varying concern among voters about whether climate change is in their backyards," Dolby reports. "About three-quarters of urban voters are at least somewhat worried about the effects of climate change in their communities, compared to about 6 in 10 suburbanites and about half of small-town and rural voters."
While extreme weather has pummeled agriculture, Johnathan Hladik, the policy director at the Nebraska-based Center for Rural Affairs, told Dolby that the nature of much work rural people do makes looking at the global scale difficult: “Farmers are experiencing climate change in a much different way than many more urban people do. It’s in every part of their job. It’s almost like it’s a day-to-day battle. You’re in the trenches every single day and it’s really hard to step back and look at it big-picture-size."
Sarah Jaynes, executive director of the Rural Democracy Initiative, which provides funding to groups that support progressive policies in rural areas, told Dolby that the overarching urban-rural divide has a lot to do with messaging issues: “People in rural areas and small towns are less likely to think that Democrats are fighting for people like them, so there’s a partisan trust issue.”
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