It’s Energy and the Environment, Stupid!

California, it appears, is no longer dreaming. In the wake of this summer’s heat wave, which has killed more than 100 people,
devastated the state’s agricultural economy, and melted down its electrical power system, energy and environmental issues have soared to the top of public concern and awareness.

A new poll shows that “Air pollution, global warming and other environmental woes are becoming increasingly important to California voters” — an unprecedented 85 percent of the voters say that the environment will influence who they vote for this fall for governor.
This reality is reinforced by the fact that, in the fall, Californians will get a chance to vote to put their state on a new energy pathway — one in which the oil industry is finally forced to pay its fair share of the cost of a transition out of our addiction to oil by funding efficiency and renewables. Proposition 87, the Clean Alternative Energy Act, is leading in the polls, 61 percent to 23 percent. And Californians for the first time overwhelmingly say they want their state to forge its own leadership path on global warming, in the absence of federal leadership. The Clean Alternative Energy Act got another major boost yesterday when the California Federation of Labor endorsed it overwhelmingly, saying” Prop 87 is supported by people fighting to create cleaner air and new jobs for California. The opposition is bankrolled by the oil companies who don’t want to pay California their fair share.”

So how’s this new reality playing politically?

Huffington Post