CFACT National Field Coordinator headed up to Michigan to establish new Driessen Fellows and carry out various on campuses activities including polling students. One such campus was the University of Michigan at Dearborn. Situated in the suburbs of Detroit, UMD is one of two universities operating under the University of Michigan, this school was founded in the 1950s thanks to a gift from the Ford Motor Company with the stipulation that the school would have a cooperative work-study program with its business and engineering departments to provide better prospect for the car manufacturer.
At UMD, CFACT representatives scoured the campus polling student by handing out QR codes that would lead the youth to a public policy poll. Nearly 100 students responded giving a glimpse into the political mindset of students in this region. As shown in the cover photo, when presented with the question, “”In general, how do you view climate change?” Nearly 2/3 of the students asserted that they believed it to be mostly (51.2%) or exclusively manmade (14%) while a mere 24.4% said it is mostly natural and 4.7% said it is completely natural. A few students had non opinion. This shows we certainly have work to do to educate students about the real science regarding this matter.
But not everything was as gloomy as that. Paralleling our polling at Clemson University earlier in the year, when given a list a energy sources and asked if any of them should be banned, only 30% of students thought coal should be banned as an energy source which is something anti-reliable energy politicians should take note of. Additionally, only 1 in 4 students support government restrictions on speech and nearly 2/3 of students polled have a positive view of capitalism.
CFACT will work to continue educating students at this campus and others through activism, research, and providing speakers so that we can defeat the spreading of these false ideas about anthropogenic climate change. We are looking forward to future trips to Michigan in the near future.
