Middlebury College Climate Action and the Fall 2022 Climate Attitudes Survey
In fall of 2022, Professor Julia Berazneva’s Climate Change Economics class (ECON 0365) put out a survey about attitudes on campus towards climate change and potential policies the school could adopt. The survey had 1,265 total respondents including 350 faculty and staff members. Notably, 55% of respondents identified as female and only 39% as male, with the remainder identifying as non-binary, other, or declining to answer. Over 95% of respondents said that climate change was a “very important” or “quite important” societal problem. With broad support across the board, addressing climate change is clearly an important issue for much of the campus. We asked survey questions about potential policies the school could adopt to address climate change including adjusting thermostats, meat-free dining days, an internal carbon charge and a new distribution requirement.