Welcome to Axis ProRata, a podcast that takes just 10 minutes to get you smarter on the collision of tech, business, and politics.

I'm Dan Pramax. On today's show, how police pull over self-driving cars and Elizabeth Warren versus socialism.

But first, a tipping point on climate change. For decades now, the issue of climate change has been a partisan political

football in the U.S., with Democrats generally raising red flags and Republicans pulling them

down. But all of that may be changing, as the American voter seems to be getting closer

to the sort of consensus that's already been true for years within the scientific community.

And if that plays out, then maybe, just maybe, there will

be enough political and popular will to begin working on meaningful solutions. So there are really

two big factors at play here. First, there's been a ton of new, highly publicized scientific

research published recently. Not only that massive UN climate report that we previously discussed

on the show,

but also from the Trump administration, with reports that tied trends in wildfires, sea

level increases, and other extreme weather events to human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.

Second, those extreme weather events have people pretty freaked out, particularly things like

last year's California wildfires. Even if you don't live near the fire zone in California, you saw the pictures, you saw the videos,

you saw the terror, you saw how suddenly the flames reached the homes and how you had never seen anything like it before.

The result, again, is this growing consensus, at least about the problem.

A recent Yale and George Mason survey showed that 29% of Americans are quote unquote alarmed

by such issues.

That's doubled the figure from 2013, and the same survey shows a massive decline in the

number of skeptics and an all-time high in the percentage of conservative Republicans

who classify themselves as worried.

...