Americans Are Well Aware Of Climate Change -- But Not About The Government's Efforts To Fight It
In most parts of the country, the truth has been inescapable this summer. As the U.S. suffers through heat waves, wildfires and droughts, climate change feels right at our doorstep (and for those of us without air conditioning, doubly so). While climate change is not solely responsible for these harsh weather conditions, it has made them more frequent and more severe. And Americans say they are feeling it.
A majority of Americans — 71 percent — said their local community has endured at least one of five forms of extreme weather over the last year: heat, flooding, drought, wildfires or rising sea levels, according to a survey from the Pew Research Center conducted in May. And regardless of the type experienced, a majority of those who had faced such weather said climate change played a role. This is true even among Republicans, who are generally less likely to believe climate change is happening. For Republicans who said their local community had experienced extreme heat, for example, 79 percent said climate change contributed a lot or a little, while 21 percent said climate change did not contribute at all.
Whether or not they’ve experienced it firsthand, most Americans are worried about climate change. In a Morning Consult poll from July, 73 percent of Americans said they were at least somewhat concerned about climate change, including 39 percent who said they were very concerned. However, in this case, public opinion is split along partisan lines. While 91 percent of Democrats said they were very or somewhat concerned about climate change, fewer than half — 47 percent — of Republicans said the same.
Clearly, many Americans are feeling the heat and understand its causes. But what are they willing to do about it? Well, many are taking matters into their own hands and trying to make more climate-friendly choices in their personal lives. In that Morning Consult poll, 61 percent of Americans said they had changed their behavior “some” or “a lot” because of concerns about the environment. Democrats and younger Americans were more likely to say they’d changed their behavior. Sixty-six percent of Gen Z respondents said they’d changed behavior, compared with 60 percent of baby boomers and 59 percent of Gen Xers. Fewer than half of all respondents said that they stay away from single-use packaging or that they buy items with limited to no packaging. But most Americans said they recycle, use refillable water bottles, restrict their use of plastics and buy items made of recyclable materials because of concerns over the environment.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/climate-change-inflation/