Believers, Sympathizers, and Skeptics: Why Americans are Conflicted about Climate Change, Environmental Policy, and Science

Last updated on: November 23, 2014 at 3:05 pm by Guest Contributor

Believers, Sympathizers, and Skeptics: Why Americans are Conflicted about Climate Change, Environmental Policy, and Science 2014-11-23T15:05:00-05:00 Guest Contributor

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Americans rank climate change last on a list of important issues. Only five percent of Americans say climate change is the most important issue facing the U.S. today. The issue of climate change ranks behind the lack of jobs (22%), the increasing gap between rich and poor (18%), health care (17%), the budget deficit (13%), immigration reform (10%), and the rising cost of education (9%).

When asked which environmental problem is most important for the current administration to tackle, nearly 3-in-10 (29%) Americans point to air, water, and soil pollution. One-quarter (25%) of Americans say climate change is the most pressing environment problem, while a similar number (23%) identify water shortages and drought. Fewer Americans cite the shrinking of wilderness areas and animal habitats (11%) or endangered species (4%) as the most critical environmental issue.

Americans are significantly more likely to believe that people living in poorer developing countries will be harmed by climate change than they are to say that they personally, or U.S. residents as a whole, will be negatively affected by climate change.

Less than one-quarter (24%) of Americans believe that they will be personally harmed a great deal by climate change, while 30% say climate change will affect them a moderate amount. More than 4-in-10 Americans say climate change will have only a little (23%) or no impact (22%) on them personally.

One-third (33%) of Americans say the U.S. public overall will experience a great deal of harm due to climate change, while 35% say the U.S. public will experience a moderate amount of harm. Three-in-ten Americans say that climate change will impact people living in the U.S. only a little (18%) or not at all (12%).

A majority (54%) of Americans say that people living in poorer developing countries will be harmed a great deal as a result of climate change, while 20% say they will experience a moderate amount of harm. Less than one-quarter of Americans believe that people living in developing countries will be affected only a little (10%) or not at all (12%) as a result of climate change.

About one-quarter (23%) of Americans say that climate change is a crisis and 36% say it is a major problem, while nearly 4-in-10 Americans say climate change is a minor problem (23%) or not a problem at all (16%).

The Climate Change Concern Index—a composite measure that combines perceptions about whether climate change is a crisis and whether it will have adverse personal effects—finds that nearly 3-in-10 (29%) Americans are very concerned about climate change, 21% are somewhat concerned, 29% are somewhat unconcerned, and 21% are very unconcerned.

More than 7-in-10 Hispanic Americans are very (46%) or somewhat (25%) concerned about the impact of climate change. Similarly, nearly 6-in-10 black Americans are very (36%) or somewhat (21%) concerned about climate change. By contrast, less than half of white Americans are very (23%) or somewhat (20%) concerned about climate change.

Two-thirds of Democrats are very or somewhat concerned about climate change (41% and 26%, respectively), compared to fewer than 3-in-10 Republicans (14% and 15%, respectively). Independents are nearly evenly divided.

More than 6-in-10 (63%) Americans agree that dealing with climate change now will help avoid more serious economic problems in the future, while 3-in-10 (30%) say that given our current economic problems, we cannot afford to deal with climate change right now.

The generational differences on this question are modest. Nearly 7-in-10 (68%) young adults (age 18-29) say we should deal with climate change now, compared to 59% of seniors (age 65 and older).

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