Climate Change Survey: Global Warming Is Not Real for 1 in 5 Americans

Summary: Global warming is not real for one in five Americans, according to Yale and George Mason universities' climate change survey from Feb. 27 to March 10.

Yale University and George Mason University conducted a national climate change survey from Friday, Feb. 27, to Tuesday, March 10, 2015: Yale Climate Program @YaleClimateComm, via Twitter Nov. 20, 2015

A nationally representative climate change survey conducted from Feb. 27 to March 10, 2015, by Yale and George Mason universities finds one in five Americans (18 percent) thinks global warming is not real and three in ten (32 percent) view global warming as mostly naturally-caused.

The climate change survey reveals that a majority of Americans, outnumbering the naysaying 18 percent by nearly four times, think that global warming really is happening. The global warming believers crosscut age, sex, and education levels. The finding that 63 percent, or about two in three, perceive global warming as happening is consistent with the results of a similar survey conducted by Yale and George Mason researchers from Nov. 23 to Dec. 9, 2013.

The climate change survey finds a divide between popular understanding of climate change in America and the scientific consensus. A 2013 study, published in Environmental Research Letters, places expert consensus on global warming as real and at least partly human-caused in peer-reviewed climate science literature at 97 percent. But the climate change survey yields only 52 percent, or about half of Americans, as linking global warming, if it is occurring, to mostly human causes. The survey’s finding is fairly consistent with the result of 47 percent, or nearly half, by the 2013 survey.

“This public misunderstanding of the scientific consensus -- which has been found in each of our surveys since 2008 -- has significant consequences,” the study’s investigators emphasize. “Other research has identified public understanding of the scientific consensus as a critical ‘gateway belief’ that influences other important beliefs (i.e., global warming is happening, human caused, a serious problem, and solvable) and support for action.”

Understanding of global warming is further undermined by perceived lacks of climate change information via the media (magazines, movies, newspapers/news websites, radio, TV, etc.) and in daily lives via personal contacts (family, friends, co-workers, etc.). One in five (19 percent) is aware of media coverage of global warming at least once a week. Only one in 25 (4 percent) hears talk of global warming by personal contacts at least once a week.

The third U.S. National Climate Assessment, entitled Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States and published as a report by the National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee (NCADAC) in 2014, finds that the impacts of climate change are beginning to appear in the United States. Contrastingly, the climate change survey shows that only about one in three Americans (32 percent) thinks that global warming is harming Americans “right now.” Rather, most Americans (63 percent) see the great or moderate harms of global warming, not as a present threat, but as a problem for future generations.

The climate change survey and research were conducted jointly by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication in Yale University’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and by the Center for Climate Change Communication in George Mason University’s Department of Communication.

Interviewed respondents totaled 1,263 adults, aged 18 years and older. Respondents answered self-administered questionnaires in a web-based environment.

Funding for the survey, Climate Change in the American Mind, with findings published as a report in October 2015, was provided by the 11th Hour Project, the Energy Foundation, the Grantham Foundation, and the V.K. Rasmussen Foundation.

2015 climate change survey finds that 63 percent of Americans view global warming as a future threat, not as a present problem; graphic of global warming "business as usual" scenario of decades-long megadroughts in the American Southwest and Central Plains between 2050 and 2099, with brown areas = drier than 20th century average, blue areas = wetter; credit NASA images by Greg Shirah (NASA/GSFC) and Cheng Zhang (USRA), NASA Scientific Visualization Studio: Freely available for re-publication or re-use, including commercial purposes, via NASA Earth Observatory

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Yale University and George Mason University conducted a national climate change survey from Friday, Feb. 27, to Tuesday, March 10, 2015: Yale Climate Program @YaleClimateComm, via Twitter Nov. 20, 2015, @ https://twitter.com/YaleClimateComm/status/667773659914747904

2015 climate change survey finds that 63 percent of Americans view global warming as a future threat, not as a present problem; graphic of global warming "business as usual" scenario of decades-long megadroughts in the American Southwest and Central Plains between 2050 and 2099, with brown areas = drier than 20th century average, blue areas = wetter; credit NASA images by Greg Shirah (NASA/GSFC) and Cheng Zhang (USRA), NASA Scientific Visualization Studio: Freely available for re-publication or re-use, including commercial purposes, via NASA Earth Observatory @ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=85311

For further information:

Cook, John, et al. "Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature." Environmental Research Letters, vol. 8, no. 2. Published May 15, 2013.
Available @ http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024;jsessionid=DCE4DD322F64FB95F4A0397BE076FF31.c2.iopscience.cld.iop.org

Laguipo, Angela. "Americans Do Not Think Global Warming Is Real: Why?" Tech Times. Nov. 23, 2015.
Available @ http://www.techtimes.com/articles/109620/20151123/americans-do-not-think-global-warming-is-real-why.htm

Leiserowitz, Anthony, et al. Climate Change in the American Mind: Americans' Global Warming Beliefs and Attitudes in November 2013. Yale University and George Washington University. New Haven CT: Yale Project on Climate Change Communication.
Available @ http://environment.yale.edu/climate-communication/files/Climate-Beliefs-November-2013.pdf

Leiserowitz, Anthony, et al. Climate Change in the American Mind: March, 2015. Yale University and George Washington University. New Haven CT: Yale Project on Climate Change Communication.
Available @ http://environment.yale.edu/climate-communication/files/Global-Warming-CCAM-March-2015.pdf

van der Linden, Sander, et al. "The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change as a Gateway Belief: Experimental Evidence." PLOS ONE. Published Feb. 25, 2015. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0118489
Available @ http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0118489

Yale Climate @YaleClimateComm. "How do you feel about #climate? More than 1/2 of US is somewhat worried about #globalwarming." Twitter. Nov. 20, 2015.
Available @ https://twitter.com/YaleClimateComm/status/667773659914747904