Climate Attitudes vs. Climate Reality in 2010

On June 8, 2001, the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication released its first of four reports, based on a survey on Americans’ climate change and energy beliefs, attitudes, policy support, and behavior. The report, entitled Americans’ Global Warming Beliefs and Attitudes in May 2011, highlights how American attitudes have shifted since June 2010.

In contrast, a May 29 Newsweek article entitled Are You Ready for More? discusses the effects of climate change and the reality of climate events in America and how policy makers and public officials are ill-equipped to prepare for and deal with what is likely yet to come.

Some of the key findings from the YPCCC report include:

• public understanding that global warming is happening rose three points (64 percent)
• the belief that it is caused mostly by human activities declined three points (47 percent) the number of Americans who said that the issue is personally important to them dropped three points (60 percent).
 

• public understanding that most scientists think global warming is happening rose 5 points (39 percent)
• 40 percent of Americans continue to believe there is a lot of disagreement among scientists
• only 13 percent correctly estimate the proportion of climate scientists that think global warming is happening (81 to 100%)
• only 15 percent correctly understand that the great majority of climate scientists think that global warming is caused mostly by human activities
• levels of trust in television weather reporters, the mainstream news media, and scientists as sources of information about global warming have also dropped (by 9, 7, and 5 points respectively)

All in all, public understanding of climate change – and public engagement in the issue – remains lower than it was in 2008.

This increasing discrepancy between what the American public believes about climate change, and what it is actually experiencing as a consequence of it needs to be addressed if we are to prepare for and deal with this challenge effectively.