Is Global Warming Real? Most Americans Say Yes
The Obama administration announced new regulations Monday meant to reduce carbon emissions and combat climate change. What do Americans believe about climate change, and how have those beliefs changed? Our overview follows. Every pollster uses different wording, producing varied results, but the overall pattern is consistent. According to , 67 percent of Americans say there is solid evidence that the earth is warming. shows that 54 percent say the effects of global warming have already begun. In a conducted in May, only 11 percent said global warming did not exist. The number of Americans who believe in global warming has declined slightly since 2008, but there is reason to suspect that decline may soon reverse. Jon Krosnick of Stanford University and colleagues studied the post-2008 drop in the number of people who think global warming is occurring and concluded it had little to do with two major events of that year: the economic recession or the media coverage of the release of thousands of emails and documents related to global warming research. Rather, they found that opinion about global warming seemed to fluctuate with temperature changes. Although the beliefs of people who trust natural scientists remain steady over time, climate beliefs among the one-third of Americans who dont trust natural scientists are influenced by the prior years average world temperature. Following record-high-temperature years, low-trust people are more likely to believe that the world has been warming, Mr. Krosnick said. Extreme weather events, however, have not had notable impact on public judgments of the existence or the seriousness of global warming. There is reason to think that global temperatures, after having been somewhat steady in recent years, are likely to begin rising again, thanks to a buildup of carbon emissions and If so, belief in global warming may soon rise again, too. Eighty percent of Democrats report having high trust in scientists, compared with 63 percent of independents and 46 percent of Republicans, according to the . Partly as a result, Democrats concern about climate change is far higher than Republicans concern. Americans, as a whole, are less concerned about global warming than people in other rich countries largely because of low levels of concern among Republicans. Other in recent years, many Americans have instead named the economy, jobs or the deficit as their top worries. Even among environmental issues, climate change is not Americans main concern. When Gallup asked about a number of environmental issues, , with worry about drinking water pollution ranking 25 points higher. Although the economys ups and downs do not seem to affect beliefs about the existence of global warming, the economys condition can affect how people view climate change as a problem. When the economy is weak, as it has been in recent years, many people list other issues as higher priorities. But thats not to say that Americans arent concerned at all. More than half of Americans say that global warming is a both for the United States and the rest of the world if nothing is done to reduce it. In 2013, polls found that about 7 in 10 Americans said they had , and 4 in 10 Americans said that their in the past year. A majority say about global warming, while just 1 in 5 say the government should do little or nothing. There is majority support for and for requiring utilities to produce energy from renewable sources, but . Poll questions, however, often struggle to convey the political arguments on both sides of the climate debate which may mean that climate proposals fare less well in actual political debates than in polls. For instance, a for carbon emissions the plan the Obama administration favors to reduce carbon emissions is notoriously difficult to ask about in polling. Few the policy, which provides pollsters with the dilemma of asking a question that provides an explanation of the issue or asking a question that has minimal detail, relying on what the respondent can bring to the question. In December, the randomly assigned respondents to one of three different questions on the policy, all of which explained a cap-and-trade system. Support ranged from 48 percent to 70 percent. Yet none of the questions warned that consumer prices may rise the main argument opponents make against cap-and-trade. A February 2010 poll by Pew took the more minimalist route, and after asking about knowledge of the cap-and-trade bill, found that 52 percent supported setting limits on carbon dioxide emissions and making companies pay for their emissions, even if it meant higher energy prices but offered no details on how the proposal would work. Nearly a third of Americans say that if nothing is done to reduce global warming, they themselves will be hurt a lot or a great deal, according to the Today poll. As for future generations, two-thirds say they will be hurt a lot or a great deal.