A new poll shows that nearly half of all Americans say that they’ve experienced the effects of the climate crisis — although scientific research suggests that the proportion of people who have felt the effects of the crisis is actually much higher.
An Economist/YouGov poll published this weekRespondents were asked a variety of climate-related questions. One of these was whether they had personally felt the impacts of climate change. Nearly half of the survey’s respondents (47 percent) said that they have, while another 25 percent said that they weren’t sure. Just 20 percent said that they haven’t felt the effects of the crisis, while 8 percent wrongly maintained that the climate crisis isn’t real.
The poll also found that at least 1 in 10 Americans (10 percent) believe that they will experience the effects of climate change in their lifetime, on top of the number who said that they’ve already experienced changes.
Most Americans (54 percent) agreed — climate change is real, and it’s man-made. Another quarter (25%) of respondents agreed that the climate crisis is real. disagreed with the fact that human activity has been impacting the planet’s global temperatures, despite widespread scientific consensus that this is the case.
These findings were made as the U.S. experienced record-breaking temperatures this weekend. There are more high temperatures to come. 7 out of 10 Americans have been affected by the current week’s high temperatures. are set to experience temperatures in the 90s or higher. Twenty percent of the population will experience even hotter temperatures, including temperatures exceeding 100°F.
The Economist/YouGov poll demonstrates that most Americans understand that the climate crisis is already impacting them, or will impact them at some point — but while polling data can measure the attitudes and opinions of those who participate, scientific data offers a truer understanding of what’s happening.
Indeed, while close to half of all Americans say that they’ve experienced the effects of climate change, that number is likely much higher. In 2021, research published in the journal Nature Climate ChangeIt was shown that 85 percent of all humans on the planet have directly felt the effects of climate changeFloods, droughts or forest fires can cause flooding.
The Climate Shift IndexClimate Central has created a new online tool called ”. It shows areas in the United States where temperatures are higher than normal. It uses historical data from the government. On Thursday, in the coastal region of Texas, for example, it was 99.4 degrees outside — a temperature level that is 8.3 degrees higher than normal.
The Climate Shift Index is meant to “help reveal how climate change is disrupting our world,” Climate Central says on its website, adding that the tool “provides daily estimates of how climate change is impacting air temperature.”
