"More Americans than ever before — 54 percent, recent polling data shows — are alarmed or concerned about climate change, which scientists warn
is a planetary emergency unfolding in the form of searing heat,
prolonged drought, massive wildfires, monstrous storms, and
other extremes.
California burns
 |
| Climate change denial |
These kinds of disasters are becoming increasingly costly and impossible to ignore. Yet even as the American public becomes progressively more worried about the climate crisis, a shrinking but vocal slice of the country continues to dismiss these concerns, impeding efforts to address the monumental global challenge.
Weather Extremes Driving Climate Concern
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. has already seen 16 billion-dollar weather disasters this year, including horrific fires in the West and powerful storms like Hurricanes Sally, Laura, and Delta on the Gulf Coast.
 |
| Florida's coast regularly floods |
This reality of intensifying climate disasters in part helps explain the rise in concern on this issue among the American public, says Ed Maibach of the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University. Maibach is part of a research team that since 2008 has surveyed and categorized American attitudes on climate change into six different groups that they call the “Six Americas.”"
Read time: 9 mins By Dana Drugmand
No comments:
Post a Comment