The Report Climate Change in the American Mind (“Report”) conducted by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication, reveals trends in Americans’ perception of concerns about climate change. Their findings are based on the nationally representative survey conducted in October – November 2017.

Against the backdrop of Trump’s decision to pull the US out of the Paris Agreement and his climate change scepticism, the Report brings remarkable insight into the minds of Americans and unveils current trends within American society in relation to climate change.

Findings of the Report:

• ‍ 71% of Americans think global warming is happening.
• A record 22% of Americans are very worried about global warming. Worthy to mention that the percentage of Americans that are very worried about global warming has more than doubled between 2011 and 2017. In addition, 63% of Americans say they are at least "somewhat worried”.
• A majority of Americans think global warming made several extreme events in 2017 worse, particularly the heat waves in California (55%) and Arizona (51%) and hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria (54%).
• While a majority of Americans (54%) understand that global warming is mostly human-caused, 33% believe global warming is due mainly to natural factors.
• Only 15% of Americans understand that more than 90% of climate scientists are convinced that human-caused global warming is happening.
• While 78% of Americans realize that humans could potentially slow global warming, only 5% of Americans believe we will be successful in doing so. As regards potential climate action, 25% of surveyed think that we will fail because people are unwilling to change their behaviour, and 48% say it is unclear whether we will do what is necessary.
• Majority of Americans think global warming will cause more melting glaciers, severe heat waves, droughts and water shortages, floods, severe air pollution and intense hurricanes. 52% of Americans believe that climate change will lead to abandoning of coastal cities due to rising sea levels.
• Increasing numbers of Americans (44%) say they have personally experienced the effects of global warming. In the same line, increasing percentage of Americans believe that the US are being harmed by global warming “right now”.
• Most of Americans (78%) are interested in learning about how global warming is or is not affecting extreme weather events.