Most Americans think that climate change is impacting their lives now, according to a Pew Research Report released on October 25.
Nearly two-thirds of Americans (63%) believe that climate change will get worse in their lifetime. Most young adults (78%) aged 18 to 29 foresee the effects of climate change being a part of their future.
Respondents also say it is having an immediate impact, causing harm to people in the U.S. today. Another 28% of respondents say that climate change is causing “some” harm.
Nearly a quarter of Americans (23%) say they will have to make “major sacrifices” because of climate change. More respondents (48%) say they will have to make “minor sacrifices” due to climate impacts.
There is a partisan gap on the issue, with almost half (46%) of Republicans/Republican-leaning respondents saying they will have to make no sacrifices to their regular lives in response to climate change compared to 11% of Democrats. More than half of Democrats/Democrat-leaning respondents (54%) say they will have to make “minor sacrifices.”
“Climate change consistently ranks lower than other national issues like the economy, health care and crime on the public’s list of national priorities for the president and Congress,” according to Alec Tyson and Brian Kennedy of the Pew Research Center. Nonetheless, 74% say the U.S. should participate in international efforts to address the issue, and a majority support a number of specific policies intended to reduce the effects of climate change, such as providing tax credits to businesses for developing carbon capture and storage technologies.
To read the survey methodology and download the full report and topline questionnaire, click here.
Director of The Raceless Gospel Initiative, an associate editor, host of the Good Faith Media podcast, “The Raceless Gospel” and author of Take Me to the Water: The Raceless Gospel as Baptismal Pedagogy for a Desegregated Church.
