
Scientists warn that climate change threatens our future with famines, violent storms, flooding, and a host of other problems, but one fact about it might surprise you.
Scientists warn that climate change and the global warming it brings will totally shatter our way of life in the coming decades, but there’s one fact that you may find surprising about the issue. Despite the dire warnings, the reality is that Americans just aren’t that worried about it, at least not enough of them.
Several polls conducted by researchers recently found that most, or at least a majority, of people don’t buy scientists’ dire warnings of gloom and doom about our future due to climate change A Pew poll found that just 45 percent of people “worried a great deal” about the environment, and a Yale poll found only 20 percent were “very worried,” although 60 percent at least said they were somewhat worried.
And even those low numbers start to plummet once you start talking actual policies that affect people’s lives. Just half of Americans support a carbon tax, described as one of the best ways to curtail emissions and prevent temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius over the next century.
Many people don’t even agree that scientists almost unanimously agree that human industrial activity is what is fueling global warming. Just 13 percent of self-identified conservative Republicans believe that there is unanimity on the issue among scientists, even though nearly every study finds this to be the case. Surprisingly, only 55 percent of liberal Democrats believe this.
Americans will line up behind more benign policy proposals, like building more solar and wind plants, but it appears most Americans don’t think any drastic measures need to be taken to curtail global warming.
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