Lauren R. Stevens: Can American attitudes about climate change ... - Berkshire Eagle

Lauren R. Stevens: Can American attitudes about climate change inform our debates about what to do? | Columnists | berkshireeagle.com

Last month, the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change came out with a synthesis of recent climate reports. The news is not good. How do we respond?

We have heard their prognosis before, but the illness grows more acute as we continue to take insufficient steps to treat it. Even as we are suffering today, as evidenced by storms, forest fires, droughts, floods and rising sea levels, reducing future effects becomes more difficult. Issues of fairness between industrialized countries and underdeveloped ones become more acute. Already, the report predicts that warming will exceed 2.7 degrees F since pre-industrial times, the maximum limit set by the 2015 Paris agreement, no matter what we do now. Still, every positive thing we do helps.

Some of us have assumed that people either accepted the climate diagnosis or didn’t — that there wasn’t much point in trying to educate non-accepters, many of whom were ideologically immune. A survey suggests our view was too narrow. The Yale Program on Climate Change Communications recorded Americans’ attitudes in December 2022 and reported the findings in February.

United States residents understand that climate change is happening (70 percent) and a majority understand that it is human-caused (58 percent). Some folks feel the heat, apparently, but attribute it to natural causes. They might still be persuaded to take steps to adapt if not mitigate. Fifty-eight percent understand that, in spite of assertions to the contrary, most scientists agree that it is real and we did it.

Slightly fewer than half of the U.S. believes that it’s happening now, though — presumably non-coastal-dwellers — while only 7 percent think they have personally experienced it. Forty-four percent think they will experience it, 48 percent that their family will, and 50 percent that their community will. How could this be? How could people not respond to the intensity of the weather at least?

Well, 64 percent are somewhat to very worried, so that’s something, although only one in 10 reports feeling anxious for at least a day in the previous week. Americans have grasped the idea that climate change will affect people in developing countries, the poor and future generations more than themselves.

Fifty-seven percent say they hear about it in the media at least once a month, although fewer than half expect their family members or friends to do anything about it. Although 63 percent feel a sense of personal responsibility, 27 percent say they try not to think about it. What’s worse, 63 percent say they never or rarely discuss climate change.

Do these attitudes remain even after the latest report? How many people have we heard at the supermarket discussing the latest IPCC synthesis?

The Yale survey tells us that an immense amount of education still needs to be done and, as climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe has pointed out, the way to start is by talking about the climate. Maybe talking about the intense IPCC report is not the place to begin these conversations, but there’s one thing the majority of Americans (61 percent) and the IPCC believe in common: It is not too late to hope. It is not (quite) too late to do something about the threat.

The place to begin is by talking about the shared, current experience of climate change.

At least, that’s how it looks from the White Oaks.