Most Americans Recognize that Climate Change is Already Hitting Home - Horowitz

Most Americans Recognize that Climate Change is Already Hitting Home - Horowitz

Most Americans now realize that the impacts of climate change are already being felt and will grow over the course of their lifetimes.  These are among the major findings of a new Pew Research Center national survey. Taken together with the steadily increasing share of the electorate that is comprised of younger voters to whom this issue is a top concern, the findings point the way to climate change substantially expanding as a voting issue over the next several elections.

More specifically, more than 7 in 10 (71%) American adults say climate change is causing at least some harm to people in our country today.  Similarly, more than 6-in-10 (63%) expect the harm to people in the United States due to climate change to worsen.

Additionally, more than 4-in-10 (41%) Americans “think their own community will become a worse place to live over the next 30 years due to the effects of climate change,” while less than 1-in-10 (7%) “think climate impacts will make conditions in their community better,” documents Pew.  More than 4-in-10 (41%) think that conditions in their community won’t change much due to climate factors.

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The usual vast differences in how Democrats and Republicans view climate change remain.   For instance, “86% of Democrats expect harms from climate change in the U.S. to get worse during their lifetime; just 37% of Republicans say the same,” Pew reports.

The diverging views of younger and older voters, however, is the difference that is most likely to contribute to the marked growth of climate change as an election issue. Younger voters, whom are becoming an increasing share of the electorate, are far more concerned about its impacts than older voters. 

Nearly 6-in-10 (56%) younger adults, ages 18 to 29, believe conditions in their community will become worse over the next 30 years. In contrast, only about 1-in-3 Americans ages, 65 and older, believe conditions in their own area will become worse.   When ask about the nation as a whole, nearly 8-in-10 younger adults ages, 18 to 29, believe that the harm to people throughout the country resulting from climate impacts will worsen. It is worth noting that on all of these measures, younger Republicans, while less concerned than the rest of younger Americans, are markedly more concerned about climate impacts than older Republicans.

As Ron Brownstein and other informed observers note, the two youngest cohorts in the electorate, Generation Z and Millennials, will comprise about half of the people who cast their ballots in the 2024 presidential election. By 2028, they will represent a dominant majority of voters nationwide as well as in the battleground states.  Climate change is already a key voting issue in Democratic primaries.  With this surge of younger voters in the electorate, coupled by the hard reality of mortality that will thin out today’s older voters, climate change will become a major issue in general elections as well, influencing the candidate choices people make 

This expanded voting power will be a major source of what promises to be growing political support for continuing to accelerate the transition from fossil fuels to non-carbon producing renewable energy.  This is the transition we must make--and persuade the rest of the world to speed up as well--in order to limit global temperature increases to the 1.5% Celsius or 2.7% Fahrenheit above pre-industrial levels scientists tell us is required to avoid the worst consequences of global warming.

As we look ahead, we can increasingly look forward to an electorate that grasps the scale of the climate challenge, recognizes the high costs of failing to act, and is willing to back the ambitious steps required to ensure that we leave a healthy and habitable planet for our children.