A new poll from Yale University shows widening and solid majorities of people in America attribute recent extreme weather events to climate change. The results show that as more and more people are impacted by extreme weather – 35% of Americans according to the poll – they are also beginning to better understand the science of climate change, and embracing solutions.
Here is a key quote from the New York Times’ coverage of the poll:
The survey, the most detailed to date on the public response to weather extremes, comes atop other polling showing a recent uptick in concern about climate change. Read together, the polls suggest that direct experience of erratic weather may be convincing some people that the problem is no longer just a vague and distant threat.
“Most people in the country are looking at everything that’s happened; it just seems to be one disaster after another after another,” said Anthony A. Leiserowitz of Yale University, one of the researchers who commissioned the new poll. “People are starting to connect the dots.”
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