Report · Jun 27, 2019
Climate Change in the American Mind: April 2019
By Anthony Leiserowitz, Edward Maibach, Seth Rosenthal, John Kotcher, Parrish Bergquist, Matthew Ballew, Matthew Goldberg and Abel Gustafson
Filed under: Beliefs & Attitudes
6. Efficacy Beliefs
6.1 Few Americans think it is too late to do anything about global warming.
Only about one in eight Americans (12%) agree either strongly (3%) or somewhat (9%) that it is too late to do anything about global warming. In contrast, almost two in three Americans (64%) are more optimistic – they either strongly (39%) or somewhat (25%) disagree that it is too late to do anything about global warming.
6.2 Four in ten Americans think the actions of a single individual won’t make any difference in global warming.
Four in ten (40%) Americans think the actions of a single individual won’t make any difference in global warming. A majority of Americans (60%) disagree with this statement.
6.3 About half of Americans think new technologies can solve global warming.
About half of Americans (49%) think new technologies can solve global warming without individuals having to make big changes in their lives. There has been an upward trend in this belief over the past five years, with the percentage increasing by 16 percentage points since April 2014.
