Yale Program on Climate Change Communication

7. How Americans Conceptualize Global Warming

7.1 Americans are most likely to think of global warming as an environmental and/or scientific issue.

Global warming is a complex challenge with many dimensions. Understanding how people conceptualize the issue is critical to formulating effective communication strategies. To better understand how Americans think about global warming, we asked respondents to indicate what kind of issue, if any, they consider it to be: environmental, scientific, economic, health, moral, religious, etc.

A large majority of Americans (75%) think global warming is an environmental issue, and/or a scientific issue (69%). Majorities also think global warming is a severe weather (64%), agricultural (63%), health (58%), political (57%), economic (54%), and/or humanitarian (51%) issue.

Fewer consider global warming a moral (38%), poverty (29%), national security (27%), social justice (24%), and/or religious (9%) issue.