Report · Feb 13, 2025
Climate Change in the American Mind: Beliefs & Attitudes, Fall 2024
By Anthony Leiserowitz, Edward Maibach, Seth Rosenthal, John Kotcher, Emily Goddard, Jennifer Carman, Teresa Myers, Marija Verner, Jennifer Marlon, Matthew Goldberg, Joshua Ettinger, Julia Fine and Kathryn Thier
Filed under: Beliefs & Attitudes, Climate Impacts and Behaviors & Actions
5. Impacts of Global Warming
5.1 Two-thirds of Americans think global warming is affecting weather in the United States.
About two-thirds of Americans (66%) think global warming is affecting weather in the United States, including a majority (58%) who think global warming is affecting U.S. weather either “a lot” (35%) or “some” (23%).
As noted above, 35% of Americans think global warming is affecting weather “a lot.”
5.2 Most Americans think global warming is affecting environmental problems in the United States.
Most Americans think global warming is affecting many environmental problems in the United States at least “a little.” Seven in ten or more think global warming is affecting extreme heat (77%), wildfires (74%), droughts (73%), flooding (72%), rising sea levels (71%), and hurricanes (71%). Six in ten or more think global warming is affecting air pollution (68%), water shortages (67%), reduced snowpack (65%), tornados (65%), water pollution (63%), electricity power outages (62%), and agricultural pests and diseases (61%).
5.3 A majority of Americans think extreme weather poses a risk to their community.
A majority of Americans (56%) think extreme weather poses either a “high” (16%) or “moderate” (40%) risk to their community over the next 10 years. Fewer think extreme weather poses either a “low” risk (31%) or “no” risk (6%).
5.4 A majority of Americans are worried about harm from environmental problems in their local area.
As shown in Section 5.2, many Americans think global warming already affects numerous environmental problems in the United States. This section details how worried Americans are that each of those environmental problems will harm their local area in the future. Majorities of Americans are at least “a little worried” their local area might be harmed by air pollution (75%), electricity power outages (74%), water pollution (74%), droughts (70%), extreme heat (69%), agricultural pests and diseases (66%), flooding (61%), water shortages (61%), tornados (57%), and wildfires (55%). Many Americans are also worried their local area might be harmed by reduced snowpack (43%), hurricanes (42%), and rising sea levels (42%).
