Report · Feb 10, 2021
Climate Change in the American Mind: December 2020
By Anthony Leiserowitz, Edward Maibach, Seth Rosenthal, John Kotcher, Jennifer Carman, Xinran Wang, Matthew Goldberg, Karine Lacroix and Jennifer Marlon
Filed under: Beliefs & Attitudes
4. Perceived Risks of Global Warming
4.1 About four in ten Americans say they have personally experienced the effects of global warming.
About four in ten Americans (42%) say they have personally experienced the effects of global warming, while more than half (58%) say they have not.
4.2 More than four in ten Americans think people in the U.S. are being harmed “right now” by global warming.
More than four in ten Americans (47%) think people in the U.S. are being harmed by global warming “right now,” an increase of 13 percentage points over the last five years (since October 2015).
4.3 Many Americans think they will be harmed by global warming, but think others will be harmed more.
Many Americans understand that global warming will cause harm. Americans are most likely to think that plant and animal species (73%) and future generations of people (72%) will be harmed “a great deal” or “a moderate amount” by global warming. Six in ten or more think people in developing countries (67%), the world’s poor (66%), and people in the U.S. (62%) will be harmed, and about half think people in their community (52%) will be harmed. Four in ten or more think their family (49%), and they themselves (43%) will be harmed.
