Climate Worries Rise but Dialogue Fades

There’s a stark disconnect between Americans’ worry about climate change and the amount of attention the issue is receiving publicly, a recent survey by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (YPCCC) and George Mason University found.

Faculty

Anthony Leiserowitz JoshAni-TomKat Professor of Climate Communication; Director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (YPCCC)

A majority of the American public is worried about global warming, believe it is affecting the cost of living, and want to vote for a candidate who will take action on the issue, yet media coverage and political discourse on the issue has been declining.

Only 17% of Americans surveyed said they hear about climate change in the media at least once a week and only 9% of Americans say they hear about it on social media once a week.

“We’re hearing a lot of climate hushing among the political class, many of whom presume that Americans … don’t want to hear about climate change. That’s not what we see in the data. There are 68 million Americans who are ‘Alarmed’ about climate change, and they want to hear about solutions. They want to hear more from their leaders as well as the media,”said Anthony Leiserowitz, YPCC director and the JoshAni-TomKat Professor of Climate Communication at YSE.  The fall 2025 survey, Climate Change in the American Mind, which has been conducted twice each year since 2008, found that:

• 72% of Americans think climate change is happening, and those individuals who think it is happening outnumber those who don't think it's happening by a ratio of five to one.
• 64% of Americans are at least somewhat or very worried about climate change.
• 58% believe it is human caused, and they outnumber those who think it's due to natural causes by a ratio of two to one
• 48% of Americans believe global warming will harm their family, and 44% believe it will harm them personally, which includes potential financial and property impacts.

It also found that a growing proportion of Americans say that climate change is affecting people in the U.S. now.

“Despite that fact, the extent to which people hear about climate change in the media has been on the decline. We have reached the lowest point in how often people hear about it since we began our survey in 2015,” noted John Kotcher, director of the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University.

The researchers attributed the decline in part to a shift in federal policy on climate change as well as a “firehose” of competing news. 

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Yet, despite a partisan divide on climate change, Leiserowitz said there are many climate initiatives supported by both Republicans and Democrats. They include providing federal funding to farmers to protect and restore the soil to store more carbon; levying fees on goods imported into the U.S. based on the carbon pollution emitted in their production; requiring companies to protect their workers from dangerous levels of heat; and strengthening enforcement of industrial pollution limits in lower-income communities.  

Climate change is not a siloed issue, the researchers noted.

“Climate change is different than other issues. Every single human being has a direct and real stake in the outcome. It connects to everything. If your child has asthma, you should care about climate change. If you like chocolate, you should care about climate change. If you want to make a lot of money, you should care about climate change. … Real estate, arts, culture, sports, entertainment, all of these have climate connections,” Leiserowitz said.