Amercans' Concern About Climate Change Growing

Americans have now taken a new stand on the environment with more Americans now than ever believing that climate change needs to be addressed.  This study was done before Hurricane Sandy ravaged the East Coast, which seems to have even more people talking about the affects of climate change on the weather.

A survey conducted in September by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication reveals that 88% of Americans believe action has to be taken against climate change, "even if it has economic costs."  

This makes sense to the project's leader Anthony Leiserowitz because, in 2011, fourteen different weather events cost the nation one billion dollars.  With this amount of extreme weather and many events making the national news, Leiserowitz claims that "Many Americans were beginning to connect the dots [to climate change] themselves.”  Thus, Americans are now being able to see or infer the effects of climate change—something that Americans have been somewhat skeptical about for the last twenty years.

This project also asked participants who they thought should lead the movement for climate change action.  The study found the following information:

• 92 percent of Americans believe that the federal government should make the advancement of green energy a priority
• 31 percent said this should be a high priority
• 23 percent said a medium priority
• 8 percent said a low priority

http://news.discovery.com/earth/americans-want-to-curb-carbon-pollution-121115.html
This article was written by Larry O'Halan, a contributor to Discovery News on November 15, 2012.  Discovery News provides reliable scientific news.  This article relied on a Yale study (Yale Project on Climate Change Communication) and contributions from the project's director for information.

  http://environment.yale.edu/climate/the-climate-note/


How will President Obama address the issue of climate change in his second term?