Americans broadly accept climate science, but many are fuzzy on the details

That’s right, Americans remain insecure about the details of climate science, even though they are increasingly worried about human activity that warms the Earth, this is assured by a national survey conducted by The Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) that tested the public’s understanding of climate change.

Thus, it should be noted that the growing alarm is one of the most dramatic findings of the survey. In just five years, the percentage of people who described climate change as a “crisis” increased from 23% to 38%.

Influence on the climate

It is important to indicate that more than 3 in 4 American adults and teenagers agree that humans are influencing the weather. The overwhelming majority of them said it is not too late for society to find solutions, but a third of adults who say humans are causing climate change do not believe they can make a difference personally.

In addition, the survey suggests that many Americans are at an early stage of the learning curve when it comes to knowing what causes climate change and global warming. More than a third of American adults, 37 percent, said “the sun is getting hotter” as a major contributor, and 21 percent rated it as a minor taxpayer. Solar activity varies on a regular cycle, but the sun has not shown a net increase in radiation since 1950 and is an insignificant factor in the peak observed at atmospheric temperature, according to NASA.

Likewise, almost 6 out of 10 adults correctly said that driving cars and trucks is an “important” taxpayer, while approximately 3 out of 10 qualified him as a minor, and the rest said he was not a taxpayer or simply did not know it. In fact, the transport sector ranks first among the main sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the US largely due to cars and trucks, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Twenty-four percent of American adults said that air travel is a major contributor to climate change, while 44 percent said it is a minor contributor.

In general, the main sources of greenhouse gases that cause climate change include electricity generation, transportation, agriculture, industrial production, and deforestation.

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Source: Emily Guskin, Scott Clement and Joel Achenbach | The Washington Post