Americans’ positions on climate change have remained largely unshaken by the coronavirus pandemic and economic crisis, according to a new national survey that showed acceptance of the reality of global warming at record highs in some categories. In the report, Climate Change in the American Mind, written by researchers at Yale University and George Mason University and made public on Tuesday, 73 percent of those polled said that climate change was happening, which matches the highest level of acceptance previously measured by the survey, from 2019.
The percentage of people who are “extremely” or “very” certain that it is happening has risen to a record high, 54 percent. And 62 percent accepted the established scientific view that global warming is mostly caused by human activity, a level also tied with the figure for 2019. By contrast, only one in 10 Americans said global warming was not happening, and just six percent were “extremely” or “very” sure that it was not happening.