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Amid a summer of dangerous heat, drought and floods, a majority of Americans are connecting increasingly severe weather to the climate crisis, new polling shows, despite efforts by Donald Trump to dismiss global heating as a “con job” and a “hoax”.
It’s a sign that attempts to suppress polarize climate concerns may not be seeing full success, said Grace Adcox, senior climate strategist at Data for Progress.
“We started with the question of our extreme weather events increasing, because we thought [that] if we can find consensus on that, that can be an entry point to being able to have a more bipartisan conversation about climate and climate intervention,” she said.
About ۶۱% of likely American voters believe extreme weather events have become more frequent over the past five years, the survey from the progressive polling firm Data for Progress, shared exclusively with the Guardian, found. That includes ۷۲% of Democrats, ۶۳% of Independents, and nearly half – ۴۶% – of all Republicans.
Sheldon Whitehouse, the Rhode Island senator who has long criticized Democrats for quieting their talk of global warming – or “climate-hushing” – said the new data “adds to the mountain of evidence that the public is way ahead of the politicians on the dire consequences of climate change”.
“Climate hushers who ignore this righteous fight should take note,” he told the Guardian.
The researchers also asked participants about whether or not specific forms of extreme weather are being “worsened by climate change”. Majorities linked climate change to worsening wildfires (۶۴%), droughts (۶۳%), flooding and flash flooding (۶۲%), hurricanes (۵۹%), and severe thunderstorms and hailstorms (۵۹%). But heatwaves topped the list, with ۶۷% saying climate change is making them worse – including ۴۸% of Republicans, the highest share for any of the extreme weather events surveyed.
That could be because nearly everyone in the US has experienced unusually hot days or weeks in recent years, said Adcox. High temperatures kill more people annually in the US than hurricanes, tornadoes and floods combined.
“There are regional differences across experiences with extreme weather,” said Adcox. “Extreme heat happens to have the biggest footprint in the American context compared to some of these other types of extreme weather.”
The finding indicates that scorching conditions could provide an “interesting opening salvo” to speak about the climate crisis, she added.
Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, said the new poll’s findings are “very consistent” with the conclusions researchers have drawn based on Yale’s surveys, which have shown Americans are increasingly linking extreme weather to the climate crisis and want to protect workers from heat.
But Jennifer Marlon, a senior research scientist at Yale who also focuses on climate communications, said despite this, it’s not clear if most Americans understand why exactly the climate is changing.
“This is probably the biggest misconception out there – many Americans still think the warming is due to some kind of natural cycle. But it isn’t,” she said, adding that a spring survey from Yale Program on Climate Change Communication found ۲۷% of people think that the changes are mostly natural.
The survey findings could help inform how to frame future conversations about the climate crisis with skeptical Americans, said Adcox. For instance, the data indicates heat may be the form of extreme weather that invites most conversation about climate.
“You can say, hey, this extreme heat event is crazy, so let’s talk about it, let’s talk about why it’s happening,” she said.
Another survey finding also indicates that even Americans who may not be convinced that the climate crisis is human caused – or even that it is happening – would support some climate justice-focused measures.
Amid global and national rising temperatures, workers who labor outdoors – such as construction workers, farm workers and roofers – are among the populations most vulnerable to heat-related illness.
In fact, extreme heat is a leading contributor to workplace injuries and deaths. Some indoor workers, including those in warehouses, commercial kitchens and manufacturing facilities, can also face severe heat risk due to a lack of air conditioning, poor ventilation, humidity and other factors. It’s a risk that the polling indicates most Americans think lawmakers should address.
About ۸۸% of participants in the Data for Progress survey said they favor policies in their own state requiring employers to provide heat protections like access to drinking water, shade, breaks, and air conditioning. Only ۷% of likely voters said they oppose the policy, indicating broad support for the protections that previous Data for Progress polls have also shown.
“These findings send a powerful message: protecting workers from dangerous heat isn’t a partisan issue,” said Jessica E Martinez, executive director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, a network of two dozen local grassroots worker organizations. “When ۸۸% of likely voters … support requiring employers to provide basic, lifesaving heat protections, it’s clear the public expects every worker to be protected.”
She said the polling indicates the public would support the creation of a federal heat standard – something workers have demanded for years, but on which progress has stalled under Trump.
The current administration this April also allowed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s nationwide enforcement initiative focused on protecting workers from heat illness, then later issued a revised but vastly weakened program.
“Our hope in continuing to profile the broad and particularly strong support that we see across partisanship for extreme heat protections for workers is a way for us to illustrate what could it look like to take an approach to climate that puts working people first,” said Adcox.
