Climate change

South Florida believes climate change is happening more than the rest of the state, U.S.: Yale survey

In every category, Americans and Floridians come in with pretty similar numbers, below what the rest of the world tends to think. But South Florida is an outlier.

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Yale University just released a survey from 2024 that shows that 63% of Americans are now worried about climate change.

Back in 2021 and 2022, a group of European researchers talked to nearly 130,000 people in 125 countries, including the United States to get their views on climate change.

Of those surveyed, 69 percent said they were willing to contribute 1 percent of their income to fight global warming, 86 percent said they want others in their country to fight global warming and 89 percent said their governments should be doing more.

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But Yale University has just released a more America-focused survey from 2024, called the Climate Opinion Map.

It shows that 63 percent of Americans on average are now worried about climate change compared to 52 percent when they asked the same question in 2014. They also found that the percentage of people alarmed or concerned by climate change or its health implications are up significantly over the last decade.

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Yale asked people to answer dozens of questions about climate change, including if it is caused by humans, if it is harming life and future generations and if our government should be doing more.

In every category, Americans and Floridians come in with pretty similar numbers, below what the rest of the world tends to think. But South Florida is an outlier.

South Florida is way more climate aware than the rest of the state and way more climate aware than most of the United States. In fact, the responses from South Floridians are much more in line with the numbers that we see globally.

For instance, when asked if climate change is happening:

  • 72 percent of American adults said yes
  • 73 percent of Floridians said yes
  • 77 percent of South Floridians said yes

When asked if global warming is happened, 59 percent of American adults answered in the affirmative. In South Florida, that number was 5 percent higher.

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Regarding whether schools should teach about global warming, 77 percent of American adults said yes. In South Florida, that figure rose to 83 percent.

That could be because we see climate change with our own eyes. But it could also be that we talk about climate change on NBC6 as often as we can, making the connection between weather and climate and showing solutions.

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