An article published by Covering Climate Now, January 4, 2024, reports on the latest study from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, an effort widely considered “the gold standard” of polling on climate change. The findings show that well over half (56%, specifically) of Americans are “Alarmed” and/or “Concerned” about climate change. The very bottom of the polling climate change opinion categories, “Dismissive,” has remained largely static from a decade before, with only one percentage point drop, to 11%, and those still “Doubtful” have dropped to 11%, from 2013’s 15%. Add in “Cautious” and those with interest in more climate change news is close to three-quarters of Americans. There’s another category, “Disengaged,” now polling at 6%.

Anthony Leiserowitz, the director of the Yale program, told Covering Climate Now that the overwhelming majority of Americans do “want to learn more about the causes, consequences and solutions to climate change.” Other public opinion surveys reveal that many Americans still don’t recognize that fossil fuels use is the most significant contributor to climate change, which the article argues “underscore[s] the importance of making that connection in news coverage.”

I entirely agree that even today, after 2023’s many local, national, and international climate change disasters, the connection between burning coal, oil, and natural gas and climate change and its consequences is still underreported. The good news is that this bad news about fossil fuels’ contributions to climate change has better coverage, but still many new reports fall short in connecting the dots.

Here in America, the largest greenhouse gas contributing nation in history (now, by most measures, second only to China), the next election year is upon us, and climate change must be considered by the electorate. Climate change is the primary existential issue, so any and all other issues—as important as they likely are—become moot if the country falls short in addressing climate progress. The rate of progress in reducing and reversing the climate change brought about by our use of fossil fuels can seem abstract, but what we do today has carry-on consequences for tomorrow, and slower progress makes for larger and faster and bigger problems tomorrow. This is a hard concept to address in the news, but an essential one.