Americans are having two simultaneous awakenings on the issue of climate change. On one hand, they are increasingly recognizing that climate change is real and is the result of human activity and deserves to be taken seriously. On the other hand, they’re also coming to the deeply troubling reality that there isn’t very much that we, as individuals, can do to directly lessen the impact of the climate crisis.
These revelations about where the American public stands on climate change come via a new poll conducted by the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. More than anything, they help shed light on one of the toughest challenges in climate policy: We aren’t getting out of this mess with individual action, no matter how much we compost our kitchen scraps or ditch single-use plastics.
