Despite polls showing
widespread concern about climate change and
majority support for policies to mitigate it,
a new study shows that
Americans almost universally underestimate the extent of climate concern among their compatriots.
They also underestimate the extent of public support
—at the state and national level alike
—for policy measures to address the climate emergency.

Distorted beliefs about support for climate policy,
and about concerns over climate change in general,
are so commonly held among the more than 6,000 American adults in the researchers’ nationally representative sample
that the study’s authors call these misperceptions a
️“false social reality.” ️

Recent polls from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication show that
66 to 80 percent of people in the U.S. support major climate mitigation policies.
But participants in the new study #estimated that only between
37 and 43 percent do so.

A range of 80 to 90 percent of those polled by the researchers underestimated the U.S. population’s climate concern and support for major climate mitigation policies.

The misperception trend held when participants were asked to estimate the percentage of Americans who were at least somewhat concerned about climate change.
And it did so in responses to questions of perceived support for each of four relatively aggressive policies:
a carbon tax,
a mandate for a national shift to 100 percent renewable energy sources for electricity,
the siting of solar and wind energy projects on public lands,
and a Green New Deal.

The consequences of this misperception are significant, says Boston College psychologist Gregg Sparkman, lead author of the new study, which was published in Nature Communications.
Such a false impression can lead to a cycle of collective self-silencing on the topic of climate change
and to decisions not to take any action to call for climate mitigation policies.

Scientific Americanspoke with Sparkman to learn more about this large-scale misperception
and about how the policy landscape might shift in light of the new federal climate measures now in place under the Inflation Reduction Act.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-change-actions-are-far-more-popular-than-people-in-u-s-realize/