Americans want government to protect us from climate change's impact on health

Seventy-five percent  of registered voters want federal agencies to maintain or increase their efforts to protect people from the health harms of global warming. That figure is from a recently released national survey conducted by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication. 

Increasingly, Americans are experiencing or reading about the threats that climate change poses to human health, so the survey results probably should not surprise us.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) concluded that climate risks are appearing faster and will become more severe sooner than previously expected, and it will be harder to adapt with increased global heating. IPCC calculated that 3.6 billion of the planet’s eight billion people already live in areas highly susceptible to climate change.

“With the next five years forecast to be more than 1.5C warmer than preindustrial levels on average, this will put more people than ever at risk of severe heat waves, bringing more deaths and severe health impacts unless people can be better protected from the effects of heat,” said Richard Betts, head of climate impacts research at the UK Met Office and a professor at the University of Exeter. He told AP’s Seth Borenstein, “Also we can expect more severe wildfires as the hotter atmosphere dries out the landscape,”

Between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause approximately 250 000 additional deaths per year, from undernutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress alone. Climate change also takes a toll in ways that might not occur to us. As Maggie Astor reported in The New York Times, one recent study found that firefighters who fought the Los Angeles blazes in January had elevated lead and mercury in their blood. Scientists have also discovered that some wildfire smoke contains substances associated with chronic conditions like heart disease. 

Despite these grim realities, the Trump administration has indicated that it will stop funding research on the health effects of climate change. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) said in an internal document obtained by The New York Times that it was the agency’s new policy “not to prioritize” research related to climate change.

The Times’ Lisa Friedman wrote: “How does extreme heat affect Alzheimer’s patients? Do air purifiers help people suffering from chronic lung disease? What are the most cost-effective ways to protect communities from wildfire smoke and extreme heat?”

She told readers that when it canceled $450 million in NIH grants and contracts to Harvard University, the Trump administration ended those research projects, as well as dozens of others focused on the connection between climate change, the environment and public health.

The field of climate and environmental health research has grown significantly over the past three decades as the consequences of rising global temperatures have become clear. 

Perry Hystad, a professor in the College of Health at Oregon State University, had expected to receive a five-year NIH grant to study who is most susceptible to extreme-weather exposure. He planned to follow more than 200,000 people in 27 countries, a far larger subject base than most studies. But he no longer believes he will receive the grant.

Federal funding is vital. “There’s nothing that comes close,” said Dr. Shohreh Farzan, an associate professor at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine. “This could be a really devastating loss to scientists who have worked for years with a goal of keeping people healthy.”

Kristie L. Ebi, a professor at the University of Washington who studies the health risks of climate change, said the field was already poorly funded. The NIH finally began to put an emphasis on funding climate change research during the Biden administration, she said, and eliminating more of it could have serious consequences for public health. “Americans are dying from climate change,” Dr. Ebi said.

Despite headwinds, broad alliance is making progress on climate change

Lately, the climate change news hasn’t been very upbeat. Much of the coverage has dealt with President Trump’s efforts to roll back government initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And there is growing pessimism about meeting the goals set by the 2015 Paris accord.

Then again, there is hard data that progress continues. “In spite of cultural backsliding and a diminishing sense of political urgency, the clean energy rollout continues,” David Wallace-Wells wrote in a recent New York Times column. “In fact, it continues at a pace that would have astonished even optimistic forecasters a decade ago.”

He noted that last year worldwide spending on the energy transition was almost twice as high as it was in 2021. “In the United States, Vox recently tallied, wind capacity has grown more than 20-fold in two decades, and utility-scale battery capacity is up almost 30-fold in just five years…. Worldwide, solar capacity installation more than doubled since 2022. In 2024, more than 90 percent of all new power installed globally was clean.”

One reason is that a growing number of business leaders are realizing that the transition from fossil fuels is inevitable and that their companies’ success depends on adapting to this reality. Meantime, more and more consumers are concluding that electric cars (EVs) and solar panels are smart choices for them. And Americans are increasingly tuned in to the costs that climate change is imposing on their finances, their homes, and their health. Today 39 percent of Americans believe that global warming is harming our health “a great deal” or “a moderate amount,” up from 31 percent in 2014. 

Fortunately, many nonprofit groups have taken up the cause, generally below radar. For example, a few seasoned GOP political operatives have created the EV Politics Project, a bipartisan effort to better understand the growing divide between Republicans and Democrats (and Independents) over EV adoption. The group is researching the causes of this divide “and developing highly effective communications strategies to overcome it…”

Another organization, America Is All In, has built an expansive coalition of cities, states, tribal nations, businesses, schools, and faith, health, and cultural institutions. It is developing and delivering an ambitious national climate strategy. The group’s leaders issued a statement April 9 in response to an executive order from President Trump that threatens state and local climate laws protecting American communities and fighting climate change. They derided the executive order as “an attempt to threaten the constitutionally protected authority of state and local governments to protect their residents through strong environmental and climate policies.” 

Former Republican Congressman Bob Inglis of South Carolina started and heads RepublicEn.org at the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University. Inglis believes that “it’s time to invest in right-of-center outreach on climate!”

The Citizens’ Climate Lobby champions a “consistently respectful, nonpartisan approach to climate education.” CCL trains and supports volunteers to build relationships with elected officials, the media and their local community. The organization strongly supports pricing carbon, saying: “A strong, economy-wide price on carbon could reduce America’s carbon pollution by 50% by 2030, putting us on track to reach net zero by 2050.”

Other outfits promoting carbon pricing (besides us!) include the Climate Leadership Council, the Carbon Tax Center, and the Pricing Carbon Initiative, which provides a forum for ongoing discussions among a broad range of stakeholders on potential pricing mechanisms and strategies.

Young Conservatives for Carbon Dividends was started by 30 college Republican leaders and champions the carbon dividend plan promoted by James A. Baker III and the late George P. Shultz, both leaders in President Ronald Reagan’s administration.

Hundreds–perhaps thousands–of other organizations, including leading environmental nonprofits, are also contributing to the effort to speed the transition to clean energy. All of us need to keep at it.

More Americans Are Experiencing Extreme Weather--And Worrying About Climate Change

Thirty-seven percent of Americans have experienced extreme weather over the past two years, according to polling by Gallup in March. That’s up from 33 percent in prior surveys. Of those who reported experiencing extreme weather, 51 percent said they worry “a great deal” about climate change, while only 34 percent of those who did not experience extreme weather said the same.

Gallup has measured a rise in concern about climate change. An average of 41 percent worried a great deal about the issue over the past 10 years, compared with 32 percent in the 25 years before that.

According to an AP-NORC survey last summer, 40 percent of Americans had unexpected expenses on their utility bills due to storms, flooding, heat, or wildfires, while a quarter said that their homeowner’s insurance premiums increased. About 1 in 10 adults reported unexpected health care expenses because of weather-related issues. Twenty-two percent of adults have cancelled or changed travel plans because of severe weather events.

Gallup reported that wildfires and extreme heat largely account for the increased reports of extreme weather among Western residents. Seventeen percent of those living in the West have been affected by wildfires, up significantly from 5 percent in 2023. 

The 11 percent of Western residents who experienced excessive heat is also up from 5 percent two years ago. Another 6 percent of Westerners have experienced floods and 4 percent, drought, in the past two years.

Southern residents are most likely to have been affected by hurricanes (28%), with tornadoes (9%) and extreme cold (7%) next on the list. Among Midwestern residents, tornadoes (10%) and extreme cold (6%) were most commonly experienced. The top extreme weather events Eastern residents have experienced are floods (6%) and hurricanes (5%).

Many of those percentages are likely to rise due to extreme weather that hit the Midwest and South during the first week of April. Tornadoes left behind destruction from Oklahoma to Indiana. At least six people were killed in western Tennessee, Missouri and Indiana in the initial wave of powerful tornadoes — one of which launched light debris nearly five miles into the air above Arkansas.

Workers on bulldozers cleared rubble along the highway that crosses through Lake City, Arkansas, where an April 2 tornado with winds of 150 mph sheared the roofs off homes, collapsed brick walls, and tossed cars into trees. “My kids were screaming," Morgan Earnest told KATV. “My mom was screaming. I was freaking out…. I grabbed them and I was like, oh my gosh. Is it going to be as bad as what you’re thinking?”

Meanwhile, round after round of heavy rains pounded the central U.S., rapidly swelling waterways and prompting a series of flash flood emergencies in Missouri, Texas and Arkansas. The National Weather Service said 45 river locations in multiple states were expected to reach major flood stage, with extensive flooding of structures, roads and other critical infrastructure possible.

Such rainstorms are a growing problem. They are becoming more intense in many U.S. cities amid climate change, a new analysis finds. More intense precipitation events can cause flash-flooding, landslides, dangerous driving conditions and other potentially deadly hazards. Hourly rainfall intensity increased between 1970 and 2024 in nearly 90 percent of the 144 locations analyzed by Climate Central, a research and communications group.

To reduce the climate change that scientists say is the main cause of the surge in extreme weather, we need to bring down–quickly–our emissions of carbon dioxide and methane. The fastest, most efficient way to do so is to price carbon. Please urge your senators and your House member to support such legislation.

More and more Americans believe climate change harms our health

Today 39 percent of Americans believe that global warming is harming our health “a great deal” or “a moderate amount,” up from 31 percent in 2014. 

In addition, 37 percent of Americans can identify at least one specific climate-related danger— including respiratory problems, extreme heat, pollution and extreme weather events. 

And a growing share of Americans believe that harms like heat stroke, asthma and lung disease, bodily harm from extreme weather and hunger will be more common in their community over the next 10 years if nothing is done to address global warming.

These findings are from a survey conducted by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and George Mason University’s (GMU) Center for Climate Change Communication. Surveyors quizzed more than 1,000 adults in December and released their findings February 28. Keerti Gopal wrote about the survey for Inside Climate News.

Respondents increasingly trust physicians, climate scientists, federal agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), local public health departments and the World Health Organization (WHO) to provide information about the health harms of global warming.

Unfortunately, President Donald Trump, who has called climate change “a hoax,” has proposed deep cuts in EPA’s and CDC’s budgets, removed climate and health information from government websites, and withdrawn the U.S. from WHO.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has reportedly recommended that the agency reverse its 2009 finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health and welfare. That would eliminate the legal basis for the government’s climate laws, such as limits on pollution from automobiles and power plants.

The public’s growing awareness of the link between climate change and people’s health could bolster efforts to combat global warming, according to Edward Maibach, director of GMU’s Center for Climate Change Communication and one of the survey’s principal investigators.

Globally, the World Health Organization has estimated that climate change will cause an extra 250,000 annual deaths from 2030 to 2050 from heat stress, malnutrition, malaria and diarrhea alone. 

Inside Climate News reported that the survey reflected increased understanding of well-researched threats to human health: 65 percent of Americans believe that coal harms people’s health, and 38 percent believe natural gas does, a nine-point increase since 2018. 

But the survey also found that 15 percent of Americans believe wind energy harms health and 12 percent believe the same about solar power, both increases since 2014. Claims that wind energy or solar power are harmful to human health are unproven and many have been debunked, Gopal wrote, but they’re still being made by some government officials, fossil fuel industry groups and media outlets.

Who should help protect the public from the health threats posed by climate change? According to the Yale-GMU survey, 39% of Americans think federal agencies such as CDC, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) should do more on this front. Twenty-four percent think doctors, nurses, and other health professionals should do more.

Billionaires have been largely silent on climate change recently

Elon Musk once described himself as “super pro-climate” and, as founder of Tesla, he has been a giant in the move toward electric vehicles. In 2016, he called for a “popular uprising” against the fossil fuel industry because the world was “unavoidably headed toward some level of harm and the sooner we can take action, the less harm will result.”

When President Donald Trump removed the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement in 2017, Musk quit a presidential advisory body in protest. “Climate change is real,” he tweeted at the time. “Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world.”

In his first appearance on the Joe Rogan Podcast in 2018, Musk stressed how strong the scientific agreement on climate change is, saying, “The scientific consensus is overwhelming. I mean, I don’t know any serious scientists – zero, literally zero – who don’t think that we have quite a serious climate risk that we’re facing.”

But Musk “has had little to say,” The Guardian’s Oliver Milman noted, after Trump once again pulled the U.S. from the Paris deal and issued a flurry of orders to ramp up oil and gas drilling and stymie renewable energy production. In January, Musk said: “Climate change risk is real, just much slower than alarmists claim.”

Musk is one of a number of prominent billionaires who have spoken out in recent years about the threat posed by climate change. And he’s one of a number who have been largely silent as the president has moved aggressively to reverse the nation’s transition to clean energy. “The silence from this slice of the billionaire and technology world was in line with the deferential posture of much of the rest of corporate America,” The New York Times’ David Gelles wrote.

While Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has never made climate action his primary cause, in a speech to Harvard graduates in 2017, he did call on the class to join in “stopping climate change before we destroy the planet.” That same year, he wrote in a post on Facebook: “Withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement is bad for the environment, bad for the economy, and it puts our children’s future at risk.” 

One exception in this sea of recent silence is Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York. In January, Gelles reported, Bloomberg said his charity would step in to help fund the United Nations climate body following the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris agreement.

“The American people remain determined to continue the fight against the devastating effects of climate change,” he said in a statement, lamenting what he called “a period of federal inaction.”

This would be an appropriate time for this billionaire class to rediscover its climate voice and explain to the president that climate change is not, as he has labeled it, “a giant hoax.” Globally, 2024 was the warmest year on record—more than two and half degrees hotter than the preindustrial average. In the U.S., there were 27 climate-related disasters that caused more than a billion dollars’ worth of damage. 

Elon Musk has set his sights on Mars. First, he–and his fellow billionaires–should focus on Earth.