Climate Change Actions Are Far More Popular Than People in U.S. Realize

Moderate climate-mitigation measures in the inflation reduction act have been met with general public approval. What took you so long is one of the questions that underlies the discourse.

The long delay in federal climate policy could be caused by a shared delusion among nearly all Americans, according to a study published on Tuesday. Despite polls showing widespread concern about climate change and majority support for policies to mitigate it, Americans almost universally underestimate it. They underestimate the amount of public support for policies to address the climate emergency.

The authors of the study say that misperceptions about climate change and support for climate policy are so common that they are a false social reality. The majority of people in the US support major climate change policies. Only between 37 and 43 percent of people do so, according to participants in the new study. Eighty to ninety percent of those surveyed underestimated the U.S. population's climate concern and support for major climate policies.

Participants were asked to estimate the percentage of Americans who were concerned about climate change. In response to questions of perceived support for each of the policies, it did so.

According to the lead author of the new study, the consequences of this misconception are significant. It is possible for a false impression to lead to a cycle of self-silencing on the topic of climate change. The policy landscape might change as a result of the new federal climate measures now in place under the Inflation Reduction Act.

The transcript of the interview has been changed.

What should we learn from this research?

In the U.S., climate policy and concern about climate change are much more common than you think.

Americans underestimated how much they believed in climate change. This is news because of the extreme discrepancy in understanding how popular climate policies are. Every demographic group we looked at had the same wrong impression about climate policy.

The perception of support for climate policy was the reason why you focused on it.

We believed that people would misunderstand climate policy support. We knew how popular these policies were based on previous polls. The threat of climate change compelled us to do research in this area. We thought it would be a decent-size effect, but it is larger than we thought. We were not aware that the perception of climate policy support would be different than what it really is. That may be an important part of the explanation of why we weren't making progress as a nation. The perception of public opinion in a democratic country is very important.

In the study, you described the misperception of support for climate policy as a false social reality.

The phrase "pluralistic ignorant" has been used in past research to refer to a lot of people being wrong about something. There are two reasons we chose stronger language here. The magnitude of misperception was such that the majority of the population would be just 30 or 40 percent. In that sense, the underestimation is a big deal. The other was that it was so common. This is a sample of over 6,000 people in the U.S., and every demographic category was wrong to shift this from a majority of people to being only a minority. It seemed like we were all in this wrong perception together that was massive in scale. We were able to see it across all the policies we investigated. It has high magnitude and is ubiquitous, but it is not. It was a good turn of phrase to say "false social reality".

Did any of the misperceptions of climate policy stand out to you?

Stopping renewable energy on public lands is a very popular policy. 80 percent of Americans support such a policy, but only 43 percent do. To reach our climate goals, we need to have a massive deployment of wind and solar across the country. It's a big question if we sitingrenewables, doing so quickly and doing so at an unprecedented amount. If 80 percent of people are onboard, but only 43 percent think it's a good idea, that could stymies things.

The study is looking into beliefs about climate policy. It's important to look at these beliefs.

Even when the perception of others isn't right, people still conform to the norm. Individuals don't know what other people think We don't know what other people do. Our perception of them is the only thing we have. There is a huge amount of research literature that shows that people conform to others and that others influence and shape our own. When we think that most Americans don't support a climate policy, we start to have doubts in our own opinion. It makes us think differently about this topic.

There are a lot of secondary effects that follow that. When people think something isn't popular, they don't talk about it You don't talk about it if you think people aren't concerned. Everyone self- protects. The outcome of that is large. It just confirms that nobody cares when we see nobody talking. There is a spiral of silence. It feels like you're up against something that's impossible for people who want to organize around climate. The effects of underestimating how popular these policies are are huge. Policy makers are not going to do a good job representing the will of the people because they have the same misperception.

Is the difference between the views of congress people and their staff more important than the difference between the views of other people?

The public and policymakers may have the same misperceptions. We collected another sample of Americans and found that they supported active solutions to mitigate climate change. Members of the public and a large sample of local-level policy makers misperceive that these solutions are less popular than they actually are. Policy makers are vulnerable to the same kinds of misperceptions that Americans are.

Organized efforts to sow doubt and promote misinformation about climate change may be related to this misperception.

They act together. It would be easy to think of synergy there. You could have senators who are able to say that even the people don't want this. It is possible for companies to think, "Well, is what we're doing really that unpopular?" It allows all of these things and gives them the slippage they need so that democracy doesn't prevail It is an implication to clarify. I could see that.

How do you think the recent signing of the Inflation Reduction Act will affect these findings?

Climate reasons are behind the passage of the IRA. It is a big deal because it shows the public that climate policy is popular. If someone thinks Congress is representative, seeing it pass should help. If Americans don't know what the public thinks, they're not going to be very accurate in their estimates. It might be possible to correct that perception by passing major bills like this. People will be more vocal if you have a positive feedback loop. People might want to organize around the issue of climate change. That might encourage politicians to go for something bolder. The Inflation Reduction Act could be seen as a step-stone in the realization of how popular these policies are in our country. That is the positive take.

What shape a campaign or effort to correct Americans'Ignorance of Climate Policy might take.

We can design an effective solution if we understand where this misperception comes from. If it is a simple cognitive bias, then maybe just giving people a better idea will do it. People used to think that no Republicans or Democrats supported these laws. You thought only 40 percent of the country liked this. It is almost all Democrats and half of Republicans, which would give you a better benchmark of maybe two thirds or 75% of people. You give people a simple rule, and then they can use it, and replace the bad rule of thumb they had before. It could be very simple.

Even if it's easy to use, they won't want to. There are a lot of fronts that we can pursue. People don't seem to get how popular climate policies are, so major media should give more coverage. The biggest thing that media can do is make sure they aren't over representing the opposition. Another role could be in the individual's own life. We can be more assertive. We can make the invisible visible, show that we care about things, whether that involves wearing pins or other activities, and we want policies to address it.