Geiger article: Overwhelming majority of Americans underestimate climate policy support
An overwhelming majority of Americans underestimate how much support exists for climate concern and policies to fight climate change, according to research published by assistant professor Nathaniel Geiger in Nature Communications.
“Americans experience a false social reality by underestimating popular climate policy support by nearly half,” by Gregg Sparkman of Princeton University, Geiger and Elke Weber, also of Princeton, analyzes the results of a representative panel of 6,000 Americans.
The researchers found that 80%-90% of Americans underestimate public support for climate change policies. While Americans who support climate change mitigation policies outnumber opponents two to one, this study found that most people falsely believe the opposite is true.