Majority of Americans Unwilling to Pay $10 a Month to Address Climate Change

A significant majority of Americans are unwilling to contribute $10 each month to address climate change, an AP-NORC survey found.

While 57 percent of those surveyed would contribute $1 a month to combat global warming, that number drops significantly when the monetary contribution increases. Twenty-eight percent of respondents said they would pay $10 each month, 30 percent said they would pay $20 a month, and 16 percent said they would contribute $100 each month.

The survey found that individuals living in households with an annual income of at least $100,000 were more supportive of a monthly utility fee to address climate change. It also found that 72 percent of Democrats who said climate change is real attributed its existence primarily to anthropogenic causes, a figure far higher than the 33 percent of Republicans who believed in climate change and thought it was caused by humans.

Extreme weather events played a significant role in altering respondents' views on climate change, the AP-NORC report said. For those who increasingly believed climate science in the previous five years, 76 percent said that extreme weather events changed their perception.

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Environmental protesters from throughout Asia gather as the United Nations on Climate Change (COP24) takes place in Katowice, Poland, on December 8, 2018. Only 28 percent of Americans surveyed said they would pay $10 each... Martyn Aim/Getty Images

On Tuesday, the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication released a poll that found that 73 percent of Americans said global warming is taking place.

The research, which was conducted at the end of 2018, indicated record recognition of climate change.

The poll from Yale and George Mason showed a significant rise in the amount of people who said climate change is "extremely," "very," or "somewhat" important to them, according to The New York Times. By the end of the year, 72 percent of individuals surveyed said climate change was important to them, a nine percent increase from March.

"The thing that is most encouraging in these polls is that they show the public has now become aware that climate change is here and now," Bob Inglis, executive director of RepublicEN, an organization encouraging conservatives to respond to climate change, told NBC News. "They understand it's not decades away and it's not in some other place. That is a huge change."

As prominent figures around the world, like Sir David Attenborough, raise concern about the pace of the global response to climate change, the Trump administration has regularly dismissed concerns and denied climate science.

On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary dismissed statements made Monday by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez about climate change, which fact-checkers have said were hyperbolic.

"Look, I don't think we're going to listen to her on much of anything, particularly not on matters we're gonna leave in the hands of a much, much higher authority, and certainly not listen to the freshman congresswoman on when the world may end," Sanders said when on Fox News about Ocasio-Cortez's comments.

Uncommon Knowledge

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

About the writer


Daniel Moritz-Rabson is a breaking news reporter for Newsweek based in New York. Before joining Newsweek Daniel interned at PBS NewsHour ... Read more

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