Pope Francis has become the most admired man in America and when he speaks, he speaks with a loud megaphone, one that reaches all people, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, climate change is not just a political issue, it’s a moral and religious issue and he will ask people, ‘What does my religious faith have to tell me and guide me about climate change?’ And it turns out that he’s speaking to a very willing audience within the Catholic community.

Anthony Leiserowitz

Categorized in : Environment

This is truly a top-tier issue for the Democratic base. by Anthony Leiserowitz

This is truly a top-tier issue for the Democratic base.

Anthony Leiserowitz

People are increasingly connecting the dots when they see these weather events happening across the United States, it's about the pattern -- if an extreme event happens once or twice, it's just a coincidence, but three, five, 12, 22 times, seeing record-setting events, seeing 1,000-year event after 1,000-year event happen frequently, people begin to see that larger pattern, that Nature Climate Change is actually affecting the weather today. And that's a new concept for many Americans.

Anthony Leiserowitz

You get this downward spiral of nobody discussing it, the fact that we don't hear about it all that often -- including from the news media -- and because we don't talk about it with our friends and our families and our social networks -- then therefore it's not that important, or can't be that important, because if it was we'd all be talking about it.

Anthony Leiserowitz

The public does want this transition to clean energy -- and they... by Anthony Leiserowitz

The public does want this transition to clean energy -- and they want to start it now.

Anthony Leiserowitz

The public in the United States doesn't speak with a single voice. They have very different perspectives, if you want to engage the public effectively, you've got to start where they are, not where you are.

Anthony Leiserowitz

This has legs, it could easily just be getting going. by Anthony Leiserowitz

This has legs, it could easily just be getting going.

Anthony Leiserowitz

Fracking is for most people relatively invisible and hard to imag... by Anthony Leiserowitz

Fracking is for most people relatively invisible and hard to imagine.

Anthony Leiserowitz

We don't talk about it. No wonder it's a low priority. by Anthony Leiserowitz

We don't talk about it. No wonder it's a low priority.

Anthony Leiserowitz

We can see this division play out right now between moderate, liberal, and conservative Catholics, what’s going to happen when the Pope comes out with his statement about global warming and how it’s a moral and religious duty to address it when conservative presidential and congressional candidates (in the 2016 election) are appeasing their base?

Anthony Leiserowitz

What they're worried about is the solution, climate change is the ultimate collective-action problem. It's going to require local, state and national policy change, and it's going to require international cooperation, which means the United Nations.

Anthony Leiserowitz

For many people, climate change is not even something that enters their consciousness.

Anthony Leiserowitz

Never underestimate the power of the human mind to rationalize its way out of reality, people are way more complicated because they come preloaded with all these prior beliefs and attitudes and values and politics.

Anthony Leiserowitz

We are far closer to taking climate change seriously, because for the first time one of our major political parties... now sees climate change as one of the absolute top issues, that simply was not the case 12 months ago. Period, bold, underlined, exclamation point. That will have consequences.

Anthony Leiserowitz

Greta Thunberg, in the space of basically 14 months, goes from being a lonely teenage girl sitting with a little sign outside the Parliament building, all by Greta Thunberg, to on one day having 4 million people marching in the streets with Greta Thunberg all around the world, that's remarkable !

Anthony Leiserowitz