The commonly ridiculed image of climate denial involves a blatant rejection of fact and science. It is tempting to polarise the matter into black-or-white extremities, yet the reality shows us that only about 8% of the (American) population are dismissive of climate science. Most of the remaining are aware of climate change being a fact, but are "soft" climate deniers who find it challenging to grapple with.

I think this is a hopeful finding. Climate denial is sometimes seen as a major barrier to addressing climate change, and the 'global-warming-is-a-hoax' narratives can be over-represented in the media. It is likely easier to convert a 'cautious' person into climate action than a dismissive one, and if most climate skeptics are the former rather than latter, this becomes a far less daunting undertaking. In fact, as the research shows, the 'Alarmed' has been the fastest-growing group over the past ten years.

The framework drawn for today's post is mostly drawn from Yale Climate Communications' 'Six Americas' framework of looking at mass attitudes towards climate change. While the specific statistics are US-centric, the same spectrum applies everywhere.

Here is the link to the studies: https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/about/projects/global-warmings-six-americas/