Global warming, psychological distress, and coping

Dear Friends,

Today we are pleased to release a new report, Climate Change in the American Mind: Beliefs & Attitudes based on data from the nationally representative survey we conducted in December 2022.

Overall, we find that public understanding of global warming remained relatively stable in 2022:

Americans who think global warming is happening outnumber those who think it is not happening by a ratio of more than 4 to 1 (70% versus 16%).

More than half of Americans (58%) understand that global warming is mostly human-caused. About one in four (27%) think it is due mostly to natural changes in the environment.

A majority of Americans (64%) say they are at least “somewhat worried” about global warming. This includes about one in four (27%) who say they are “very worried.”

To assess anxiety and depression symptoms arising from people's concerns about global warming, we adapted validated brief screening instruments for general anxiety disorder (the GAD-2) and depression (the PHQ-2). We found that a small, but notable percentage of Americans are experiencing psychological distress because of global warming:

About one in ten Americans report experiencing symptoms of anxiety because of global warming for several or more days out of the last two weeks. Almost as many report experiencing symptoms of depression because of global warming.

About one in four Americans (27%) say they try not to think about global warming, and 15% say they try to avoid information about global warming. About one in ten say they often have trouble stopping themselves from consuming bad news about global warming (11%) or seek social or emotional support to help manage their concerns about global warming (10%).

Eight percent of Americans say they are discussing their feelings about global warming with a counselor or therapist or would be interested in doing so.

The full report includes many other important results, including how Americans perceive the risks of global warming, how they believe it is affecting extreme weather in the United States, how often they talk about global warming with family and friends, and how often they hear about it in the media.

For media inquiries, please contact Ed Maibach and John Kotcher.

On behalf of the research team: Anthony Leiserowitz, Ed Maibach, Seth Rosenthal, John Kotcher, Jennifer Carman, Marija Verner, Sanguk Lee, Matthew Ballew, Saahi Uppalapati, Eryn Campbell, Teresa Myers, Matt Goldberg, and Jennifer Marlon, thanks for your interest and support!

Center for Climate Change Communication, George Mason University

Fairfax, Virginia 22032

View as Webpage