CCAM Explorer

Original article published by George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication

We are pleased to announce an update to our interactive data visualization tool – the CCAM Explorer.

Last year, we made a decade (2008-2017) of our public opinion data about global warming publicly available. We are now adding 2018 data to the dataset and CCAM Explorer. The data and tool enable you to explore trends in Americans’ climate beliefs, risk perceptions, policy support, and behaviors over time and across several demographic groups.

Here are a few highlights of the changes through 2018 available in the new public dataset:

The belief that global warming is caused by human activities has increased in recent years. However, trends in this belief vary across political lines. For instance, the belief that global warming is human-caused has increased primarily among Democrats, while the increase is less pronounced among Republicans – particularly conservative Republicans.

We also find that, in recent years, more Americans say they have been discussing global warming with their family and friends, but the political divide in this behavior has widened over the past decade. In particular, increasing numbers of liberal Democrats are discussing global warming with their family and friends, while fewer conservative Republicans are doing so.

Explore the data for yourself using our online interactive tool. The underlying data are downloadable from the Open Science Framework.

We hope that by making the individual survey data available, we can support efforts to investigate the dynamics of public opinion and engage different audiences in climate change solutions.

If you or your organization want to discuss how CCAM data can help inform your climate communications strategy, please reach out to our partnerships team: ypccc.partners@yale.edu.

Note: we will be releasing results from our spring 2020 survey soon – please stay tuned!

We are grateful to the following for their support over the years: the 11th Hour Project, the Skoll Global Threats Fund, the Energy Foundation, the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment, the MacArthur Foundation, the VK Rasmussen Foundation, the Overlook Foundation, and the Endeavor Foundation.

Enjoy the new data and tool!

On behalf of the CCAM team: Matthew Ballew, Seth Rosenthal, Jennifer Marlon, Matthew Goldberg, Parrish Bergquist, Anthony Leiserowitz and Abel Gustafson of Yale University; Edward Maibach and John Kotcher of George Mason University