Resource Type: Research & Articles

More Americans are alarmed about climate change. Survey research identified six unique audiences within the American public that each responds to the issue of climate change in their own distinct way: alarmed, concerned, cautious, disengaged, doubtful, and dismissive. Between 2014 and 2020, the percentage of the population that is alarmed by climate change more than doubled and by April of 2020 over half of all American adults were in one of the two most worried segments – alarmed (25%) and concerned (28%).

Grassroots climate activist groups operating under the umbrella organization 350.org promote fossil fuel divestment by constructing a moral dualism to stigmatize the fossil fuel industry. Activists draw on several historical contexts to justify divestment, related to past instances where organizations or countries were penalized for morally inappropriate behavior. These analogies include tobacco, weapons and arms, South African apartheid, and boycotts of Israel and Sudan. Read a summary of this research in SSIR.