Americans are far more concerned with 'global warming' than they are with 'climate change,' according to a group of researchers from Yale University.
The two terms are often used interchangeably by journalists and the public, but they each bring about different feelings in most people. Researchers discovered that people associate the term global warming with melting ice sheets and increasingly powerful storms.
"Overall, Americans are +13 percentage points more likely to say that global warming is a "bad thing" (76%) than climate change (63%). In particular, they are +10 points more likely to say global warming is a "very bad thing" (33%) than climate change (23%). By contrast, Americans are +12 points more likely to perceive climate change as a good thing (33%) than global warming (21%)," Yale investigators wrote in their study.
Analysis by the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communications showed how public reaction differed when each term was used.
"The two terms activate different sets of beliefs, feelings, and behaviors, as well as different degrees of urgency about the need to respond. We found that the term global warming is associated with greater public understanding, emotional engagement, and support for personal and national action than the term climate change," George Mason University investigators wrote.
Around 1,000 Americans were surveyed in the poll, conducted by Yale University. The study found that when Americans hear the phrase global warming, they are more likely to agree the effect is real, than when the term climate change is used. Global warming is considered a greater personal threat to Americans than climate change.
The study participants stated global warming is more of a concern than climate change for national leaders. Of the two terms, people tend to use the term global warming more often in casual conversation with family and friends. Global warming was also the more popular search term on Google for the years 2004 to 2014.
Republicans reacted nearly the same to each term, although they tended to perceive global warming as more of a real threat. Democrats engaged strongly with global warming, but less so when the phrase climate change was used.
One challenge facing scientists is their preference for the term climate change, since it can encompass so many effects, from temperature and increased storm activity, to more extreme droughts. For most purposes, climate change is a more inclusive term, but by using that phrase, climatologists could lose some public support for awareness of the problem.
