North Carolina Voters Say They are Worried About Climate Change After Florence

Tar Heel State Voters Say the Media Shouldn’t Wait Until After an Extreme Weather Event has Ended to Discuss the Role of Climate Change

A poll released today in the wake of Hurricane Florence finds that many voters in North Carolina are connecting the dots between climate change and extreme weather – and don’t want media to shy away from making the connection.

“Most voters in North Carolina are worried about climate change and many understand that it’s causing hurricanes to produce more rainfall and more severe flooding,” said Dr. Ed Maibach, Director of George Mason University’s Center for Climate Change Communication. “The devastation from Hurricane Florence will likely lead many North Carolinians to consider what actions they, their community, and their state should be taking to protect residents from the harms of climate change in the future.”

Key findings include:

• More than 6 in 10 North Carolina voters are worried about climate change, with 24 percent “very worried” and 38 percent “somewhat worried” about climate change.

• A majority of North Carolina voters (55%) think the news media should discuss the role of climate change in weather-related disasters during or immediately after severe weather events. Less than 13 percent of voters say the news media should wait a week or more to discuss the role of climate change in weather-related disasters; only 14 percent say the connection should never be discussed.

• A majority of North Carolina voters believe climate change is making extreme weather – hurricanes, flooding and heat waves – worse, compared to fewer than 3 in 10 who do not.

• A majority of North Carolinians – 56 percent – connect Hurricane Florence’s record-breaking rainfall to climate change. A quarter say climate change had a large effect on the amount of rainfall, while another 31 percent say it had some effect.

“Contrary to arguments made by some politicians that it’s “too soon” to talk about the links between climate change and extreme weather during or immediately after a disaster, this study finds that most North Carolina voters want the media to talk about these connections in real time,” said Dr. Anthony Leiserowitz, Director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. “Only a quarter of North Carolina Republicans say the media should never talk about these links, indicating a desire by most Americans – Republican and Democrat – to have this conversation.”

This poll was developed as part of a new research collaboration between Nexus Polling, the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication. The survey was conducted from Sept. 28 to Oct. 1, 2018, among a sample of 734 registered voters in North Carolina. It has a margin of error of +/- 3.7 percent.

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The Yale Program on Climate Change Communication is a research center at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies in New Haven,CT.

George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication is an academic research center located in Fairfax, VA.

Nexus Polling is a project of Climate Nexus that conducts public opinion research on climate and clean energy issues.