On Earth Day, Taking a Deeper Dive into American Attitudes on the Environment

The top of my latest for the American Communities Project:

“For the 55th annual Earth Day on April 22, EarthDay.org outlines an ambitious goal: triple the amount of clean electricity by 2030. Meanwhile, President Trump signed an executive order on April 8 to block climate change policies at the state level. As Reuters reported: ‘The order directed the U.S. attorney general to identify state laws that address climate change, ESG initiatives, environmental justice and carbon emissions, and to take action to block them.’

“Amid the cross purposes, the American Communities Project sought to delve deeper into American attitudes on climate change and the environment by examining a series of questions from the latest MRI-Simmons consumer survey taken from September 2021 to August 2023 and broken down into our 15 community types in fall 2024.

“The results show that Americans see the environment and climate change as very important concerns to address. Across communities, residents agree that climate change is a serious threat and overwhelmingly believe the government should pay more attention to environmental issues. By and large they don’t believe people who are worried about the environment are overreacting. And a significant majority in all community types say when it comes to preserving the environment, helping to preserve nature is very important.”

Read the full story here.