Mapping Climate Change Opinions In The U.S.

Want to know which counties in the U.S. accept climate science at the highest rates and which don’t?  Which ones believe climate change is happening or that we should regulate carbon as a pollutant?

If that’s the case, then Yale has the interactive map for you.  The school’s Program on Climate Change Communication just released its “Yale Climate Opinion Maps – U.S. 2016,” which breaks public opinion surveys down to the county level across the U.S.

It’s an easy-to-use map. While it doesn’t contain a huge amount of surprises (New England and the West Coast, particularly California, are pro-science accepters), it does reveal that climate science acceptance is actually fairly prevalent in red states. Standouts include southern and northern Arizona and much of South Texas. Montana, Idaho and South Dakota also have pretty striking pockets of science acceptance, as well as parts of Mississippi along the river to the northwest.

But there’s otherwise hard-core climate denial going on from the heart of Texas north through Nebraska, and throughout coal-country Appalachia (Kentucky and West Virginia).

The website is definitely an interesting way to spend a few minutes clicking around. Congratulations to Yale for putting it together.

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