Have the public’s views on climate change changed since 2000?

[darklordoftech]

2000 was the first election in which climate change was an issue. Since then, has more of the public come to view climate change as real, more view climate change as fake, or has there been no shift?

[Hope For A New Era]

The deniers have gone pretty quiet since about 2017 or so.

[Sumner 1868]

Actually, the first election it was an issue was 1988, which was the year that James Hansen gave his infamous testimony before Congress. Both Dukakis and Bush made vague promises of addressing the issue.

https://www.nytimes.com/1988/09/01/us/environmentalists-say-either-bush-or-dukakis-will-be-an-improvement.html

[pikachu]

On net, I don’t think they’ve actually changed. But in the interim, we saw a polarization during Bush and Obama around climate change, while recently we’ve seen a move back towards ‘we should do something’ because of increased salience among millennials and zoomers of both parties.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/1615/environment.aspx

[Del Tachi]

"Climate change" wasn't the term du jour in 2000, it was still "global warming" (which wasn't overtaken by "climate change" in Google search interest until 2013).

A minor distinction, but it shows how the literal terms of debate are often politically-dictated.  In short order we'll probably ditch "climate change" and settle on the more intersectional phrase "climate justice," if liberal activists have their way. 

[Skill and Chance]

It was briefly a major issue in a not-very-polarized way during 2005-07 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, but then the housing crisis took up all the oxygen in 2008-10.  Fracking taking off polarized the issue after 2010 or so, but it remained a low priority for most voters.  It generally seems to be gaining in importance again since 2017 or so (Hurricane Harvey?), but it's very left/right polarized now, in a way that doesn't give me much hope there will be a deal that sticks.  If we ever get to a point where Dems need Texas to win and the GOP needs Florida at the same time, there would be more potential for a bipartisan deal like what almost happened in 2007.