A Third of Americans Faced Extreme Weather in Recent Years, Survey Finds

One in three Individuals say they’ve personally been affected by an excessive climate occasion within the final two years, in response to a Gallup ballot launched on Wednesday, reflecting a interval that included a paralyzing ice storm in Texas, one of many largest wildfires in California’s historical past and a strong storm that killed dozens of individuals within the New York area.

Thirty-three % of U.S. adults mentioned that they had been affected by excessive climate since 2020, mostly excessive chilly, in response to the survey, which was primarily based on interviews performed final month with about 1,000 adults dwelling in all 50 states and Washington, D.C.

Hurricanes and winter climate, reminiscent of snow, ice storms and blizzards, had been the commonest excessive climate occasions cited, adopted by excessive warmth and floods. Two-thirds of respondents — 67 % — mentioned that they had not been affected by excessive climate.

Folks dwelling within the South and West had been extra prone to say that they had lived by an excessive climate occasion, in response to the ballot, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 share factors.

These dwelling within the South had been most probably to say that they had been affected by excessive chilly, hurricanes or tornadoes. Residents within the West cited wildfires, excessive warmth and drought as the acute climate occasions they had been most probably to have confronted. Floods and hurricanes had been the commonest responses from Easterners, whereas Midwesterners cited snow or ice storms, together with floods and tornadoes.

Whereas not all excessive climate is local weather associated, the researchers discovered that attitudes about local weather change had been carefully related to private expertise with an excessive climate occasion. Sixty-three % of those that had been affected by excessive climate mentioned they frightened “an incredible deal” about world warming, in contrast with 33 % who had not been affected by excessive climate.

Sixty-four % of those that had been affected by excessive climate mentioned that local weather change would pose “a critical menace” to their lifestyle throughout their lifetime, in contrast with 36 % who had not been affected by excessive climate. Sixty-seven % of people that had lived by an excessive climate occasion, and 48 % of those that had not, mentioned that the federal government was not doing sufficient to guard the atmosphere.

There have been dozens of extreme climate occasions in the US during the last two years which have every triggered $1 billion or extra in damages, in response to the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. There have been 20 such local weather disasters in 2021, and 22, a report, in 2020.

They included a lethal ice storm that paralyzed a lot of Texas for days; a warmth wave that killed a whole bunch in Oregon and Washington; Hurricane Nicholas, which swept states alongside the Gulf of Mexico; Hurricane Ida, which made landfall in Louisiana earlier than its remnants killed greater than 40 folks within the New York area; and main wildfires in California, Oregon, Washington and Colorado.

Final summer time, consultants mentioned that the latest surge of local weather disasters made it clear that the US was not able to deal with excessive climate occasions as they happen extra incessantly because of a warming planet.

“These occasions inform us we’re not ready,” Alice Hill, who oversaw planning for local weather dangers on the Nationwide Safety Council in the course of the Obama administration, mentioned on the time. “We now have constructed our cities, our communities, to a local weather that not exists.”

Local weather consultants say that governments haven’t spent sufficient time or cash getting ready for local weather disasters, and that there’s a restrict to how a lot the nation, and the world, can adapt. If nations don’t transfer rapidly sufficient to chop greenhouse fuel emissions, which drive local weather change, consultants say, they are going to quickly discover themselves on the outer edges of resilience.