CNN data guru Harry Enten delivered bad news to climate activists: their decades-long fearmongering isn’t working.
"Americans aren't afraid of climate change, climate activists have not successfully made the case to the American people," Enten said. "We have data going back to 1989," Enten reported that in both 1989 and 2025, only 40% of Americans were concerned about climate change.
Enten’s report wasn’t the only bad news delivered to radical environmentalists this week. POLITICO declared on July 7th that “the Democratic Party is in retreat on climate change”- even in a progressive enclave like California.
The outlet noted, “In the past two weeks alone, California Democrats have retrenched on environmental reviews for construction projects, a cap on oil industry profits, and clean fuel mandates. Elected officials are warning that ambitious laws and mandates are driving up the state’s onerous cost of living, echoing longstanding Republican arguments and frustrating some allies who say Democrats are capitulating to political pressure.”
Why would Americans continue to trust doomsday climate predictions about oceanfront property, glaciers, biodiversity, and population control, especially when they never materialize?
Americans are equally reluctant to embrace the climate crisis narrative because it inevitably leads to expensive energy costs, lower quality of life, and possibly giving up red meat. Their narrative isn’t convincing enough for their top propagandists either, as they’re hesitant to live a carbon-free lifestyle.
Americans are increasingly adopting a climate realist posture. Recent polling and surveys increasingly back these trends.
A new American Enterprise Institute (AEI)/YouGov poll published by Roger Piekle Jr. and Ruy Teixeira is a prime example of this. Their survey found that 65% of Americans worry the rapid transition from fossil fuels to unreliable solar and wind could invite “unexpected problems for the country.” Their survey also found most Americans aren’t willing to pay more than one dollar a month to fight climate.
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The Pew Research Center, hardly a conservative outlet, documented American views on energy policy under the second Trump term and observed that respondents across all political views are rejecting net-zero energy policies. Pew found that, overall, Americans are less supportive of renewable energy since the first Trump term. It also observed that 54% of Americans support repealing onerous environmental regulations and believe it won’t impact U.S. air and water quality- a strong repudiation of the climate alarmist narrative. A 2024 poll from the same outlet found only 29% of Americans support a fossil fuel phaseout.
Instead, more Americans - even those on the Left - are inclining to energy dominance. This thinking is the opposite of climate alarmism or energy scarcity. Energy dominance calls for producing and exploring energy sources that are reliable, abundant, and secure. This will lead to greater prosperity and energy consumption, without despoiling the environment. That’s why the Trump administration is scaling up natural gas, nuclear energy, and coal, and de-emphasizing subsidized solar and wind projects. There’s no high-income, low-energy country in existence.
The Trump administration, from the outset, has prioritized balancing energy dominance with genuine conservation efforts. The cabinet members comprising the National Energy Dominance Council - Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Energy Secretary Chris Wright, and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin - have announced policies that promise productivity won’t come at the expense of environmental stewardship. It’s a huge departure from the Biden administration, which largely pushed radical preservation before balanced use.
Greenlighting new energy infrastructure projects, however, doesn’t mean sacrificing access to public lands, wild spaces, or maintaining clean air and water conditions. Overdevelopment, like climate alarmism, is also unsustainable. That’s why conservatives - not progressives - strongly opposed Senator Mike Lee’s (R-UT) proposed public lands sale amendment in the Senate version of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act. Due to backlash from conservative sportsmen, ranchers, and outdoor enthusiasts, Senator Lee ultimately nixed the controversial provision because it wouldn’t reduce the national debt nor address urban housing issues.
A week after the horrific Kerr County, Texas, flood struck Camp Mystic, Americans want to have scientific discussions about natural disasters without alarmist rhetoric.
Young meteorologist Chris Martz explained in the Washington Free Beacon that blaming anthropogenic (man-made) climate change for recent flooding in the Lone Star State isn’t helpful to discourse.
“The truth is that the rainfall and flooding along the Guadalupe River were not historically unprecedented and had little, if anything, to do with climate change. Neither heavy rainfall nor river flooding has increased in the Texas Hill Country over the last six decades,” Martz wrote. “The devastating loss of life in Texas is a reminder of the importance of meteorology and accurate science when it comes to understanding the weather. This is no time for politics or finger-pointing from either the left or the right.”
Americans want cheap, affordable, clean energy and reasonable environmental protections, not guilt-inducing lectures about climate change. The way forward is abundance and not alarmism.
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