‘You are not alone': Most Nevadans worry about climate change, poll shows

Miami Herald

20-05-2025

LAS VEGAS – In the state with the nation's two fastest-warming cities, most residents believe in climate change and think officials should do something about it, new polling has found.
Answers from Nevadans rank similarly to national averages, with more widespread belief in climate change in Clark and Washoe counties, where almost 87% of the state's population resides.
For instance, in the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication's poll, 63% of Nevadans said they are worried about climate change - identical to the national average. That number was 1% higher in Clark County and 6% higher in Washoe County.
"If you're worried about it, you are not alone," said Jennifer Marlon, senior research scientist and director of data science at the Yale School of the Environment. "The vast majority of people are worried about it, and it's many more people than you think. We're not talking about it, because everyone thinks they're going to end up picking a fight. But, by and large, that's not true."
The idea of a warming climate - and the burning of fossil fuels as the main cause - is supported by more than 99% of peer-reviewed research. It was a science nonprofit's 2025 Earth Day analysis of temperatures that designated Las Vegas and Reno as the two fastest-warming cities in the United States for the third year in a row, when comparing annual average temperatures since 1970.
Yale researchers based their poll numbers on surveys of more than 32,000 people from every state and 2,379 of the country's 3,144 counties. To map the whole country by county, they used a statistical model that considers location and sociodemographic factors like political affiliations, race, gender and age. Following are the highlights:
Extreme heat potent example
Scientists and officials have said Nevada is ground zero for human-caused climate change, perhaps most evident in the summer when temperatures regularly stay in the triple digits, even at night.
Sixty-eight percent of Nevadans agree that climate change is affecting the weather, which is 3% more than the country at large. In Clark County, extreme heat's death toll last year was 527 - higher than it's ever been because of a record hot summer and the adapting standards of the county coroner's office.
Tom Albright, Nevada's deputy state climatologist and a professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, is planning Northern Nevada's first extreme heat summit that will take place next month. In the absence of a coordinated response to extreme heat in the region, Albright said he hopes it can inform people and help them brainstorm ideas for local leaders.
Helping find solutions for the one-third of Nevadans who aren't worried about climate change is a priority, too.
Albright said using the words "climate change" or "global warming" can turn some people off because of politics - reflected in the polling results from some rural, deep red counties, where only half of the residents are concerned about it.
"It doesn't matter if you call it 'global warming,' 'climate change,' 'drought' or 'extreme heat': These are issues that people experience," Albright said in an interview Thursday. "People don't talk about climate change that much, and they don't hear about it in the news as much as you might expect. They tend to underestimate the concern or interest of their neighbors."
Next generation
The strongest positive response the Silver State had to a question was whether schools should teach about climate change.
More than three in four Nevadans feel it should be, and a similar amount of them agree that climate change will harm future generations.
Dr. Debra Hendrickson, a board-certified pediatrician in Reno, is the author of "The Air They Breathe." The book is geared toward the challenges children and their parents will experience in the face of climate change, especially as it relates to air quality.
Wildfire is a particular challenge in Washoe County, where smoke can come from the region's fires, as well as nearby ones from California. This year, the American Lung Association gave Clark and Washoe counties an F for particle pollution and days with high ozone levels.
Whether it's extreme heat, allergies or wildfire smoke, Nevadans' health is directly tied to climate change that has made these issues more prominent, Hendrickson said.
"These events that seem big and global are tied to why your kid is coughing and wheezing during a wildfire event," the pediatrician said in an interview Friday. "That's the message that people need to understand: Everybody in the state of Nevada has been affected by climate change. There's no one in the state who's been untouched by this."
What Nevadans can do
A broader section of the polling results focuses on policy solutions, with more than half in agreement that Congress, Gov. Joe Lombardo, local officials, corporations and private citizens should do more to address climate change.
The country's transition to cleaner energy sources still remains highly popular, according to the poll.
For those interested in doing something about their concerns on climate change, Hendrickson recommends taking an inventory of what in Nevadans' own lives may be contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, from the food they eat to the way they travel.
Learning about local issues and solutions can be inspiring, she said, especially when residents can attend meetings for public utility commissions and city or county government.
The best solution to inaction is getting educated without feeling responsible for solving the problem of climate change on a large scale, Hendrickson said.
"If you can give people concrete steps that they can take, I think that really activates people," Hendrickson said. "There is such a sense of helplessness because it is such a huge problem."
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