As heat waves all over the United States have caused temperatures to reach triple digits, more people are becoming concerned with climate change.
In fact, a new Gallup poll published on Monday showed that younger Republicans between the ages of 18 and 34 are much more concerned about the environment than older members of the political party.
When asked "how much do you personally worry about the quality of the environment," 32% of Republicans ages 18-34 said they are worried "a great deal," according to the Gallup poll.
37% of the young Republicans said they only worry about the environment "a fair amount," while just 25% said they only worry "a little bit" and 6% don't worry about the environment at all.
While only 18% of older Republicans ages 35-54 and 14% older than 55 said they worry "a great deal" about the environment. 34% of the 35-to-54-year-olds worried "a fair amount," and the results were similar for those older than 55 (32%).
27% of the older Republicans ages 35-55 said they care about the quality of the environment "only a little bit," while 38% older than 55 believed the same. 21% between 35 and 55 didn't care at all, as did 15% older than 55.
"The latest gap in worry between those aged 18-34 (32%) and those 55 and older (14%) is the largest it has been, after an eight-percentage-point increase among young Republicans and a five-point drop among older Republicans since 2015-2018," according to Gallup.
"Young Republicans' worry is near the highest it has been since 2001," Gallup added.
The poll went on to ask if the effects of global warming have already begun to happen, as 44% of young Republicans believed that it has, but just 29% of those 55 and older believe that global warming has started. The views of Republicans between the ages of 35 and 55 were closer to those of younger people, as 43% said that global warming has already begun to happen.
"If increasing numbers of Republicans experience extreme weather, and younger generations continue to exhibit higher levels of environmental concerns, these partisans overall may become more likely to believe global warming is affecting the world and increase their worry about the environment," Gallup said.
In comparison, 64% of Democrats across all three age groups said that they worry about the quality of the environment "a great deal." Additionally, an average of 81% of Democrats believe that global warming has already begun to happen.
"These findings are based on aggregated data from Gallup's Environment polls conducted from 2019 through 2022. This question has been asked in the annual survey every year since 2001 except 2003 and 2009," Gallup noted.
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