Environmental Polling Roundup – August 7, 2026
Headlines
AP + NORC – Nine in ten Americans say that they’ve been affected by extreme heat this year, but public recognition of climate change isn’t rising [Article, Website, Topline]
Marquette University – A growing majority of Americans say that the costs of data centers outweigh the benefits [Website, Topline, Crosstabs]
EPC – Public polls show Americans of all political affiliations turning against data centers since the start of the year amid concerns about utility prices and distrust of the corporations pushing the AI boom [Summary Memo]
[Western States] Center for Western Priorities – Western voters overwhelmingly agree on the importance of public lands protections [Website, Summary Memo]
Key Takeaways
Public awareness of climate change has declined as the media and political leaders have chosen to place less emphasis on it. The AP and NORC find that, even as Americans widely report their lives being impacted by extreme heat, fewer acknowledge that climate change is happening than in past years.
This lines up with the latest wave of Yale and GMU’s “Climate Change in the American Mind” study, which similarly found that Americans’ recognition of climate change was at a low point. The drop-off isn’t particularly large in either case, but it unfortunately makes sense given that media coverage of climate change has also declined in recent years.
This trend makes “climate hushing” by Democrats particularly pernicious. The public takes cues from the media and political leaders about which issues are important, and Americans aren’t hearing much about climate change from either of these sources. By opting to stay silent on the issue, Democratic officials are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy–signaling to voters that the issue isn’t important, and then doubling down on this tactic when voters accordingly don’t name it as a priority. The only way out of this vicious cycle is for public officials to realize that they are leaders with an active role in shaping public opinion, not just passive observers of it.
The data center backlash shows no sign of abating. New polling from Marquette University underscores how toxic data centers have become, as nearly three-quarters of Americans–including majorities of Democrats, independents, and Republicans–say that the costs of data centers outweigh the benefits. Marquette further finds that this percentage has risen by double digits since January, which is consistent with the increasingly negative attitudes that we’re seeing toward data centers across public polls.
In the EPC’s newly updated summary memo about data centers, you can find an overview of this trend and the factors driving it–including cost concerns and skepticism toward the AI industry.
Full Roundup
AP + NORC – Nine in ten Americans say that they’ve been affected by extreme heat this year, but public recognition of climate change isn’t rising [Article, Website, Topline]
Nine in ten Americans say that they’ve been affected by extreme heat in the past year. The AP and NORC find that 90% of Americans say that extreme heat has had at least a “minor” impact on some aspect of their lives in the past year.
Americans are particularly likely to report that the heat has had an effect on their electric bills and outdoor activities, as well as in health-related areas like their exercise routines and sleep.
Below are the percentages of Americans who say that extreme heat has had at least a “minor” impact on different aspects of their lives in the past year:
- Your electricity bills – 81%
- You or your family’s outdoor activities – 68%
- Your exercise routine – 51%
- Your sleep – 50%
- Your pets – 42%
- Your travel or vacation plans – 42%
- Your job or commute – 33%
- The timing of events like weddings or reunions – 31%
Americans say that the heat has had a particularly significant effect on electricity costs, with nearly half (46%) saying that extreme heat has had a “major” impact on their electricity bills.
Americans report even worse impacts from extreme heat this year than in 2024. AP-NORC also asked all of these questions two years ago in July 2024. At that time, 83% of Americans said that they had been impacted by extreme heat. The summer of 2024, which ranks among the hottest ever recorded, saw particularly intense heat waves across the western U.S.
And compared to July 2024, Americans are now more likely to say that extreme heat has had an impact on every aspect of their lives that the two surveys asked about. Americans also report more intense impacts from extreme heat, with more saying that the heat has had a “major” impact on each item than in 2024.
Americans’ climate awareness is lower than in previous years. Despite this direct experience with the effects of global warming, the AP-NORC survey finds that Americans are actually less likely to say that climate change is happening (66%) than the last time that AP-NORC asked the question in September 2025 (73%).
In fact, the percentage who say that climate change is happening is the lowest that AP-NORC has found in their surveys since June 2017 (65%).
This trend is mirrored in other public polling. Yale and GMU, for example, found in April that 68% of Americans believe that global warming is happening–the lowest figure in Yale and GMU’s tracking since 2015.
While the declines are not large (the AP-NORC and Yale/GMU surveys typically find that around 70% of Americans recognize that climate change is happening), it is discouraging to see this metric dropping even slightly over time.
Studies have found a decline in media coverage of climate change in recent years, which is likely a major factor behind this trend.
And while the AP and NORC didn’t break down their results by partisanship, we can gather from other polls that there are also two distinct partisan trends that may be further contributing to Americans’ declining climate awareness. Among Democrats, prioritization of climate change–while still high–has dipped over the past couple of years as Democratic leaders have placed less emphasis on the issue.
Republican voters, meanwhile, are increasingly embracing fossil fuels and have shifted their views on major climate-related issues in recent years as Trump’s policies and rhetoric continue to shape conservative public opinion.
Marquette University – A growing majority of Americans say that the costs of data centers outweigh the benefits [Website, Topline, Crosstabs]
Nearly three-quarters of Americans say that the costs of data centers outweigh the benefits. After being informed that “companies are investing billions of dollars around the country in construction of data centers to run artificial intelligence and other applications,” 73% of Americans say that the costs of the data centers outweigh the benefits. This represents an 11-point increase since January, when Marquette found that 62% believed that the costs outweighed the benefits.
Americans across party lines agree that data centers aren’t worth it. Eight in ten Democrats (80%), seven in ten independents (72%), and nearly two-thirds of Republicans (66%) all agree that the costs of data centers outweigh the benefits as polls continue to find rare levels of cross-partisan agreement on the topic.
Americans remain deeply pessimistic about AI in general. By a greater than two-to-one margin, Americans are more likely to believe that AI will be a bad thing for society (70%) than a good thing (30%). Again, Americans of all partisan affiliations are generally in alignment as majorities of Democrats (75%), independents (74%), and Republicans (64%) believe that the technology will be bad for society.
EPC – Public polls show Americans of all political affiliations turning against data centers since the start of the year amid concerns about utility prices and distrust of the corporations pushing the AI boom [Summary Memo]
Public polls show Americans of all political affiliations turning against data centers since the start of the year. This is one of several key trends that we identify in this summary memo that rounds up recent polling on data centers, which also underlines how:
- Americans are pessimistic about AI’s impact on society and distrustful of the companies behind its development
- Energy costs remain Americans’ biggest concern about data center expansion, with Americans identifying data centers as one of the most significant drivers of rising utility bills
- Voters support requirements for data centers to be powered by clean energy, and are more likely to support local data center projects if they’re powered by wind or solar as opposed to fossil fuels
- Virtually any proposed regulation on data centers, including a moratorium, earns widespread public support
[Western States] Center for Western Priorities – Western voters overwhelmingly agree on the importance of public lands protections [Website, Summary Memo]
Western voters overwhelmingly agree on the importance of public lands protections. This has been an enduring finding in polling of Western states, and polls further show that support for public lands protections is intensifying as public lands come under increasing threat from the Trump administration.
In this “Mountain West Polling Guide for the 2026 Midterms,” the Center for Western Priorities utilizes data from several polling projects–including their own survey work as well as public polls like the Colorado College Conservation in the West study–to arrive at the following “topline takeaways”:
- “For an overwhelming percentage of Mountain West voters, public lands rate incredibly positively, and are understood as valuable to the economy. Even in the context of other important issues like affordability, health care, and education, 86% of voters see issues involving public lands, waters, and wildlife as a motivating factor in supporting an elected public official across Mountain West states.
- Funding cuts, rollbacks of protections, and loss of natural areas rank as top concerns for voters across states.
- Selling off public lands is a third rail for Mountain West voters; majorities as high as 85% in one state (Montana) prefer to keep public lands in public hands.
- When given a direct choice, more than three voters to one favor protecting America’s natural resources and public lands rather than maximizing the land available for oil, gas drilling, and mining. This preference for protecting public lands is consistent across party lines, and concern over the impact of oil and gas drilling continues to steadily rise year over year.
- Across a variety of individual actions that give preferential treatment to oil, gas, and mining companies over national lands, over 70% of voters across Mountain West states opposed those actions.
- Regardless of party, Western voters demonstrate a clear preference and priority for renewable energy sources over fossil fuels, a pattern that has only increased over the past 14 years.”
Related Resources
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