Americans are more concerned about climate change under Trump

Americans are more concerned about climate change now than they were before President Trump took office, FiveThirtyEight reports.

In 2015, 52 percent of people were worried about climate change — that number jumped to 69 percent in 2018, per surveys done by researchers at Yale University and George Mason University. Belief in climate change also jumped by 10 percent during this period.

Public support for spending on environmental issues has historically been higher during Republican presidential administrations, writes FiveThirtyEight. Despite the increase in support, discussion of climate change in Trump's State of the Union speech Tuesday night was noticeably absent.

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Lisa Graumlich, a climate scientist and former governmental expert who attended Trump's Tuesday night speech, told The Guardian this will likely be the last presidential administration that can ignore climate change in the State of the Union address. Read more about the change over time at FiveThirtyEight.