social scientists disagree about why this is the case, but a new report from yale and george mason university offers a compelling explanation.

the report suggests there is a spiral of silence around climate change. few americans, even those who care about the carbon crisis, chat about climate change with friends or family. no one talks, so no one feels comfortable talking. silence begets silence begets silence, widening the gap between popular discourse and public opinion, in an ever-descending spiral.

how social scientists imagine a spiral. source: scheufle & moy, 2000

the term spiral of silence was coined in 1974 by german researcher elizabeth noelle-neumann, who was attempting to understand the rise of hitler. she wanted to know how so many people remained silent as the country slipped into the grip of fascism. she found that when everyone is silent, no one speaks up.

over the years, scholars have applied the theory to a range of issues. consistently, they find that people don’t speak up for fear of isolation and reprisal. share an unpopular opinion, and you risk losing friends and social status.

with climate change, there is some evidence of this. again and again, surveys show that americans broadly care about the issue, but few talk about it openly. this is apparent in the findings of the yale/gmu report.

most americans care about global warming.

there are several ways to measure concern. the yale/gmu report looked at who is interested in climate change and who finds the issue personally relevant. turns out, it’s a lot of people. this is consistent with other othersurvey data showing that large majorities of americans believe the climate is changing and think the government should work to cut greenhouse gases.

source: yale/george mason university

few americans say they hear about global warming in the news.

when asked how often they hear about climate change in the news media, fewer than half of americans said once a month or more. on this measure, public perceptions are roughly in line with reality. news coverage of climate change is sorely lacking. last year, broadcast news gave climate change less airtime than deflategate.

source: yale/george mason university

few americans talk about global warming with their friends and family.

this is perhaps the most significant factor. the fear of isolation and reprisal is immediate and personal. people look to friends and family to judge which opinions are safe to share. not many americans hear their peers talking about global warming, and few are likely to bring it up in conversation — a fact that hasn’t changed much over the past several years.

source: yale/george mason university

here is the smoking gun.

among people who say they are interested in global warming and say it’s personally important, less than half say they hear about it in the media on a monthly basis. about a quarter say they hear about it from their friends once or more a month. and — here’s where the spiral of silence comes in — less than half talk about it with their peers.

source: yale/george mason university

why is this happening?

part of the problem is that news coverage hardly measures up to the scale of the problem. it’s a well-established finding in social science that americanstake their cues about which issues are important based on the volume of coverage.

but that doesn’t explain why so few people talk about climate with their family and friends. the rise of social media may be a factor. political polarization may be as well.

“our sense is that most americans don’t raise the issue in conversation because they want to avoid heated or drawn out conversations with people who may hold more extreme views than they do — one way or the other,” said ed maibach, professor of communications at george mason university and lead author of the report.

climate change has become more political polarized in recent years. source: dunlap, mccright, & yarosh, 2016

“it’s a bit like the old adage that it’s impolite to discuss sex, religion, or politics at the dinner table, because it is likely to make someone uncomfortable,” said maibach. “our spring 2016 survey found that 56 percent of americans see global warming as a political issue… that’s more than half the people at any given dinner table.”

but, while climate change has become more polarized, few americans hold extreme views. most linger somewhere in the middle — concerned, cautious, disengaged or doubtful, as summed up in previous research from yale and george mason university.

americans cluster into six groups according to their beliefs about climate change. source: yale/george mason univeristy

“most americans are convinced that climate change is happening, but they don’t hold strong feelings about it. moreover, they mistakenly think that lots of americans hold strong feelings about it — either alarmed feelings or dismissive feelings,” said maibach.

not everyone agrees that what we are seeing is a spiral of silence. david karpf, professor of communications at george washington university, offered a competing view.

“i believe the main driver here is that climate change is a quiet crisis. the problem isn’t that it is politicized, or that it isn’t a priority,” said karpf. “the problem is (1) that there isn’t a set of routinized events that bring it to into public conversation, and (2) we don’t have a clear notion of what we can each do about it.”

“that’s not really a spiral of silence,” he said. “if there were some set of events that acted as a drumbeat and pushed us to either pay attention to climate change or actively ignore it, then i think we’d see a lot more public conversation about climate.”

compare climate to gun violence, a problem that regularly consumes the news in the wake of mass shootings. these are moments, explained karpf, “that seize our collective consciousness.” with climate, such flash points routinely go unrecognized. reporters fail to connect heat waves, droughts and severe storms to global warming, despite a wealth of evidence.

so, while most americans believe climate change is a problem and worry about it, few are passionate about the issue. what’s needed is more coverage and more conversation about global warming. it’s going to take some work to serve up climate at the dinner table.

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jeremy deaton writes for nexus media, a syndicated newswire covering climate, energy, policy, art and culture. you can follow him at @deaton_jeremy.

for farmers, the challenge is clear. crops thrive in a placid climate. weather can’t be too hot or too cold, too wet or too dry. like goldilocks, a tomato plant needs everything to be just right. carbon pollution is shrinking the number of acres and the number of days with the ideal set of conditions.

searing heat will desiccate soil and wither crops. torrential rains will drown seedlings. hotter weather will spur the spread of pests and disease. rising concentrations of carbon dioxide will fuel the growth of weeds, and scorching summers will shorten the time plants have to grow and mature. the climate is changing faster than crops can adapt, threatening to take a heavy toll on farmers, particularly in the warmest parts of the planet.

a healthy agriculture is not just about the crops, but also the choices farmers make to manage them.”

according to the national climate assessment, u.s. farmers will be able to keep up with the rising temperatures in the near-term with small changes, like diversifying crops, improving irrigation and integrating livestock to improve the health and sustainability of farms. in the long-term, authors write, “existing adaptive technologies will likely not be sufficient to buffer the impacts of climate change without significant impacts to domestic producers, consumers, or both.” farmers will need to get smarter.

“no matter what comes of climate policy, we’ve locked in climate change over the next 20 to 30 years. the weather farmers face will be different from what’s come before,” said avery cohn, director of the agriculture, forests, & biodiversity program at tufts university. “a healthy agriculture is not just about the crops, but also the choices farmers make to manage them.”

experts say farmers need reliable information about crops, pests and precipitation to understand where to farm, when to plant and how much to diversify their crops.

i think farming definitely does become riskier because changes in weather become more difficult to predict.”

meha jain, a postdoctoral researcher at stanford university, said farmers in india look to early indicators of the coming monsoon season for guidance, planting water-thrifty crops if they expect less rainfall. climate change will make weather more variable and make decisions about planting more challenging. facing limited resources — extended drought and meager supplies of groundwater — small growers may choose to lay down their plowshares.

“i think farming definitely does become riskier because changes in weather become more difficult to predict,” said jain. “it might be that farmers decide to not even pursue agriculture in the long-term.”

experts say our food will increasingly come from bigger farms armed with the latest tech. agriculture is already becoming more knowledge-intensive as farmers look to conserve resources and take advantage of shifting weather patterns. farms are growing bigger and more specialized. supply chains are getting longer.

so how does the farmers’ day to day routine differ in 2040? i would guess that decisions will trend towards moneyball and away from gut reaction.”

“what does this mean for the day to day farm operations? my guess is that you will see a continued trend towards larger farms, which may have more power to invest in increasingly sophisticated machinery and analytics,” said peter richards, an economic advisor for the bureau of food security at usaid. “i’m not expecting that tractors will all be driving themselves in 30 years, but i do expect that smart agricultural practices will continue to develop and be honed and lead to a new generation of yield increases.”

richards explained that while fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides have multiplied crop yields in recent years, the next great agricultural advance won’t come in a can. it will come in a computer. data analytics could give farmers an edge in a changing climate.

“so how does the farmers’ day to day routine differ in 2040? i would guess that decisions will trend towards moneyball and away from gut reaction,” said richards. “what i think will be more interesting, is the extent to which farm decisions will essentially be set pre-planting, then run through an autopilot system… or whether farm decisions will become increasingly dynamic and flexible, with tremendous capacity to adjust strategies even within the planting season.”

what is certain is that a little knowledge goes a long way. facing an increasingly volatile climate, a farmer’s most valuable tool may be her brain.

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jeremy deaton writes about climate and energy for nexus media. tweet him your questions at @deaton_jeremy.