Extreme heat affects electricity bills for most Americans, AP-NORC poll finds

WASHINGTON — In the summer, Levena Lindahl closes off entire rooms, covers windows with blackout curtains and budgets to manage her monthly electricity bill for air conditioning. But even then, heat finds its way inside.

“Going up the stairs is like stepping into soup. It’s so hot,” Lindahl said. “If I walk past my attic upstairs, you can feel the heat radiating through the closed door.”

Lindahl, a 37-year-old who lives in North Carolina, said her monthly electricity bill was about $100 in the summer but has since doubled. She blames a gradual warming trend caused by climate change.

About 7 in 10 Americans say extreme heat has had a slight or significant impact on their electricity bills over the past year, and most have noticed at least a slight impact on their outdoor activities, according to a poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

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As tens of millions of Americans endure another summer of historic heat waves, the survey results reveal how extreme heat is changing people’s lives in ways big and small. The survey found that about 7 in 10 Americans have been personally affected by extremely hot weather or extreme heat waves in the past five years. That makes extreme heat more common than other weather events or natural disasters, such as wildfires, major droughts and hurricanes, which one-third of American adults say have been personally affected.

A significant share of Americans – about 4 in 10 – say extreme heat has had at least a minor impact on their sleep, pets and exercise.

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Jim Graham, 54, lives in Phoenix, Arizona, and worries about the safety of his dog’s paws when walking outside, especially when temperatures rise above 105 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius). To protect her feet, they go for walks at 5:30 a.m. “It feels warmer than usual this year,” Graham said. His one-story home has central air conditioning, and even setting the thermostat to 80 degrees Fahrenheit (27 degrees Celsius) costs him more than $350 a month in electric bills, a huge augment from what he paid about a decade ago.

He’s not alone in seeing the dollars add up: About 4 in 10 Americans say they received unexpectedly high utility bills in the past year because of storms, floods, heatwaves or wildfires. That includes nearly half of homeowners.

Like Lindahl, many see a link to climate change. About 7 in 10 U.S. adults who experienced some type of extreme weather event or weather disaster in the past five years say they believe climate change was a contributing factor. Three in 10 believe climate change was not the cause.

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According to the European Climate Agency, last year the Earth’s temperature was 2.66 degrees Fahrenheit (1.48 degrees Celsius) higher than before the industrial era. Copernicus. Some may consider this increase insignificant, but temperatures across the planet fluctuate unevenly and can be hazardous to human health. Several regions of the U.S. set all-time highs this summer, with Las Vegas reaching a scorching 120 degrees Fahrenheit (48.9 degrees Celsius) on July 7.

About 1 in 10 Americans say extreme heat has had a big impact on their sleep over the past year, while about 3 in 10 say it has had a little impact and 55% say it has had no impact. Hispanic Americans are more likely than whites to say their sleep has been disrupted, and lower-income Americans are more likely than higher-income Americans to report an impact on their sleep.

The effects of extreme heat are more widely reported in the West and South. About half of people living in the West say their sleep has been at least slightly disrupted by extreme heat, while about 4 in 10 people living in the South say their sleep has been disrupted, compared to about 3 in 10 people living in the Midwest and Northeast. People living in the West and South are more likely than those living in the Northeast to say their exercise routines have been disrupted.

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Other aspects of daily life — such as work and commutes, the timing of events like weddings and social gatherings, and travel and vacation plans — have been disrupted to a lesser extent, but the impact has been felt disproportionately among certain groups of Americans. About a quarter of Americans say their travel or vacation plans have been disrupted by extreme heat, with Latinos and African Americans more likely than white Americans to say so.

Even just enjoying time outdoors has become more arduous for some. The survey found that about 6 in 10 Americans say extreme heat has affected outdoor activities for themselves or their families.

Overall, people who don’t believe climate change is happening are less likely to report being affected by various aspects of extreme heat than those who do. For example, about 8 in 10 Americans who believe climate change is happening say extreme heat has at least a tiny impact on their electricity bills, compared with half of Americans who aren’t sure climate change is happening or don’t think it’s happening.

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Mario Cianchetti, 70, is a retired engineer who now lives in Sedona, Ariz. His home has solar panels and heat pumps, which he installed because he wanted to lower his electric bill to save money. “When you retire, you have one steady income. I didn’t want to deal with the rising cost of energy,” said Cianchetti, who has identified as a political independent.

Cianchetti noted that temperatures seem unusually high, but said installing sustainable technologies in his home is a financial issue. “It’s not that I don’t believe in climate change, yes, I believe we’re entering a hot cycle here, but I don’t believe it’s man-made.”

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In terms of general views on climate change, 70% of U.S. adults say climate change is happening. About 6 in 10 of those who believe climate change is happening say it is caused entirely or mainly by human activity, while another 3 in 10 say it is caused equally by human activity and natural changes in the environment, and 12% say it is caused mainly by natural changes in the environment. Nine in 10 Democrats, seven in 10 independents, and about half of Republicans say climate change is happening.

Those numbers are essentially unchanged from April when the question was asked, and have remained steady in recent years, although about half of Americans say they have become more concerned about climate change in the past year.

The poll of 1,143 adults was conducted July 25-29, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.

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