Canadians are often accused of being conflicted about climate change.

The latest roundup of public opinion research suggests something more complex: we are conflicted about our own conflicts. 

And looming over the conflicts in our own minds is the dire disconnect between the climate of public opinion and climate change itself. This week, scientists determined that climate change is accelerating and Earth’s energy imbalance has already doubled. Meanwhile, pollsters showed public prioritization has gone in the opposite direction — just 13 per cent of Canadians rank climate and the environment among the top three issues, less than half as many as three years ago.

The disconnects within public opinion are also striking. Concern is going up, while priority is down. Very few of us rank climate as a high priority right now. But a whopping 80 per cent of Canadians say they are concerned, a large jump from two years ago.

Those are the kinds of disconnects we explored in the latest “What do Canadians Really Think About Climate Change” report by Re.Climate (which I helped co-author). The project isn’t about doing new polling but digging into more than 100 public opinion surveys published over the past year........

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