Most people care about climate change—even if it doesn’t always feel like it.

According to the latest edition of the Yale Climate Opinion Maps, 63% of adults are worried about global warming, 57% agree that it’s already harming people in the United States, and 68% believe it will impact future generations.

But only 44% think it will hurt them personally.

It’s a confirmation of something that’s been clear for a long time—even if a majority of Americans care about climate change, it’s rarely their top priority.

Some people are living paycheck to paycheck and just doing their best to survive. Others are fighting to save our democracy or achieve progress on other critical issues. They have other things that take precedence, and that’s not something to blame them for.

What we need to help them realize is that the climate crisis impacts every single issue they care about.

Dr. Katharine Hayhoe said it best at our recent Action Party:

“So often, we think of climate change as a separate bucket at the end of the row of all of the buckets of things we care about.

[But] climate change is not a separate bucket. It’s the hole in every other bucket.”

People spend every day filling up the buckets that matter to them, whether that means fighting for social justice, supporting their family, friends, and communities, or enjoying their hobbies. These buckets can be literally anything—causes you champion, activities you prioritize, or people you care about.

And there isn’t a single one that doesn’t have a climate change-shaped hole in it.

It might not be noticeable yet. Maybe the buckets are only a little harder to fill than they were before. But if the climate crisis goes unaddressed, those holes will get bigger and bigger—and eventually, filling up any bucket will become an impossible task.

That’s what we’re fighting day in and day out to prevent.

As we continue our efforts to drive systemic change and achieve progress on climate, a critical part of that work is helping others see what we see—that climate change touches everything, and doing something about it is key to protecting what they care about most.

Let’s get to work!