Retired Upper Darby schools superintendent Joe Batory was out for a walk along Boathouse Row and said he was \u201cshocked\u201d to hear that 74% of Americans wanted stronger climate action, thinking it would have been more like 15 to 20%. Batory said while people may want action, they themselves aren\u2019t willing to do so.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThey don\u2019t seem interested enough to do something about [climate change], like making it a major political issue that elected officials have to run on and deliver action once they\u2019re in office.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Riding her bike to Fan Fest, West Philly resident Amanda Benner guessed almost exactly how many people wanted action \u2013 75%.\n<\/p>\n
Benner explained that her calculation was based on the percentage of people who don\u2019t agree with President Donald Trump that climate change is a hoax.\n <\/p>\n
\u201cI think overall \u2026 everybody wants the people and the government, the corporations to do something about climate change for this country, it\u2019s ridiculous,\u201d Benner said.\n<\/p>\n
She said \u201cmyths, false information, just the fossil fuel industry itself,\u201d are preventing action.\n<\/p>\n
But Bristol resident Amy Ewing counted herself as part of the 36%. She said climate change is a hoax.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there was the ice age,\u201d Ewing said as she stood in line to make a free charm bracelet. \u201cThroughout history, throughout the world, it has happened throughout time.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Although the climate has changed over time, the most recent ice age began roughly 120,000 years ago and ended about 11,700 years ago<\/a>, the consensus among scientists is that the burning of fossil fuels has led to rapid changes that are causing unprecedented heat waves, wildfires, droughts, flooding and more intense storms.\n<\/p>\n Still, Ewing said she believes in protecting the environment and wildlife habitat.\n<\/p>\n \u201cI think nuclear is the way to go,\u201d Ewing said. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot more safe these days and cleaner.\u201d Tiffany Threadgould was out walking her rescue dog Ivy along the river and was \u201cvery surprised\u201d to hear that 74% of residents wanted more climate action.\n<\/p>\n \u201cI wish it was even more. Climate change is real, the weather has been crazy hot, and we have to do something,\u201d Threadgould said.\n<\/p>\n Threadgould is an engineer at TerraCycle<\/a>, a firm that recycles hard to re-use items like toys, electronics and appliances. While solar energy costs have gone down, she said it still is not cheap enough for her to install on the roof of her rowhome.\n<\/p>\n \u201cI wish governments could make those kinds of decisions more economically attractive for people,\u201d she said. Fan Fest attendee Bianca Benjamin also counts herself as part of the 74% having seen summers getting hotter in two cities she has lived in, Philadelphia and New Orleans.\n<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t have a direct solution,\u201d Benjamin said. \u201cI just think that plans should be created and put into place that people can follow everywhere that will help to reduce our footprint.\u201d\n<\/p>\n This reporting is part of the global journalism collaboration Covering Climate Now.<\/a><\/em>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Retired Upper Darby schools superintendent Joe Batory was out for a walk along Boathouse Row and said he was \u201cshocked\u201d to hear that 74% of Americans wanted stronger climate action, thinking it would have been more like 15 to 20%. Batory said while people may want action, they themselves aren\u2019t willing to do so. \u201cThey […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36930,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/07-15-2026-k-paynter-heat-file-love-park-4.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11573],"tags":[26544,6271,9312,6642,3688,7925,12931],"class_list":["post-36929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-philadelphia-breaking-news","tag-annually","tag-area","tag-facing","tag-heat","tag-philadelphia","tag-waves","tag-whyy-news-climate-desk"],"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/07-15-2026-k-paynter-heat-file-love-park-4.jpg",0,0,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/07-15-2026-k-paynter-heat-file-love-park-4.jpg",0,0,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/07-15-2026-k-paynter-heat-file-love-park-4.jpg",0,0,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/07-15-2026-k-paynter-heat-file-love-park-4.jpg",150,150,false],"medium":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/07-15-2026-k-paynter-heat-file-love-park-4.jpg",300,300,false],"large":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/07-15-2026-k-paynter-heat-file-love-park-4.jpg",1024,1024,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/07-15-2026-k-paynter-heat-file-love-park-4.jpg",1536,1536,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/07-15-2026-k-paynter-heat-file-love-park-4.jpg",2048,2048,false],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/07-15-2026-k-paynter-heat-file-love-park-4.jpg",370,265,false],"kava-thumb-s":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/07-15-2026-k-paynter-heat-file-love-park-4.jpg",150,85,false],"kava-thumb-s-2":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/07-15-2026-k-paynter-heat-file-love-park-4.jpg",230,230,false],"kava-thumb-m":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/07-15-2026-k-paynter-heat-file-love-park-4.jpg",400,400,false],"kava-thumb-m-vertical":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/07-15-2026-k-paynter-heat-file-love-park-4.jpg",370,500,false],"kava-thumb-m-2":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/07-15-2026-k-paynter-heat-file-love-park-4.jpg",570,450,false],"kava-thumb-l":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/07-15-2026-k-paynter-heat-file-love-park-4.jpg",1170,650,false],"kava-thumb-xl":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/07-15-2026-k-paynter-heat-file-love-park-4.jpg",1920,1080,false],"kava-thumb-masonry":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/07-15-2026-k-paynter-heat-file-love-park-4.jpg",600,999,false],"kava-thumb-justify":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/07-15-2026-k-paynter-heat-file-love-park-4.jpg",640,640,false],"kava-thumb-justify-2":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/07-15-2026-k-paynter-heat-file-love-park-4.jpg",1280,640,false]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"#RiseCelestialStudios","author_link":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/author\/ralph-c\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"Philadelphia Viral News<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"Retired Upper Darby schools superintendent Joe Batory was out for a walk along Boathouse Row and said he was \u201cshocked\u201d to hear that 74% of Americans wanted stronger climate action, thinking it would have been more like 15 to 20%. Batory said while people may want action, they themselves aren\u2019t willing to do so. \u201cThey…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36929"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36931,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36929\/revisions\/36931"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nTiffany Threadgould was walking her rescue dog near Boathouse Row. Threadgould was \u2018very surprised\u2019 to learn that 74% of her fellow Americans thought the government should do more to tackle climate change. (David Dickson)\n<\/p>\n
\nWHYY\u2019s Susan Phillips and Mark Hertsgaard with Covering Climate Now talk to Tiffany Threadgould on a path near the Art Museum. (Courtesy of David Dickson)\n<\/p>\n