The biggest climate risk right now isn’t denial. It’s silence

For all the noise surrounding climate — the backlash, the culture wars, the political theatrics — here’s a surprising truth: most Americans haven’t changed their minds at all.

That’s the quiet bombshell from our recent “Two Steps Forward” podcast conversation with Anthony Leiserowitz, founder and director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. Despite a second Trump administration openly attacking climate science and policy, as well as corporate retreat and the rise of “climate hushing,” public concern about climate change in the U.S. has remained remarkably stable.

Which raises an obvious question: If the public hasn’t moved, why has business?

The answer, he told my co-host, Solitaire Townsend, and me, has less to do with ideology than imagination. Or rather, a failure of it.

Corporate leaders, he said, are mistaking silence for indifference. They see climate discussed less in the media, less on earnings calls and less in marketing copy, and they assume — incorrectly — that people have stopped caring. But as Leiserowitz’s decades of polling show, more than half of Americans remain either “alarmed” or “concerned” about climate change. That hasn’t budged.

What has changed is who’s talking — and who isn’t.

Small but mighty voices

The loudest voices belong to a small minority. Roughly 10 percent of Americans actively dismiss climate change outright. They are vocal, organized and omnipresent online. And they’ve succeeded in intimidating the other 90 percent into what Leiserowitz calls a “spiral of climate silence.” When nobody talks about an issue, it starts to feel risky. When it feels risky, leaders retreat. And when leaders retreat, everyone assumes the issue no longer matters.

It’s a collective delusion — and business is playing along.

What’s striking is how unnecessary that retreat is. This is about cheaper, cleaner energy, more resilient supply chains, lower operating costs and reduced exposure to volatile energy markets. These aren’t radical climate positions; they’re basic business logic. Strip the language down if you must. Call it efficiency, resilience, risk management. The substance doesn’t change.

What does change — dramatically — is what happens when leaders say nothing, said Leiserowitz.

People don’t need more climate data. They need cues and permission. Most Americans don’t spend their days parsing emissions trajectories or regulatory frameworks. They look to trusted institutions — companies included — to help them make sense of a crowded risk landscape. When those institutions go quiet, the message isn’t neutrality; it’s abandonment.

Who are the climate villains and heroes?

There’s another failure here, too, and it’s squarely on business. Americans say they’re willing to reward or punish companies based on climate action. But most don’t — because they don’t know which companies deserve it. That’s not apathy. That’s a market signal without labeling, a demand without supply.

Climate hushing doesn’t reduce risk, said Leiserowitz. It creates it. It leaves credibility on the table, confuses customers and hands the narrative to the loudest extremists in the room.

The irony is hard to miss. Companies are going quiet just as they’re needed most — not necessarily to solve the climate crisis, but to normalize the conversation again and talk about what they’re doing, why it makes sense and how it connects to everyday life.

The problem isn’t that Americans don’t care.

It’s that too many leaders have decided — wrongly — that caring has become inconvenient.

A wild card nobody is talking about

There’s an unexpected aspect to this story. It has to do with appetite.

The rise of GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy could reshape consumption itself. Early evidence suggests these drugs don’t just reduce people’s appetites for food. They also appear to curb impulse behavior more broadly — from alcohol consumption to discretionary buying — by altering the brain’s reward system.

If that holds, the sustainability implications could be real. Less food consumption means lower agricultural emissions. Fewer preventable health crises could reduce emissions from a healthcare system responsible for roughly 5 percent of global carbon output. Even transportation could be affected: Lighter passenger loads could translate into meaningful fuel savings for airlines.

This isn’t a silver bullet, and rebound effects are real. But the larger point matters. Cultural change doesn’t always arrive through persuasion or politics. Sometimes it arrives sideways, through technologies that quietly change behavior — and markets — at scale.

The Two Steps Forward podcast is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube and other platforms — and, of course, via Trellis. Episodes publish every other Tuesday.