Data
Since 2004, there have been multiple events that have spiked interest in the topic of Climate Change (although it should be important all the time). The effect of numerous events on global search trends for Climate Change can clearly be seen on Google Trends
The reason why there was a spike in searches for Climate Change in December of 2009 was because there was a United Nations CLimate Change Conference, in Copenhagen. This obviously pequed interest in this issue, and many waned to learn more. Therefore, they hopped on their computers, looked it up, and hopefully learned a little bit.
Another time that many searched up climate change was in May 2014, when the 3rd National Climate Assesment (NCA) was released. I am sure that this sparked a lot of controversy, and many began to research Climate Change in hopes of finding answers.
The other major noticeably large spike in searches is in November 2016 -- When Donald Trump got elected. He does not "believe in" Climate Change and denies its existnece, therefore many were probably wondering what impact his actions would have.
Larger cities and metropolitan areas usually have more liberal political views, and these are the places where Climate Change was reasarched the most. This shows how politically driven this issue has become, even though it is truly just science.
This graph shows the searches for Climate change on the news. The highest spike is in 2014, when there was a UN Climate Change conference in New York. This goes to show how impactful politics can be in scientific issues, such as Climate Change. At the UN Climate Change Conference, there were protests begging leaders to take REAL, STRONG action against CLimate Change. These protest could have also been why the conference was searched so much on news outlets.
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