Table 3 Climate change perceptions themes and sub-themes that emerged through the process of qualitative analysis. The most common 5–6 sub-themes are shown per theme

• Fossil fuels, emissions

• Pollution

• Urban sprawl, population growth

• Manufactured problem

• Responsibility for the problem

• Temperature changes

• Weather changes and extremes

• Health, human impacts

• Ice, oceans, water

• Pests, invasive species

• Fire, drought

• Geographic risk

• Temporal risk

• Media coverage

• Change is constant, natural

• Skepticism or denial of the risk

• Adaptation

• Individual, collective action

• Disbelief or skepticism in solutions

• Government and politics

• Lack of scientific knowledge