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1.
Understanding public perceptions of climate change is fundamental to both climate science and policy because it defines local and global socio-political contexts within which policy makers and scientists operate. To date, most studies addressing climate change perceptions have been place-based. While such research is informative, comparative studies across sites are important for building generalized theory around why and how people understand and interpret climate change and associated risks. This paper presents a cross-sectional study from six different country contexts to illustrate a novel comparative approach to unraveling the complexities of local vs global perceptions around climate change. We extract and compare ‘cultural knowledge’ regarding climate change using the theory of ‘culture as consensus’. To demonstrate the value of this approach, we examine cross-national data to see if people within specific and diverse places share ideas about global climate change. Findings show that although data was collected using ethnographically derived items collected through place-based methods we still find evidence of a shared cultural model of climate change which spans the diverse sites in the six countries. Moreover, there are specific signs of climate change which appear to be recognized cross-culturally. In addition, results show that being female and having a higher education are both likely to have a positive effect on global cultural competency of individuals. We discuss these result in the context of literature on environmental perceptions and propose that people with higher education are more likely to share common perceptions about climate change across cultures and tentatively suggest that we appear to see the emergence of a ‘global’, cross-cultural mental model around climate change and its potential impacts which in itself is linked to higher education.  相似文献   

2.
Previous research documents that U.S. conservatives, and conservative white males in particular, tend to dismiss the threat of climate change more than others in the U.S. public. Other research indicates that higher education and income can each exacerbate the dismissive tendencies of the political Right. Bridging these lines of research, the present study examines the extent to which higher education and/or income moderate the ideological divide and the “conservative white male effect” on several climate change opinions, and whether these effects are mediated by an individualistic worldview (e.g., valuing individual liberty and limited government). Using nationally representative survey data of U.S. adults from 2008 to 2017 (N = 20,024), we find that across all beliefs, risk perceptions, and policy preferences examined, the ideological divide strengthens with both higher education and higher income. However, educational attainment plays a stronger role than income in polarizing the views of conservative white males. Further analyses support the hypothesis that differences in individualism partially explain the increased political polarization among more educated and higher-income adults, as well as greater dismissiveness among conservative white males relative to other demographic groups. These results highlight key moderators of opinion polarization, as well as ideological differences among conservatives, that are often overlooked in public discourse about climate change. Implications for climate change education and communication across demographic groups are considered.  相似文献   

3.
Marine ecosystems provide a wide range of goods and services that directly and indirectly benefit economies and support human health and wellbeing. However, these ecosystems are vulnerable to anthropogenic influences such as climate change, pollution and habitat destruction. The European Union (EU) recognises the role of the blue economy in providing jobs and contributing to economic growth, with the EU Integrated Maritime Policy being a cross-sectoral framework within which maritime activities are managed and coordinated. Sustainability is a central tenet, ensuring that sectors such as aquaculture and offshore wind energy, which are earmarked for growth, must develop in ways that do not negatively impact the health of the marine environment. However, there is currently little consideration of how these activities might impact public health. The current research used survey data from 14 European countries to explore public perceptions of these issues, broadly focusing on 10 maritime activities, with a specific focus on five activities related to the EU’s 2012 Blue Growth Strategy. The respondents appreciated the interconnections between these maritime activities, environmental protection and public health, as well as the potential trade-offs. Preferences for policy intervention to protect public health from different activities were predicted by both marine contact (marine sector employment, recreational activities) and socio-demographic (political attitudes, gender, age) variables, potentially aiding future engagement and communication initiatives. Substantive differences observed across countries in terms of policy preferences for different activities, however, warn against generalising for the European population as a whole.  相似文献   

4.
Whether or not actual shifts in climate influence public perceptions of climate change remains an open question, one with important implications for societal response to climate change. We use the most comprehensive public opinion survey data on climate change available for the US to examine effects of annual and seasonal climate variation. Our results show that political orientation has the most important effect in shaping public perceptions about the timing and seriousness of climate change. Objective climatic conditions do not influence Americans’ perceptions of the timing of climate change and only have a negligible effect on perceptions about the seriousness of climate change. These results suggest that further changes in climatic conditions are unlikely to produce noticeable shifts in Americans’ climate change perceptions.  相似文献   

5.
This study explores possible futures of Mediterranean migration based on an evaluation of past, current and future drivers of migration in the region. Since 1950, structural shifts in the political economy of the region have fundamentally changed the Mediterranean migration map. Particularly the rise of Gulf economies and south European growth and EU expansion has transformed the northern Mediterranean and the Gulf into new immigration poles. The main drivers of these changes are economic and political. Contrary to conventional beliefs, the role of environmental and also demographic factors seems comparatively limited, probabilistic and indirect. Future climate change and environmental stress may affect internal movement but are unlikely to result in massive international migration. Under most scenarios, Turkey and other North African countries may well evolve into immigration countries coinciding with increasing immigration from sub-Saharan Africa to the entire Mediterranean.  相似文献   

6.
通过系统分析世界各国气候传播领域近年来的进展,以解释为何公众对气候变化的科学结论缺乏信任这一复杂问题.文中首先概述了各国公众对气候变化的态度以及影响公众态度的社会、政治与经济因素,再分析了各国媒体对气候变化的报道及其媒体效果,并重点探究了社会心理因素如何影响人们对气候变化的认知与态度.此外国际气候传播研究对我国气候传播...  相似文献   

7.
The Amazon region has been undergoing profound transformations since the late ‘70s through forest degradation, land use changes and effects of global climate change. The perception of such changes by local communities is important for risk analysis and for subsequent societal decision making. In this study, we compare and contrast observations and perceptions of climate change by selected Amazonian communities particularly vulnerable to alterations in precipitation regimes. Two main points were analysed: (i) the notion of changes in the annual climate cycle and (ii) the notion of changes in rainfall patterns. About 72% of the sampled population reports perceptions of climate changes, and there is a robust signal of increased perception with age. Other possible predictive parameters such as gender, fishing frequency and changes in/planning of economic activities do not appear overall as contributing to perceptions. The communities’ perceptions of the changes in 2013–2014 were then compared to earlier results (2007–2008), providing an unprecedented cohort study of the same sites. Results show that climate change perceptions and measured rainfall variations differ across the basin. It was only in the southern part of the Amazon that both measured and perceived changes in rainfall patterns were consistent with decreased precipitation. However, the perception of a changing climate became more widespread and frequently mentioned, signalling an increase in awareness of climate risk.  相似文献   

8.
In this paper we present an empirically driven language to discuss climate change skepticism. We conceptualize skeptic/skepticism as an umbrella term that includes those who actively reject climate science and those who are uncertain about climate change. We propose four categories for better empirical analysis of climate skepticism: epistemic deniers, epistemic doubters (borrowing from Capstick and Pidgeon 2014), attribution deniers, and attribution doubters (borrowing from Rahmstorf 2004). Using a unique dataset of surveys (n = 1000) and interviews (n = 33) with residents of the U.S. Pacific Northwest who are skeptical about climate change, we compare those four groups across several predictors and demographic variables (age, race, gender, political ideology, religiosity, income, education, and level of trust in science) and outcome variables (environmental concern, policy support, and conspiracy ideation (adherence to the belief that climate change is a “hoax”). We demonstrate the importance of considering attitudinal uncertainty in the analysis of climate skepticism by providing evidence for the presence of a continuum of thought wherein epistemic deniers and attribution doubters make up the two ends of a continuum with more complicated distinctions between epistemic doubters and attribution deniers.  相似文献   

9.
The science of climate change is full of uncertainty, but the greater vulnerability of poor countries to the impacts of climate change is one aspect that is widely acknowledged. This paper adapts Dryzek's ‘components’ approach to discourse analysis to explore the media construction of climate change and development in UK ‘quality’ newspapers between 1997 and 2007. Eight discourses are identified from more than 150 articles, based on the entities recognised, assumptions about natural relationships, agents and their motives, rhetorical devices and normative judgements. They show a wide range of opinions regarding the impacts of climate change on development and the appropriate action to be taken. Discourses concerned with likely severe impacts have dominated coverage in the Guardian and the Independent since 1997, and in all four papers since 2006. Previously discourses proposing that climate change was a low development priority had formed the coverage in the Times and the Telegraph. The classification of different discourses allows an inductive, nuanced analysis of the factors influencing representation of climate change and development issues; an analysis which highlights the role of key events, individual actors, newspaper ideology and wider social and political factors. Overall the findings demonstrate media perceptions of a rising sense of an impending catastrophe for the developing world that is defenceless without the help of the West, perpetuating to an extent views of the poor as victims.  相似文献   

10.
Does ??climate change?? seem like a less serious problem than ??global warming?? to Americans and Europeans? Does describing the costs of climate change mitigation in terms of ??higher taxes?? instead of ??higher prices?? reduce public support for such efforts? In an experiment embedded in an American national survey, respondents were randomly assigned to rate the seriousness of ??global warming,?? ??climate change,?? or ??global climate change.?? Contrary to predictions made by a leading political strategist, the full sample and political Independents perceived ??climate change?? and ??global warming?? to be equally serious. Among Republicans, ??climate change?? was perceived to be more serious than ??global warming,?? whereas the reverse was true among Democrats. A similar experiment embedded in a survey of residents of 31 European countries showed that ??global warming?? and ??climate change?? were perceived to be equally serious problems. And an experiment embedded in an American survey showed that describing the increased costs of climate change mitigation legislation via ??higher taxes?? instead of via ??higher prices?? did not reduce popular support for such legislation, also contradicting a political strategy memo. Thus, word choice may sometimes affect public perceptions of the climate change seriousness or support for mitigation policies, but a single choice of terminology may not influence all people the same way, making strategic language choices difficult to implement.  相似文献   

11.
The streetlight effect is the tendency for researchers to focus on particular questions, cases and variables for reasons of convenience or data availability rather than broader relevance, policy import, or construct validity. To what extent does the streetlight effect condition the state of knowledge about climate change in Africa? Analysis of Google Scholar search results, both general and within leading climate change-related journals, reveals that two proxies for objective need, population and land mass, are associated with a higher volume of scholarly attention. Countries with greater exposure to the negative effects of climate change and countries with less adaptive capacity do not receive more scholarly attention. Rather, I find evidence that factors like British colonial history, strong civil liberties, and to a lesser extent political stability − factors not directly related to risks from climate change − affect scholarly attention. The streetlight effect is evident in climate change research on Africa.  相似文献   

12.
During the last decades of growing scientific, political and public attention to global climate change, it has become increasingly clear that the present and projected impacts from climate change, and the ability adapt to the these changes, are not evenly distributed across the globe. This paper investigates whether the need for knowledge on climate changes in the most vulnerable regions of the world is met by the supply of knowledge measured by scientific research publications from the last decade. A quantitative analysis of more than 15,000 scientific publications from 197 countries investigates the distribution of climate change research and the potential causes of this distribution. More than 13 explanatory variables representing vulnerability, geographical, demographical, economical and institutional indicators are included in the analysis. The results show that the supply of climate change knowledge is biased toward richer countries, which are more stable and less corrupt, have higher school enrolment and expenditures on research and development, emit more carbon and are less vulnerable to climate change. Similarly, the production of knowledge, analyzed by author affiliations, is skewed away from the poorer, fragile and more vulnerable regions of the world. A quantitative keywords analysis of all publications shows that different knowledge domains and research themes dominate across regions, reflecting the divergent global concerns in relation to climate change. In general, research on climate change in more developed countries tend to focus on mitigation aspects, while in developing countries issues of adaptation and human or social impacts (droughts and diseases) dominate. Based on these findings, this paper discusses the gap between the supply of and need for climate change knowledge, the potential causes and constraints behind the imbalanced distribution of knowledge, and its implications for adaptation and policymaking.  相似文献   

13.
We examine whether conservative white males are more likely than are other adults in the U.S. general public to endorse climate change denial. We draw theoretical and analytical guidance from the identity-protective cognition thesis explaining the white male effect and from recent political psychology scholarship documenting the heightened system-justification tendencies of political conservatives. We utilize public opinion data from ten Gallup surveys from 2001 to 2010, focusing specifically on five indicators of climate change denial. We find that conservative white males are significantly more likely than are other Americans to endorse denialist views on all five items, and that these differences are even greater for those conservative white males who self-report understanding global warming very well. Furthermore, the results of our multivariate logistic regression models reveal that the conservative white male effect remains significant when controlling for the direct effects of political ideology, race, and gender as well as the effects of nine control variables. We thus conclude that the unique views of conservative white males contribute significantly to the high level of climate change denial in the United States.  相似文献   

14.
Individual action and support for policy to tackle climate change have been linked to perceptions of political and scientific controversy and consensus concerning the issue. Recent media effects research indicates that presentation of agreement or conflict between actors’ opinions influences how audiences respond to news about climate change and policy. While some national case studies have investigated portrayals of actors’ positions on important questions regarding climate change in the media, they are largely absent from comparative research. This study addresses this gap by analysing portrayals of actor-issue-positions and the emerging patterns of controversy and consensus in German, Canadian, and US coverage. Studying a sample of occurrences of climate change-related issues (N = 902) in-depth, the results show German media present political consensus about the need to limit emissions and societal controversy about the efficacy of specific mitigation measures. Presenting mainly consensus, Canadian media report more on climate change’s impact, leaving aside the issue of efficacy. In the US, media emphasise political controversy — about the need to limit emissions and occasionally about climate change’s impact on humans. The findings, consistent with other recent publications, can best be explained by journalists selectively indexing of seemingly relevant actor-issue-positions.  相似文献   

15.
The lack of broad public support prevents the implementation of effective climate policies. This article aims to examine why citizens support or reject climate policies. For this purpose, we provide a cross-disciplinary overview of empirical and experimental research on public attitudes and preferences that has emerged in the last few years. The various factors influencing policy support are divided into three general categories: (1) social-psychological factors and climate change perception, such as the positive influences of left-wing political orientation, egalitarian worldviews, environmental and self-transcendent values, climate change knowledge, risk perception, or emotions like interest and hope; (2) the perception of climate policy and its design, which includes, among others, the preference of pull over push measures, the positive role of perceived policy effectiveness, the level of policy costs, as well as the positive effect of perceived policy fairness and the recycling of potential policy revenues; (3) contextual factors, such as the positive influence of social trust, norms and participation, wider economic, political and geographical aspects, or the different effects of specific media events and communications. Finally, we discuss the findings and provide suggestions for future research.

Policy relevance

Public opinion is a significant determinant of policy change in democratic countries. Policy makers may be reluctant to implement climate policies if they expect public opposition. This article seeks to provide a better understanding of the various factors influencing public responses to climate policy proposals. Most of the studied factors include perceptions about climate change, policy and its attributes, all of which are amenable to intervention. The acquired insights can thus assist in improving policy design and communication with the overarching objective to garner more public support for effective climate policy.  相似文献   


16.
Corey Lang 《Climatic change》2014,125(3-4):291-303
Learning about the causes and consequences of climate change can be an important avenue for supporting mitigation policy and efficient adaptation. This paper uses internet search activity data, a distinctly revealed preference approach, to examine if local weather fluctuations cause people to seek information about climate change. The results suggest that weather fluctuations do have an effect on climate change related search behavior, however not always in ways that are consistent with the projected impacts of climate change. While search activity increases with extreme heat in summer and extended periods of no rainfall and declines in extreme cold in winter, search activity also increases with colder winter and spring average temperatures. Some of the surprising results are magnified when heterogeneity by political ideology and educational attainment in responsiveness is modeled, which could suggest that different people have different perceptions about what types of weather define climate change or that climate science deniers seek information through Google. However, the results also indicate that for all groups in the political and educational spectrum, there exist weather events consistent with the predicted impacts of climate change that elicit increased information seeking.  相似文献   

17.
Marine plastic pollution is caused by humans and has become ubiquitous in the marine environment. Despite the widely acknowledged ecological consequences, the scientific evidence regarding detrimental human health impacts is currently debated, and there is no substantive evidence surrounding public opinion with respect to marine plastic pollution and human health. Results from a 15-country survey (n = 15,179) found that both the European and Australian public were highly concerned about the potential human health impacts of marine plastic pollution, and strongly supported the funding of research which aims to better understand its health/wellbeing implications. Multi-level modelling revealed that these perceptions varied across socio-demographic factors (e.g. gender), political orientation, marine contact factors (e.g. marine occupation and engagement in coastal recreation activities) and personality traits (e.g. openness, conscientiousness and agreeableness). Quantifying attitudes, as well as understanding how individual-level differences shape risk perception will enable policy makers and communicators to develop more targeted communications and initiatives that target a reduction in marine plastic pollution.  相似文献   

18.
This paper measures the influence of climate normals (average long-term surface wetness and temperature) and interannual climate variance on farms in the United States and Brazil using satellite data. The paper finds that just climate normals or just climate variance variables can explain both net revenues and how much land is used for cropland. However, because they are correlated with each other, it is important to include both normals and variance in the same statistical model to get accurate measures of their individual contribution to farm outcomes. In general, higher climate variance increases the probability that land is used for cropland in both countries and higher temperatures reduce both cropland and land values. Other annual effects were not consistent across the two countries.  相似文献   

19.
Relying on a recent survey of more than 3400 participants from China, Germany, and the US, this article empirically analyses citizens' perceptions of key guiding principles for sharing mitigation costs across countries, justification of climate policy and trust in climate policy. Our findings suggest that the ranking of the main principles for burden-sharing is identical in China, Germany, and the US: accountability followed by capability, egalitarianism, and sovereignty. Thus, on a general level, citizens across these countries seem to have a common (normative) understanding of fairness. We therefore find no evidence that citizens' (stated) fairness preferences are detrimental to future burden-sharing agreements. In all three countries a majority of citizens considers international climate policy to be justified, but citizens' perceptions differ across specific items and countries. Finally, a substantial portion of citizens in all countries exhibit a lack of trust in international climate agreements.

Policy relevance

Disagreement over the distribution of mitigation costs across countries is blocking current negotiations about a new international climate change agreement to be adopted in 2015. At the heart of this disagreement are different perceptions of distributive justice among those involved in climate policy making. Our findings show that there is no difference in the ranking of fairness principles across citizens in China, Germany, and the US, suggesting that the common ground for crafting a future agreement is larger than expected. In particular, the accountability principle should weigh heavily when deciding on the burden-sharing. In addition, our findings suggest that in order to gain support among citizens, international climate policy may need to take measures to improve trust.  相似文献   


20.
Climate change poses a challenge to countries across the world, with news media being an important source of information on the issue. To understand how and how much news media cover climate change, this study compares coverage in ten countries from the Global North and the Global South between 2006 and 2018 (N = 71,674). Based on a panel analysis, we illustrate that news media attention varies across countries and is often associated with political, scientific, and (partly) societal focusing events. Based on an automated content analysis, we also find that news media do not only cover ecological changes or climate science, but that they focus predominantly on the societal dimension of climate change: They emphasize how humans are aware of, affected by, battle, or cause climate change. Overall, the study illustrates important differences between the Global North and the Global South. While countries from the Global North cover climate change more frequently, countries from the Global South focus more on its challenges and implications for society at large, i.e., the societal dimension of climate change.  相似文献   

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