Search

Highlighting the local impacts of climate change has the potential to increase the public's awareness of and engagement with climate change. However, information about local impacts is only effective when delivered by trusted sources such as copartisan political leaders. Is information about climate change conveyed by local media sources similarly beneficial? We argue that local media are well positioned to communicate the local implications of climate change, thereby enhancing the public's risk perceptions of climate change and willingness to take climate action. We further hypothesize that climate coverage by local media, the media type that is more trusted across party lines, will have a significant influence on Republicans' climate attitudes. Using the case of Louisiana, we first demonstrate that local and national newspapers cover climate change in substantially different ways, with local media more consistently focused on local impacts. Our survey experiment of Louisiana residents reveals that Republicans viewed the coverage of a hurricane in the region more positively when it came from a local newspaper rather than a national newspaper. Furthermore, local newspapers' climate coverage increased Republicans' willingness to take action to mitigate climate change. These results provide insights into the effective communication of climate change to the public and the role of local media in mitigating partisan polarization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe is an evangelical Christian and makes no secret of that. In this interview, she describes how both her scientific expertise and her faith inform her efforts to explain climate change to the general public and especially to climate skeptics. She emphasizes the importance of responding to common questions and explicitly addressing misconceptions, and of starting climate conversations with a discussion of shared values—which, for Christians, means talking about the commandment to love one’s neighbors. Hayhoe talks about what it’s like to be a climate scientist whose work is under attack, and how her negative experiences with Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich are symptomatic of a culture in which opinions and gut feelings often take precedence over facts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

It is incredibly difficult to imagine an event the likes of which humans have never seen before. That, in and of itself, renders the challenge to prepare for such an event even more difficult because there is no frame of reference pushing us to act. How do you prepare to avoid something which has never occurred in the history of human occupation? That is the challenge of climate change. I argue that the Subprime Mortgage Crisis and its aftermath parallel the Climate Crisis in critical ways that should inform our tactics. Of course, there are obvious critical differences as well. The Subprime Crisis was a predictive failure that involved the misallocation of risk and blindness to uncertainty. This Article examines the predictive failures of the Subprime Crisis by focusing on what makes probabilities more likelv to be accurate and the circumstances in which some predictions blind us to the uncertainty of large-scale negative consequences. This Article employs the theory of the Black Swan and other critiques from Nassim Nicolas Taleb to explore the application of probability theory in the context of the Climate Crisis. At the same time, data and probabilities are insufficient to motivate both individuals and political entities to act. Even an accurate probabilistic assessment of global climate change risk is inadequate; the Climate Crisis demands a narrative that resonates with individuals at a local and emotional level. Narrative theory explains the difficulty experienced in implementing legal solutions to mitigate the Climate Crisis. This Article synthesizes the link between narrative power in creating human understanding and our propensity for making bad predictions through the human cognitive bias research of Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. While policy-makers, scientists, and political representatives play important roles in trying to shape public opinion, recent empirical research supports the idea that lawyers--through litigation--are best equipped to immediately address the Climate Crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding public distrust of science is both theoretically and practically important. While previous research has focused on the association between political ideology and trust in science, it is at best an inconsistent predictor. This study demonstrates that two dimensions of political ideology—attitudes towards governments and corporations—can more precisely predict trust in science across issues. Using a survey in the United States and Germany on the science of climate change and genetically modified foods, we find that an individual’s trust in science varies across issues and that attitudes towards government and corporations are important predictors of this trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While artistic strategies that capture the anxiety of responses to climate change - the despair and fear - confirm the need to mourn for the future, texts calling for hope can struggle to be convincing. In the contrast between the Royal Court’s 2014 production, 2071, with science Professor Chris Rapley, and Australian Jill Orr’s 2015 performance, Antipodean Epic, Rapley’s human-centric focus seems to preempt hopelessness about the future, while Orr’s performance of multi-species identities juxtaposes playfulness with ominous threat. Performance needs to do more than inform spectators about the issues, otherwise it is more effective to simply put the scientist on the stage; that is, present science’s rational action on climate change. This article responds to the persistent question about what performance can contribute to climate change by emphasizing how dramatic theatre has always been a repository of social ideas of emotions and offers this knowledge. Kari Norgaard argues that it is the emotions underlying group dynamics that prevent action on climate change and present a challenge to science’s presumption of rational action on behalf of a social whole, itself a concept that Bruno Latour provocatively demolishes. This article elaborates on ideas of emotional species and ‘eco-phenomenology’ in relation to what Merleau-Ponty describes as ‘a strange kinship between the human and the animal’ and contends that Orr’s emotional strangeness encapsulates anthropomorphic radicalism. Kinship can denote a bio-emotional affinity and attachment arising from cohabitation within an ecosystem. But ‘kinship’ is a concept that theatrical performance as collaborative art can embrace, if only in its simplest depictions of emotional relations extended to the more than human. The sensory evocation of extremes of emotional feeling and affect disrupts and draws attention to the continual emotional fleshing of the non-human. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Americans polarized on climate change despite decreasing uncertainty in climate science. Explanations focused on organized climate skeptics and ideologically driven motivated reasoning are likely insufficient. Instead, Americans may have formed their attitudes by using party elite cues. We analyze the content of over 8,000 print, broadcast, and cable news stories. We find that coverage became increasingly partisan as climate change rose in salience, but climate skeptics received scant attention. Democratic messages were more voluminous and consistently pro–climate science, while Republican messages have been scarcer and ambiguous until recently. This suggests Republican voters took cues from Democratic elites to reject climate science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The disputes about the climate change are about the future. This paper distinguishes between different discourses on climate change taht correspond to different ways of imagining the future. These differences correspond to alternative ways of conceiving the formal and practicalcognitive dimensions of future horizons. Given the relevance of social struggels over climate change and the confrontation of different imaginary futures, it concludes that, away from the diagnosis of the presentification, we find ourselves in a situation where a contested futurization dominates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims to bring close the issue of climate change and the academic research on Public Relations. It is anchored in the perspective of Critical Public Relations, which takes as its basis the exploration of the impacts of this activity on the social processes of meaning creation and power struggles. In order to understand how Public Relations research can help the reflections about climate change, two bibliographic reviews are carried out: the first exploring interfaces between public opinion and climate change, the second approaching a literature that denounces the use of public relations practices by actors and corporations who try to deny the existence of global warming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After a decade of steady growth in the acceptance of the existence of climate change and its anthropogenic causes, opinions have polarized, with almost one third of Americans, mostly Republicans, denying that the climate is changing or that human activity is responsible. What causes Americans to change their minds on this issue? Using a large panel data set, we examined the impacts of direct experience with weather anomalies, ideology, relative prioritization of environmental conservation in comparison to economic development, and motivated reasoning that adjusts individual opinion to align with others who share one's party identification. A generalized ordered logit model confirmed the importance of political ideology, party identification, and relative concern about environmental conservation and economic development on attitude change. The effect of party identification strengthened with attentiveness to news and public affairs, consistent with the logic of motivated reasoning. Recent experience with hot summers, warm winters, droughts, and natural disasters had only a minimal impact on attitude change. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

To analyze the factors affecting US public concern about the threat of climate change between January 2002 and December 2013, data from 74 separate surveys are used to construct quarterly measures of public concern over global climate change. Five factors should account for changes in levels of concern: extreme weather events, public access to accurate scientific information, media coverage, elite cues, and movement/countermovement advocacy. Structural equation modeling indicates that elite cues, movement advocacy efforts, weather, and structural economic factors influence the level of public concern about climate change. While media coverage exerts an important influence, it is itself largely a function of elite cues and economic factors. Promulgation to the public of scientific information on climate change has no effect. Information-based science advocacy has had only a minor effect on public concern, while political mobilization by elites and advocacy groups is critical in influencing climate change concern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there has been considerable focus on understanding barriers to climate information use associated with the character of climate knowledge, individuals' negative perception of its usability and constraints of decision-contexts, less attention has been paid to understanding how different scales of decision-making influence information use. In this study, we explore how water and resource managers' scales of decision-making and scope of decision responsibilities influence climate information use in two Great Lakes watersheds. We find that despite availability of tailored climate information, actual use of information remains low. Reasons include (a) lack of willingness to place climate on agendas because local managers perceive climate change as politically risky, (b) lack of formal mandate or authority at the city and county scale to translate climate information into on-the-ground action, (c) problems with the information itself, and (d) perceived lack of demand for climate information by those managers who have the mandate and authority to use (or help others use) climate information. Our findings suggest that (1) scientists and information brokers should produce information that meets a range of decision needs and reserve intensive tailoring efforts for decision makers who have willingness and authority to use climate information; (2) without support from higher levels of decision-making (e.g., state), it is unlikely that climate information use will accelerate significantly; and (3) the trend towards characterizing climate specific actions within a broader concept of sustainability practices, or 'adaptation by stealth,' should be supported as a component of the climate adaptation repertoire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Co-benefits are seen as a key factor for overcoming the problems of collective action and extended time horizons holding back mitigation of global warming. The mechanism behind this hypothesis is that public acceptance of mitigation policies constitutes a crucial limiting factor, necessitating ancillary gains such as clean air for mitigation policy to be politically robust. However, the public's preference for local pollution mitigation and concomitant failure to appreciate the benefits of global warming mitigation is assumed rather than demonstrated. In this paper, we show, first, that people distinguish between the physical manifestations of air pollution and global warming, and second, that they see both phenomena as arising from the same causes as well as having negative impacts on humans. Specifically, using a survey experimental design with open-ended questions in an urban Chinese setting, we demonstrate that citizens relate glacier melt and sea-level rise to global warming, while linking the local phenomenon of smog almost exclusively to air pollution. At the same time, respondents link impacts on humans and vehicle/industrial pollution topics with both air pollution and global warming. These findings are relevant to decision-makers as they suggest that the public values mitigation of global warming in its own right. Our novel method may shed new light on a range of issues relating to energy, the economy, and environmental issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media provides a new and expanding forum to discuss climate change. Existing research in this area has focused mainly on Twitter and discussions in the United States, while online discussion of climate change in China has been largely unexamined. To fill this gap, we analyzed discussion about climate change on China's premiere microblogging website, Weibo, over a two month period surrounding the Paris Climate Summit. The results show that institutional users-state media and international actors-dominate the discussion, while Chinese NGOs and public intellectuals are mostly absent from the scene. Discussion on climate change is concentrated in major urban areas, especially in Beijing. A significant proportion of Weibo posts aim to raise climate change awareness; few users discuss topics such as climate science, climate change's actual impacts on China, or China's low-carbon policy measures. Climate change appears as a global threat that has little connection to China's national context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The winter of 2013/2014 saw a series of severe storms hit the UK, leading to widespread flooding, a major emergency response and extensive media exposure. Previous research indicates that experiencing extreme weather events has the potential to heighten engagement with climate change, however the process by which this occurs remains largely unknown, and establishing a clear causal relationship from experience to perceptions is methodologically challenging. The UK winter flooding offered a natural experiment to examine this question in detail. We compare individuals personally affected by flooding ( n = 162) to a nationally representative sample ( n = 975). We show that direct experience of flooding leads to an overall increased salience of climate change, pronounced emotional responses and greater perceived personal vulnerability and risk perceptions. We also present the first evidence that direct flooding experience can give rise to behavioural intentions beyond individual sustainability actions, including support for mitigation policies, and personal climate adaptation in matters unrelated to the direct experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People's perceptions can reflect local issues and concerns to reveal actual impacts of climate change/variability (CCV) on their lives and livelihoods. As climate change (CC) adaptation strategies are to be implemented at the local level, involving local people right from the beginning of problem diagnosis ensures their successful implementation. This study has adopted a perception-based approach to assess CCV, its effects in terms of extreme events and prioritize adaptation strategies to enhance resilience of the communities, in the Budhi Gandaki River Basin (BGRB), Nepal. It is likely that valuing local knowledge and experiences makes people more responsive to the intervention and backing up the perception results by scientific data analysis establishes a sense of legitimacy to what people have perceived. Results showed that people have perceived CCV in various forms such as increase in temperature, decrease in pre-monsoon and monsoon rainfall, and more erratic rainfall timing in recent years. These perceived impacts are consistent with trends in observed rainfall and temperature data in the study area. The CCV has led to increase in frequency of extreme events - both floods and droughts, and associated impacts. As an adaptation strategy, people prioritized 'technological measures' as the most effective for both flood and drought. The analysis provided herein confirms that combining scientific facts with people's perception helps establish more reliant knowledgebase of CC to better plan and develop climate-resilient communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This experimental study investigates how imagery and text in news coverage of climate change affect perceptions of issue importance, efficacy, and intentions to conserve energy and engage in climate change-related political behavior. The results reveal that images of solar panels and texts that discuss actions to address climate change increase individuals’ perceptions of efficacy. Perceived efficacy and issue importance each have a positive association with behavior change. In contrast to previous studies, the present investigation finds no evidence that exposure to images of either climate impacts or climate pollution negatively influence perceived efficacy or positively influence perceived issue importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite Church teachings on climate change and most Catholics accepting the science and being concerned, a large minority of Catholic laity and clergy deny it. This multisited, qualitative study, which includes supporting quantitative data, focuses on how skepticism is articulated by Catholic climate change skeptics, and transmitted and transmuted through Catholic networks. While Catholic climate change skeptics echo other skeptics, they also bring Catholic perspectives, often mingled with conservative religious and political views. Some express concern common among other Christian skeptics that believing in climate change leads to neopaganism and promotes antihuman sentiments. The focus is on Catholic climate change skeptics and their ideas, not Catholicism perse, and various cultural, social, and psychological factors, including their understanding of Catholicism, that impact their climate change skepticism. This contributes to the growing scholarship on climate change skepticism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing literature has sought to understand the relationships between religion, politics and views about climate change and climate change policy in the United States. However, little comparative research has been conducted in other countries. This study draws on data from the 2011 Australian National Church Life Survey to examine the beliefs of Australian churchgoers from some 20 denominations about climate change--whether or not it is real and whether it is caused by humans--and political factors that explain variation in these beliefs. Pentecostals, Baptist and Churches of Christ churchgoers, and people from the smallest Protestant denominations were less likely than other churchgoers to believe in anthropogenic climate change, and voting and hierarchical and individualistic views about society predicted beliefs. There was some evidence that these views function differently in relation to climate change beliefs depending on churchgoers' degree of opposition to gay rights. These findings are of interest not only for the sake of international comparisons, but also in a context where Australia plays a role in international climate change politics that is disproportionate to its small population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of integrating local perspectives into international debates about climate change has received increasing attention. Local perspectives on the impacts of climate change often focus on issues of loss and harm and support the widely recognized need for global responses to climate change as suggested by scientists and international institutions. Here we argue that local perspectives need to be addressed not only from outside communities but also from inside in order to understand people's responses to climate change: their concerns, their understanding of themselves as members of particular groups and their position in the world, their view on responsibilities for causing climate change, and their perceptions of possible responses. The ethnographic work at two study sites, one in Carhuaz, Cordillera Blanca, Peru, and one in Stilfs, South Tyrolean Alps, Italy, identifies dominant perceptions on climate change at each site with a particular focus on glacier retreat. The case studies show that the view on the need for global action as response to climate change is not necessarily shared throughout the world, and thus presents a challenge to global collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social divides on climate change are often attributed to political factors, but new psychological research points to a wide range of group influences beyond politics that shape public opinion on climate change. We highlight two commonly overlooked sources of influence that represent key underutilized leverage points for public outreach: (1) the roles of racial, ethnic, and cultural identities and (2) the power of social perceptions (i.e., meta-beliefs) in mobilizing public action. This research points to an urgent need to broaden how scientists, policymakers, and the media think about public engagement and consensus building in the domain of climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extent of the consensus among scientists on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) has the potential to influence public opinion and the attitude of political leaders and thus matters greatly to society. The history of science demonstrates that if we wish to judge the level of a scientific consensus and whether the consensus position is likely to be correct, the only reliable source is the peer-reviewed literature. During 2013 and 2014, only 4 of 69,406 authors of peer-reviewed articles on global warming, 0.0058% or 1 in 17,352, rejected AGW. Thus, the consensus on AGW among publishing scientists is above 99.99%, verging on unanimity. The U.S. House of Representatives holds 40 times as many global warming rejecters as are found among the authors of scientific articles. The peer-reviewed literature contains no convincing evidence against AGW. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A simple question about climate change, with one choice designed to match consensus statements by scientists, was asked on 35 US nationwide, single-state or regional surveys from 2010 to 2015. Analysis of these data (over 28,000 interviews) yields robust and exceptionally well replicated findings on public beliefs about anthropogenic climate change, including regional variations, change over time, demographic bases, and the interacting effects of respondent education and political views. We find that more than half of the US public accepts the scientific consensus that climate change is happening now, caused mainly by human activities. A sizable, politically opposite minority (about 30 to 40%) concede the fact of climate change, but believe it has mainly natural causes. Few (about 10 to 15%) say they believe climate is not changing, or express no opinion. The overall proportions appear relatively stable nationwide, but exhibit place-to-place variations. Detailed analysis of 21 consecutive surveys within one fairly representative state (New Hampshire) finds a mild but statistically significant rise in agreement with the scientific consensus over 2010–2015. Effects from daily temperature are detectable but minor. Hurricane Sandy, which brushed New Hampshire but caused no disaster there, shows no lasting impact on that state’s time series—suggesting that non-immediate weather disasters have limited effects. In all datasets political orientation dominates among individual-level predictors of climate beliefs, moderating the otherwise positive effects from education. Acceptance of anthropogenic climate change rises with education among Democrats and Independents, but not so among Republicans. The continuing series of surveys provides a baseline for tracking how future scientific, political, socioeconomic or climate developments impact public acceptance of the scientific consensus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews the literature on factors and conditions shaping the development and implementation of climate policy at the city level, with a special focus in developing countries. It identifies and analyses three main sets of conditions that are critical for explaining the implementation of urban climate policy: the capacity of municipal governments, the way climate policies are linked (or not) to local issues, and the role of local political actors and factors. The article outlines that there is a tendency in the literature to fall into the 'everything matters' trap when analyzing policy implementation. Many reports usually conclude by making long lists of factors that are relevant for the development of local climate policy. In contrast, this review stresses the need for a more 'configurational' approach to the study of urban climate policy, which allows for identifying different and alternative configurations of conditions under which climate policies can be successfully advanced and implemented at city level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public participation in decision making is a central component of the planning process; however, implementing effective engagement initiatives to resolve complex planning and policy problems, such as climate change, is challenging for planners. These challenges are particularly acute in coastal communities throughout Australia, where many settlements are at risk of future climate perturbations. Using the International Association for Public Participation framework for public participation, we analyse three local government led public participation initiatives in New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania, Australia. Our analysis suggests there are three critical factors that can influence the level of public participation in the context of climate change adaptation: the technocratic approach to decision making; absent high order government support; and the lack of evaluation mechanisms for public participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research indicates that socio-demographic attributes are important predictors of environmental concern. However, this research mainly focused on Western societies, with minimal representation of non-Western contexts. In this article, we argue that a stronger representation of non-Western societies is necessary for a more global understanding of pro-environmentalism. On this basis, we explored socio-demographic differences in environmental concern and willingness to pay for addressing climate change in Pakistan. We aimed to assess demographic trends in public perceptions of environmental problems in the Pakistan, and their level of convergence with Western-derived theories of the social bases of environmental concern. Although our findings are largely congruent with trends previously observed in Western contexts, we found some divergent demographic patterns in environmental concern among Pakistanis that are likely the result of a number of contextual influences that prevail in Pakistan and other similar developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is one of the most significant science issues facing humanity; yet, teaching students about climate change is challenging: not only is it multidisciplinary, but also it is contentious and debated in political, social and media forums. Students need to be equipped with an understanding of climate change science to be able to participate in this discourse. The purpose of this study was to examine Western Australian high school students’ understanding of climate change and the greenhouse effect, in order to identify their alternative conceptions about climate change science and provide a baseline for more effective teaching. A questionnaire designed to elicit students’ understanding and alternative conceptions was completed by 438 Year 10 students (14–15 years old). A further 20 students were interviewed. Results showed that students know different features of both climate change and the greenhouse effect, however not necessarily all of them and the relationships between. Five categories of alternative conceptions were identified. The categories were (1) the greenhouse effect and the ozone layer; (2) types of greenhouse gases; (3) types of radiation; (4) weather and climate and (5) air pollution. These findings provide science educators a basis upon which to develop strategies and curriculum resources to improve their students’ understanding and decision-making skills about the socioscientific issue, climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Public flood protection cannot eliminate totally the risk of flooding. Hence, private mitigation measures which proactively protect homes from being flooded or reduce flood damage are an essential part of modern flood risk management. This study analyses private flood mitigation measures among German households. The final data set covers more than 4200 households from all parts of the country, including flood plains as well as areas which are typically not at a high risk of riverine flooding. The results suggest that the propensity to mitigate flood damage increases i.a. with past damage experience and damage expectations for the future. The latter effect can be interpreted as a ‘climate adaptation signal’ in the flood mitigation behaviour. All other factors remaining equal, a strong belief in a climate-change-induced increase of personal flood damage in the next decades correlates with an increase of the probability of flood mitigation by more than 10 percentage points. Moreover, empirical evidence for moral hazard in the flood mitigation behaviour cannot be observed. Households expecting insurance coverage do not reduce their mitigation efforts. Likewise, the expectation of government relief payments hinders mitigation only for some groups of households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rhetoric can facilitate movement beyond impasse on whether and how to confront climate change, enabling more effective public reasoning. Our evidence comes from a small deliberative group that contained climate-change deniers. We show how, in this setting, bridging rhetoric (capable of reaching those who do not share the speaker’s perspective) managed to bring deniers and others into accepting that particular greenhouse-gas mitigation measures were in the range of acceptable policy choices – even as deniers continued to dispute the existence of anthropogenic climate change. What we observed drives home the need for rhetorical bridges in broader public debates on climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study empirically investigates the relationship between an individual's concern about climate change and one's actions reducing the effects of climate change and intentions to pay for mitigating such effects. Particular emphasis is placed on the role of economic factors that may serve as a contextual factor influencing these relationships. Based on data from the Life in Transition Survey covering individuals from 35 countries in 2010, this study uses information regarding the financial crisis of 2008 to inform about economic factors. The results suggest that respondents exhibiting higher climate change concerns are not only more likely to intend to pay for mitigating the effects of climate change, but they are also more likely to take actions in order to minimize such effects. The results also indicate that economic factors only have a moderating effect on the relationship between higher climate change concerns and actions. Furthermore, the results also point to the relevance of a country's state of economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the findings from cognitive and developmental psychology, I argue that the wait-and-see approach to climate change originates from a misconception that heat is a material-like object. This ontological assumption exemplifies a general cognitive bias--we prefer to treat various ontological entities, including processes, as objects. The object bias is ultimately associated with our core cognition of objects, a system of representations that consists mainly of spatiotemporal information. To persuade people to act immediately on climate change, we need a special conceptual change to abandon the well-entrenched object bias and the related misconception of the nature of heat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the perspectives of several students including Meghan M. Curry, Jessica K. Rendon, and Jessica Hartshorn regarding the roles of scientific tools in solving various global issues, presented during the 2012 Student Debate Competition at the annual meeting of Entomological Society of America (ESA). Among the topics discussed are the issues of the world's growing population, the solutions for global climate change, and the best solutions in meeting the growing demand of energy.

How do individuals assess the credibility of experts in various policy domains? Under what conditions does the public interpret particular scientific knowledge claims as being trustworthy and credible? Using data collected from an online survey experiment, administered to 1,507 adult residents of Quebec, this paper seeks answers to these questions. Specifically, we examine variation in the way members of the public perceive the credibility of scientific experts in the areas of climate change, shale gas extraction, cell phones, and wind farms. Our results contribute to the existing literatures on public perceptions of policy experts, framing, and cultural theory. We find that individuals evaluate expert credibility based on the way in which experts frame issues, and on the congruity/dissonance between these expert communication frames and one's underlying worldview. However, we also identify limits to these framing effects. Our findings shed light on the interaction of framing and political worldviews in shaping public perceptions of expert credibility in various policymaking contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To radically address the problem of climate change, it is not enough to modify specific attitudes and behaviors while upholding the present paradigms. This article aims to show why modifications will never bring about radical carbon emission reductions. We discuss what it implies to desire radical change, using contemporary philosophy as a method. We argue that a key requirement to achieve radical emission reductions is that we as human beings adopt responsibility that brings with it a continuous commitment to the process of change. Acting on the new understanding of responsibility as an internal mindset toward the bringing about of radical change requires a cooperative decision-making model and a new understanding of leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2006, Adam J. Berinsky and Donald R. Kinder published findings in the Journal of Politics that demonstrated that framing news as a story influences how individuals cognitively organize concepts and information. The study presented here moves forward in this tradition. This research combines samples obtained in the springs of 2009 and 2010 while conducting online experiments. In these experiments, slightly over 2,000 respondents are asked to organize concepts presented in one of three culturally nuanced stories about climate change or where information is presented as a list. Hierarchical cluster analysis indicates that when respondents are exposed to culturally congruent stories, respondent organizational patterns are more likely to mirror the story. We discuss the implications of these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past few years, adaptation to climate change has emerged as a dominant new theme in development politics, to an extent that it can almost be considered as a new development paradigm. Yet, this new paradigm and its effects are not unproblematic, as the empirical research in three East African countries presented in this article indicates. The article argues that the current transformation of environmental governance reflects not only climate change as such, but also - and perhaps even more so - the discourse of a changing climate and its effect on development politics. The empirical evidence shows that African farmers, politicians and government officials often respond to the new 'adaptation paradigm' more readily than to directly felt phenomena caused by a changing climate. We therefore argue that the ontology of the concept of adaptation to climate change needs to be readjusted. Epistemologically, our concern is to trace the discourse of adaptation to climate change across multiple sites, i.e. how it 'travels' between global epistemic communities and adaptation projects in developing countries. Drawing on actor-network theory and its concept of translation, we provide an alternative view of adaptation to climate change by highlighting the contested and multi-sited narratives and practices that bring adaptation into being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change has emerged as one of the most important issues of the twenty-first century. Recent opinion polls show rising public awareness of climate change. Yet considerable cross-national variation exists in the intensity of public concern and in public willingness to pay for addressing climate change. Drawing on twelve multinational surveys, we examine two aggregate conditions--a country's affluence and its vulnerability to climate risks--as key factors underlying cross-national differences in public support for and commitment to costly climate policies. In contrast to the post-materialism thesis, we find "strong" concern about climate change to be higher in developing countries. Contrary to expectation, climate vulnerability had little effect on public concern, but did have significant impact on some measures of personal commitment and support for climate policies. The analysis indicates that, in most countries examined, high concern about climate change is only beginning to translate into personal commitment to action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Farming and ranching communities in arid lands are vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change. We surveyed Nevada ranchers and farmers ( n = 481) during 2009-2010 to assess climate change related knowledge, assumptions, and perceptions. The large majority of this group agreed that we are in a period of climate change; however, only 29 % of them believed that human activity is playing a significant role. Female ranchers and farmers hold more scientifically accurate knowledge about climate change than do their male counterparts, regardless of Democratic or Republican affiliation. Partisan affiliation, political ideology, and gender have strong impacts on climate change knowledge and perceptions. Republican, conservative and male rural residents view climate change as a low national priority, less important to themselves, and less harmful to their communities. Female ranchers and farmers are more concerned about the negative impacts of climate change. We found that only 4 % of our subjects ( n = 299) attribute local environment changes to climate change or global warming. The knowledge gained from this study will help researchers and natural resource managers understand how to best communicate about climate change with rural communities, and support policy makers in identifying potentially effective adaptation and mitigation policies and outreach programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban areas are pivotal to global adaptation and mitigation efforts. But how do cities actually perform in terms of climate change response? This study sheds light on the state of urban climate change adaptation and mitigation planning across Europe. Europe is an excellent test case given its advanced environmental policies and high urbanization. We performed a detailed analysis of 200 large and medium-sized cities across 11 European countries and analysed the cities' climate change adaptation and mitigation plans. We investigate the regional distribution of plans, adaptation and mitigation foci and the extent to which planned greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions contribute to national and international climate objectives. To our knowledge, it is the first study of its kind as it does not rely on self-assessment (questionnaires or social surveys). Our results show that 35 % of European cities studied have no dedicated mitigation plan and 72 % have no adaptation plan. No city has an adaptation plan without a mitigation plan. One quarter of the cities have both an adaptation and a mitigation plan and set quantitative GHG reduction targets, but those vary extensively in scope and ambition. Furthermore, we show that if the planned actions within cities are nationally representative the 11 countries investigated would achieve a 37 % reduction in GHG emissions by 2050, translating into a 27 % reduction in GHG emissions for the EU as a whole. However, the actions would often be insufficient to reach national targets and fall short of the 80 % reduction in GHG emissions recommended to avoid global mean temperature rising by 2 °C above pre-industrial levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective and just decisionmaking on geoengineering will require greater appreciation of the diverse ways in which people conceive of and relate to the idea of climate control. This study targets the UK national press as a domain in which to begin intercepting discourses of geoengineering forming within the UK. Frame analysis is conducted and the issue frames of Innovation, Risk, Governance and Accountability, Economics, Morality, Security and Justice are identified within the corpus of articles surveyed. These frames amplify different priorities and values, engaging a rich and diverse portfolio of attitudes to climate risks. Rather than being, as we envisaged, 'issue specific', the frames that emerged from our analysis are actually categorised most effectively according to 'generic' frames that could apply to a range of other issues. Underlying assumptions about the nature-human relationship are found to be an interesting influence on frame construction. Further research is needed to explore this relationship in wider cultural contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using survey data, the authors developed an architecture of climate change beliefs in Norway and their correlation with support for policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. A strong majority of respondents believe that anthropogenic climate change is occurring and identify carbon dioxide emissions as a cause. Regression analysis shows that respondents recognize the effectiveness of direct actions that require difficult trade-offs, such as imposing a carbon tax. Yet, their voting intentions suggest a preference for policies that have at best an indirect effect on reducing climate change. Most respondents favor policy options that are generally good for the environment and cause no personal hardship. The disconnection between perceptions about the effectiveness of direct actions and support for less effective mitigation approaches may reflect the respondents’ collective distancing from the problem of climate change. This could be an important consideration in the design of communication strategies that promote emission abatement policies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Climate change, and what is to be done about it, is a matter of enormous importance and urgency, on which every educated citizen in a democracy ought to try to make up her mind. It is strongly urged that holders of opposed views on the matter should not be too ready to dismiss one another as knaves or fools. It is concluded, with some regret, that alarmists, who hold that we are headed for catastrophe unless we take drastic steps, have made a better case than have their opponents. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article looks at the politics of climate change mitigation in the U.S., as of 2013, focusing on the balance between lobbying the federal government and grassroots organizing. It notes that since 2008, the U.S. public has become more skeptical about the seriousness of global warming and less convinced of the need to address it. It describes how the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama has handled the issue, citing a 2009 administration meeting with environmentalists. It discusses the Breakthrough Institute policy institute founded by authors Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus as well as the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) advocacy group. It cites a study of the U.S. climate change movement by political scientist Theda Skocpol.

Bangladesh is considered worldwide as one of the most vulnerable countries to the impacts of climate change. This is due to its unique geographic location, dominance of floodplains, and low elevation of land from the sea, high density of population, high levels of poverty, and overwhelming dependence on nature, its resources and services. The coastal areas, especially offshore islands are most vulnerable considering the impacts of climate change and variability. Adaptation and mitigation strategies and action measures are to be taken at government and policy level of Bangladesh to combat future threats of climate change. Before taking these types of initiatives, it is needed to know the knowledge and concepts, capacity and strength, and awareness level of the coastal community. The objectives of this study are to assess the people's perceptions and understanding on climate change among adult and juvenile age groups of the community people; and to evaluate the awareness level of them on the impacts of climate change in the study area. Study area has been selected from the eastern coast of Bangladesh. The methods followed for the research were literature review, key informant interviews with representatives from local government and stakeholders, questionnaire survey with local adult and juvenile people. The study revealed that a significant portion of the society was not aware enough regarding the impacts of climate change and variability; and has hazy knowledge about the climate change and sea level rise of their adjacent coast. But, they have been observing the extreme events of weather like cyclones and storm surges, coastal erosion, and the changes of sea surface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Outlier voices—particularly those views often dubbed climate “skeptics,” “denialists,” or “contrarians”—have gained prominence and traction in mass media over time through a mix of internal workings such as journalistic norms, institutional values and practices, and external political economic, cultural, and social factors. In this context, the article explores how and why these actors—through varied interventions and actions—garner disproportionate visibility in the public arena via mass media. It also examines how media content producers grapple with ways to represent claims makers, as well as their claims, so that they clarify rather than confuse these critical issues. To the extent that mass media misrepresent and/or gratuitously cover these outlier views, they contribute to ongoing illusory, misleading, and counterproductive debates within the public and policy communities, and poorly serve the collective public. Furthermore, working through mass media outlets, these outlier interventions demonstrate themselves to be (at times deliberately) detrimental to efforts seeking to enlarge rather than constrict the spectrum of possibility for varied forms of climate action. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The conservative “echo chamber” is a crucial element of the climate change denial machine. Although social scientists have begun to examine the role of conservative media in the denial campaign, this article reports the first examination of conservative newspaper columnists. Syndicated columnists are very influential because they reach a large audience. We analyze 203 opinion editorials (“op-eds”) written by 80 different columnists published from 2007 to 2010, a period that saw a number of crucial events and policy proposals regarding climate change. We focus on the key topics the columnists address and the skeptical arguments they employ. The overall results reveal a highly dismissive view of climate change and critical stance toward climate science among these influential conservative pundits. They play a crucial role in amplifying the denial machine’s messages to a broad segment of the American public. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]