“A Statistically Representative Climate Change Debate”: Satirical Television News, Scientific Consensus, and Public Perceptions of Global Warming

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 166-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul R. Brewer ◽  
Jessica McKnight
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Television News ◽  
Public Perceptions ◽  
Scientific Consensus

scholarly journals The Experience of Consensus: Video as an Effective Medium to Communicate Scientific Agreement on Climate Change

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (5) ◽  
pp. 659-673 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew H. Goldberg ◽  
Sander van der Linden ◽  
Matthew T. Ballew ◽  
Seth A. Rosenthal ◽  
Abel Gustafson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Structural Equation Models ◽  
Effective Medium ◽  
Scientific Consensus ◽  
People’S Perception ◽  
Belief Model

Research on the gateway belief model indicates that communicating the scientific consensus on global warming acts as a “gateway” to other beliefs and support for action. We test whether a video conveying the scientific consensus on global warming is more effective than a text transcript with the same information. Results show that the video was significantly more effective than the transcript in increasing people’s perception of scientific agreement. Structural equation models indicate indirect increases in the beliefs that global warming is happening and is human-caused, and in worry about global warming, which in turn predict increased global warming issue priority.

TV and Cable News Coverage of Climate Change

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil T. Gavin
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Press Coverage ◽  
Full Understanding ◽  
Cable News ◽  
The Public ◽  
Scientific Consensus ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Country Specific

Television and cable are two routes by which broadcasters reach the public. Citizens are known to rely on a variety of media sources; however, television is seen by people in a very wide range of geographical locales, as a main or major source of reliable and trusted information. The coverage of climate change by broadcasters is, however, modest relative to press coverage of the topic and reports on topics other than global warming. Journalists in the televisual media can struggle to justify the inclusion of climate change in programming because it can lack the “newsworthiness” that draws editors and reporters to other issues. A range of incentives and pressures have tended to ensure that commentary and claims that stand outside the scientific consensus are represented in “balanced” reporting. The literature on broadcast programming output on climate change is highly diverse and often country specific. Nevertheless, certain features do stand out across locales, notably a focus on alarming (and possibly alarmist) commentary, limited reporting on the causes and consequences of climate change, and widespread reproduction of climate sceptic claims. These common forms of coverage seem unlikely to prompt full understanding of, serious engagement with, or concern about the issue.

scholarly journals Questionnaire Design Effects in Climate Change Surveys

2015 ◽  
Vol 658 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathon P. Schuldt ◽  
Sungjong Roh ◽  
Norbert Schwarz
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
The United States ◽  
Questionnaire Design ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Scientific Consensus ◽  
Design Variables ◽  
Public Opinion Surveys ◽  
Democrats And Republicans ◽  
Strong Agreement

Despite strong agreement among scientists, public opinion surveys reveal wide partisan disagreement on climate issues in the United States. We suggest that this divide may be exaggerated by questionnaire design variables. Following a brief literature review, we report on a national survey experiment involving U.S. Democrats and Republicans ( n = 2,041) (fielded August 25–September 5, 2012) that examined the effects of question wording and order on the belief that climate change exists, perceptions of scientific consensus, and support for limiting greenhouse gas emissions. Wording a questionnaire in terms of “global warming” (versus “climate change”) reduced Republicans’ (but not Democrats’) existence beliefs and weakened perceptions of the scientific consensus for both groups. Moreover, “global warming” reduced Republicans’ support for limiting greenhouse gases when this question immediately followed personal existence beliefs but not when the scientific consensus question intervened. We highlight the importance of attending to questionnaire design in the analysis of partisan differences.

scholarly journals Discussing global warming leads to greater acceptance of climate science

2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (30) ◽  
pp. 14804-14805 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew H. Goldberg ◽  
Sander van der Linden ◽  
Edward Maibach ◽  
Anthony Leiserowitz
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Social Feedback ◽  
Scientific Consensus ◽  
Causal Direction ◽  
Global Issue ◽  
Interpersonal Discussion

Climate change is an urgent global issue, with demands for personal, collective, and governmental action. Although a large body of research has investigated the influence of communication on public engagement with climate change, few studies have investigated the role of interpersonal discussion. Here we use panel data with 2 time points to investigate the role of climate conversations in shaping beliefs and feelings about global warming. We find evidence of reciprocal causality. That is, discussing global warming with friends and family leads people to learn influential facts, such as the scientific consensus that human-caused global warming is happening. In turn, stronger perceptions of scientific agreement increase beliefs that climate change is happening and human-caused, as well as worry about climate change. When assessing the reverse causal direction, we find that knowing the scientific consensus further leads to increases in global warming discussion. These findings suggest that climate conversations with friends and family enter people into a proclimate social feedback loop.

Global Warming and Climate Change

2018 ◽  
pp. 44-68
Author(s):  
Kijpokin Kasemsap
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Thermal Power ◽  
Sea Level Change ◽  
Public Perceptions ◽  
The Public ◽  
Level Change ◽  
Change Climate

This chapter indicates the advanced issues of global warming, the significant aspects of climate change, climate change and crop production, climate change and risk issues, and the public perceptions of climate change. Global warming and climate change are the important environmental concerns that have a major impact on various environmental perspectives. The effects and impacts of global warming are climate change, sea level change, water balance, and human health. The problems of global warming and climate change can be controlled by minimizing the emission of greenhouse gases into the environment through conducting laws, reducing thermal power generating stations, planting trees, and sharing vehicles. Global warming and climate change must be recognized by local governments and environment-related international organizations in order to find the effective approaches to reducing their impacts in environmental settings.

Climate Change: Forcing a Treaty

1996 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 377-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frits Bottcher
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Science Policy ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
International Treaty ◽  
Scientific Consensus ◽  
Inner Circle

The theory of global warming, for which there is little evidence, has come to dominate the world's environmental agenda to such an extent that an international treaty is based on it. This remarkable feat came about through the well-orchestrated efforts of an inner circle of science-policy makers within the IPCC, who dominated discussion in order to achieve the necessary 'scientific consensus' for politicians to take action. This paper explains how all this was achieved, and traces the global warming campaign from its inception in the 1980s to the Berlin conference of 1995.

“Global Warming” versus “Climate Change” and the Influence of Labeling on Public Perceptions

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathon P. Schuldt
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Science Communication ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Survey Methodology ◽  
Global Environmental Change ◽  
Public Perceptions ◽  
Change Communication ◽  
Social Cognitive Models

Communicating about climate change involves more than choices about which content to convey and how to convey it. It also involves a choice about how to label the issue itself, given the various terms used to represent the issue in public discourse—including “global warming,” “climate change,” and “global environmental change,” among others. An emerging literature in climate change communication and survey methodology has begun to examine the influence of labeling on public perceptions, including the cognitive accessibility of climate-related knowledge, affective responses and related judgments (problem seriousness and personal concern), and certainty that the phenomenon exists. The present article reviews this emerging work, drawing on framing theory and related social-cognitive models of information processing to shed light on the possible mechanisms that underlie labeling effects. In doing so, the article highlights the value of distinguishing between labeling and framing effects in communication research and theory, and calls for additional research into the boundary conditions of these and other labeling effects in science communication.

Modelling ecosystem adaptation and dangerous rates of global warming

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Millington ◽  
Peter M. Cox ◽  
Jonathan R. Moore ◽  
Gabriel Yvon-Durocher
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Diffusion Rate ◽  
Individual Species ◽  
Genetic Evolution ◽  
Rates Of Change ◽  
Rapid Climate Change ◽  
Warming Climate ◽  
Intraspecies Competition ◽  
High Trait

Abstract We are in a period of relatively rapid climate change. This poses challenges for individual species and threatens the ecosystem services that humanity relies upon. Temperature is a key stressor. In a warming climate, individual organisms may be able to shift their thermal optima through phenotypic plasticity. However, such plasticity is unlikely to be sufficient over the coming centuries. Resilience to warming will also depend on how fast the distribution of traits that define a species can adapt through other methods, in particular through redistribution of the abundance of variants within the population and through genetic evolution. In this paper, we use a simple theoretical ‘trait diffusion’ model to explore how the resilience of a given species to climate change depends on the initial trait diversity (biodiversity), the trait diffusion rate (mutation rate), and the lifetime of the organism. We estimate theoretical dangerous rates of continuous global warming that would exceed the ability of a species to adapt through trait diffusion, and therefore lead to a collapse in the overall productivity of the species. As the rate of adaptation through intraspecies competition and genetic evolution decreases with species lifetime, we find critical rates of change that also depend fundamentally on lifetime. Dangerous rates of warming vary from 1°C per lifetime (at low trait diffusion rate) to 8°C per lifetime (at high trait diffusion rate). We conclude that rapid climate change is liable to favour short-lived organisms (e.g. microbes) rather than longer-lived organisms (e.g. trees).

Political Preferences, Personality Traits, and Environmentalism

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alistair Soutter ◽  
René Mõttus
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Personality Traits ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Environmental Attitudes ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
Anthropogenic Climate Change ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
Party Voting

Although the scientific evidence of anthropogenic climate change continues to grow, public discourse still reflects a high level of scepticism and political polarisation towards anthropogenic climate change. In this study (N = 499) we attempted to replicate and expand upon an earlier finding that environmental terminology (“climate change” versus “global warming”) could partly explain political polarisation in environmental scepticism (Schuldt, Konrath, & Schwarz, 2011). Participants completed a series of online questionnaires assessing personality traits, political preferences, belief in environmental phenomenon, and various pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours. Those with a Conservative political orientation and/or party voting believed less in both climate change and global warming compared to those with a Liberal orientation and/or party voting. Furthermore, there was an interaction between continuously measured political orientation, but not party voting, and question wording on beliefs in environmental phenomena. Personality traits did not confound these effects. Furthermore, continuously measured political orientation was associated with pro-environmental attitudes, after controlling for personality traits, age, gender, area lived in, income, and education. The personality domains of Openness, and Conscientiousness, were consistently associated with pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours, whereas Agreeableness was associated with pro-environmental attitudes but not with behaviours. This study highlights the importance of examining personality traits and political preferences together and suggests ways in which policy interventions can best be optimised to account for these individual differences.

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