scholarly journals The dimensions of public opinion on climate change: belief, issue salience and support for government action

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Crawley
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
The Political ◽  
Issue Salience ◽  
Apparent Lack ◽  
Government Action ◽  
Political Response

<p>Climate change is a problem that requires urgent attention. In most countries, large sections of the population accept that climate change is happening and that it is a serious problem. Despite this, the political response in many developed nations has so far been inadequate, and emissions continue to climb globally. Some authors have used this apparent lack of policy responsiveness to public preferences as evidence that vested interests have excessive influence over climate change policy. But this perspective does not fully account for the complexity of climate change opinion. For instance, many people who are highly concerned about climate change rank it as a low priority issue compared with issues such as the economy, healthcare and education. Moreover, some people who believe that climate change is happening and is a serious problem do not support government action to address it. </p> <p>I therefore investigate public opinion on climate change in terms of three dimensions: belief, issue salience and support for government action. Focussing on developed countries, I rely on survey data from Eurobarometer, the New Zealand Election Study and data collected as part of this research project. I investigate the nature of opinions with respect to these three dimensions and examine how opinions vary between individuals and across countries. Furthermore, I investigate the forces that shape climate opinion on these three dimensions, including external influence (such as messages from interest groups), individual characteristics (such as social and political attitudes) and country-level factors (such as country wealth). </p> <p>I find that belief is high in most developed countries, as is support for government action. However, salience is low in most countries, particularly in the less wealthy developed countries. Political orientation and other social attitudes relate positively to belief, issue salience and support for government action, although the relationships tend to be stronger for salience. By investigating the factors that shape climate opinion in different dimensions, this study contributes to knowledge of why people hold particular climate views. Moreover, my examination of the complexity of public opinion on climate change in terms of belief, issue salience and support for government action sheds light on why the political response to climate change has been ineffective in many countries.</p>

scholarly journals The dimensions of public opinion on climate change: belief, issue salience and support for government action

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Crawley
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
The Political ◽  
Issue Salience ◽  
Apparent Lack ◽  
Government Action ◽  
Political Response

<p>Climate change is a problem that requires urgent attention. In most countries, large sections of the population accept that climate change is happening and that it is a serious problem. Despite this, the political response in many developed nations has so far been inadequate, and emissions continue to climb globally. Some authors have used this apparent lack of policy responsiveness to public preferences as evidence that vested interests have excessive influence over climate change policy. But this perspective does not fully account for the complexity of climate change opinion. For instance, many people who are highly concerned about climate change rank it as a low priority issue compared with issues such as the economy, healthcare and education. Moreover, some people who believe that climate change is happening and is a serious problem do not support government action to address it. </p> <p>I therefore investigate public opinion on climate change in terms of three dimensions: belief, issue salience and support for government action. Focussing on developed countries, I rely on survey data from Eurobarometer, the New Zealand Election Study and data collected as part of this research project. I investigate the nature of opinions with respect to these three dimensions and examine how opinions vary between individuals and across countries. Furthermore, I investigate the forces that shape climate opinion on these three dimensions, including external influence (such as messages from interest groups), individual characteristics (such as social and political attitudes) and country-level factors (such as country wealth). </p> <p>I find that belief is high in most developed countries, as is support for government action. However, salience is low in most countries, particularly in the less wealthy developed countries. Political orientation and other social attitudes relate positively to belief, issue salience and support for government action, although the relationships tend to be stronger for salience. By investigating the factors that shape climate opinion in different dimensions, this study contributes to knowledge of why people hold particular climate views. Moreover, my examination of the complexity of public opinion on climate change in terms of belief, issue salience and support for government action sheds light on why the political response to climate change has been ineffective in many countries.</p>

Public opinion on climate change: Belief and concern, issue salience and support for government action

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 102-121
Author(s):  
Sam Crawley ◽  
Hilde Coffé ◽  
Ralph Chapman
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Climate Policy ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Latent Class ◽  
Issue Salience ◽  
Government Action ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Individual

Climate policy across the developed world remains inadequate, despite high levels of concern about climate change among the public. Yet public opinion on climate change is complex, with individuals differing on three key opinion dimensions: belief and concern, issue salience, and support for government action. In this study, we investigate how these dimensions intersect at the individual level. Based on data from an online survey conducted in 2018 in the United Kingdom (N = 787), a latent class analysis reveals that there are five climate change opinion publics. The two largest publics have strong beliefs that climate change is occurring, but view it as a low salience issue, or are wary of government action to address it. We also investigate sociopolitical covariates of each public. By providing a detailed picture of climate change views, these findings can help us to better understand the relationship between public opinion and climate policy.

Introduction

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J. Hess
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Molecular Biology ◽  
Industrial Pollution ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Regulatory Agencies ◽  
The Political ◽  
Public Concerns

Many of the political problems of the day—climate change, industrial pollution, nanomaterials, new technologies of surveillance, and the products of molecular biology—involve complex scientific and technological issues that can provoke sharp divisions in public opinion. Often environmentalists and other advocates of change call for policies that address public concerns with new and existing technologies, and often industrial corporations reply that such concerns are unwarranted and that their technologies are safe and broadly beneficial. Legislatures, regulatory agencies, executive offices, the courts, and voters find themselves caught in the middle, and sometimes they also become divided over how best to develop and to regulate industry....

scholarly journals Increasing Influence of Party Identification on Perceived Scientific Agreement and Support for Government Action on Climate Change in the United States, 2006–12

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron M. McCright ◽  
Riley E. Dunlap ◽  
Chenyang Xiao
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Party Identification ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
Public Understanding ◽  
Government Action ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
Reduce Emissions ◽  
Litmus Test

Abstract Since the mid-2000s, U.S. conservative leaders and Republican politicians have stepped up efforts to challenge the reality and seriousness of anthropogenic climate change (ACC). Especially with the rise of the Tea Party in 2009, ACC denial has become something of a litmus test for Republican politicians to prove their conservative bona fides. Two recent studies find that misperception of scientific agreement on ACC is associated with lower levels of support for government action to deal with ACC. Using nationally representative survey data from 2006 and 2012, the analytical model developed in those two studies was applied to investigate whether the effect of political orientation on perceived scientific agreement and support for government action to reduce emissions has increased since the heightened ACC denial by Republican politicians beginning in 2009. The results indicated that political ideology and party identification are moderately strong predictors of perceived scientific agreement; beliefs about the timing, human cause, seriousness, and threat of global warming; and support for government action in both 2006 and 2012. Further, as expected, the effect of party identification on perceived scientific agreement and support for government action increased from 2006 and 2012, evidence that rank-and-file Republicans in the general public are more strongly embracing the ACC denial espoused by Republican politicians in recent years. Such increased partisanship poses a formidable barrier to public understanding of ACC.

scholarly journals The Sociology of Global Warming: A Scientometric Look

Studia Humana ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-33
Author(s):  
Riccardo Campa
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Mass Media ◽  
The Political ◽  
Anthropogenic Global Warming ◽  
Environmental Disasters ◽  
Political World ◽  
Political Ideologies ◽  
The Impact

Abstract The theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) enjoys considerable consensus among experts. It is widely recognized that global industrialization is producing an increase in the planet’s temperatures and causing environmental disasters. Still, there are scholars – although a minority – who consider groundless either the idea of global warming itself or the idea that it constitutes an existential threat for humanity. This lack of scientific unanimity (as well as differing political ideologies) ignites controversies in the political world, the mass media, and public opinion as well. Sociologists have been dealing with this issue for some time, producing researches and studies based on their specific competencies. Using scientometric tools, this article tries to establish to what extent and in which capacity sociologists are studying the phenomenon of climate change. Particular attention is paid to meta-analytical aspects such as consensus, thematic trends, and the impact of scientific works.

Partisan Cueing and Polarization in Public Opinion About Climate Change

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah Lynn Guber
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Selective Exposure ◽  
Factual Knowledge ◽  
Issue Salience ◽  
Aggressive Action ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Media Narratives ◽  
Do So

Despite an accumulation of scientific evidence on both the causes and consequences of climate change, U.S. public opinion on the subject has splintered sharply along party lines. While a vast majority of Democrats now believe that global warming is real, that its effects will happen within their lifetime, and that human activity is the dominant cause, Republicans have grown increasingly skeptical, creating a yawning gap that complicates efforts to communicate the urgency of the problem and the need for aggressive action. When attitudes harden and diverge, it is often driven by the behavior of political elites, who shape the frames and mental models that people use to interpret events. Scholars have long observed that people resort instinctively to heuristics to ease the burden of making decisions, especially on issues like climate, where there is an obvious disconnect between scientific understanding and mass competence. Those cues, however, are often unreliable and prone to cognitive bias. When voters act upon signals provided by their preferred political party and by selective exposure to preferred media outlets, they may do so mechanically, with little regard for the accuracy of the evidence that they receive, or they may ignore and distort information in a way that reinforces preexisting assumptions. In the end, beliefs about climate change are as complex as the issue itself, which suggests that awareness of the problem and an understanding of its effects will not translate automatically—or even easily—into increased concern, issue salience, or policy preferences. The “pictures in our heads,” to borrow Walter Lippmann’s famous phrase, are shaped less by factual knowledge than by a variety of other factors more difficult to control—by personal experience and assorted real-world cues (such as the weather), but also by opinion leaders, media narratives, and political rhetoric, each of which provides a competing frame of reference with the power to filter and mislead. Because climate change has become so heavily laden with values and so absorbed into partisan identity, it will be nearly impossible to build social consensus through conventional means. Once a “hard” issue for all, which seemed to demand sophisticated calculation or technical expertise, it has now become an “easy” one for many, where the reactions that it prompts are familiar, stable, and symbolic, increasingly polarized, immune to rational argument, and vulnerable to manipulation by elites.

Paris climate summit aims to avoid Copenhagen mistakes

2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
The Political ◽  
Shale Oil ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Tar Sands ◽  
Economic Climate ◽  
International Attention ◽  
Low Carbon Technologies

Significance Climate policy will be of high international attention in the lead up to the UN's climate change summit in Paris in December (COP 21). The political and economic climate makes it more likely that a multinational deal can be reached than at the 2009 Copenhagen summit. While unseen difficulties could intercede, doubt now revolves around the nature of a deal, rather than whether a deal will be reached. Impacts Even weak national targets will result in more regulation for carbon-intensive businesses and more incentives for low-carbon technologies. A deal could have serious implications for high-cost, energy-intensive extractors in the tar sands and shale oil sectors. Coal-only companies will see little room for growth in developed countries. Shipping and aviation were left out of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol but will be included this time.

scholarly journals Prediction of Election by Twitter

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 847-850
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Context Awareness ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
Classification Model ◽  
The Political ◽  
Key Players

Nowadays social media like Twitter and Facebook etc. is one of the key players. Twitters are micro blogging sites by which users sent their opinions and views in brief. The information generated by one user can be seen by everyone. Therefore to analyze twitter sentiment can be a crucial task. For this task, we have used various approaches like novel based approach and machine learning and many other rules like context awareness are used for the detection of public opinion and prediction of results. We are studying the user tweets during elections. Meaningful tweets are collected on a definite period.The feasibility of the developed classification model is identified by our proposed work to identify the political orientation on the tweets and other user-based features. The technique for the collection of tweets in time has played an important role. When the outcome of applied technique competes with survey agencies result was published before elections result.

The Coalitional Possibility of Radical Interactionality

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karma R. Chávez
Keyword(s):  
Political Orientation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Response ◽  
Good People ◽  
Indian Immigrant

This chapter explores the writing of Indian immigrant and queer migration activist Yasmin Nair. Nair's rhetoric offers unique coalitional moments premised in opposition and confrontation. She directly opposes the political orientation and conditions of belonging set forth by the mainstream LGBT immigration rights community since those conditions leave most migrants out. Nair's vision thus opposes the limited agenda of inclusionary politics that include only “good” people. Some have described her politics as utopian. The chapter argues that the positions she takes engender the rhetoric of radical interactionality, a form of rhetorical confrontation that starts critique from the roots of a problem and then shows how power and oppression interact to produce subjects, institutions, and ideologies to enable and constrain political response.

scholarly journals Clear consensus among international public for government action at COP26: Patriotic and public health frames produce marginal gains in support

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tessa Buchanan ◽  
James Ackland ◽  
Sam Lloyd ◽  
Sander van der Linden ◽  
Lee de-Wit
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Climate Change ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Greenhouse Gases ◽  
Message Framing ◽  
Tree Planting ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Government Action ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
The Usa

Abstract This work surveys over 14,000 respondents in seven countries to assess support for government action to protect the environment, and for different policies at the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow. Baseline results reveal overwhelming support for action. At least nine out of ten respondents in six countries, and 79% in the USA, agree that all governments should do more. In each country, at least 50% of respondents express support for four policies: protecting wildlife; planting trees; spending more on clean technologies; and reducing the production of greenhouse gases over thirty years. A survey-experiment tests whether support changes when respondents are exposed to short texts framed in different ways. On average, exposure to a patriotism or public health text significantly raises support for action, albeit by only 1.6 and 1.3 percentage points respectively. On policies, exposure to either a public health text or a text based on current UN messaging increases support for tree-planting by 2.3 and 2.9 percentage points respectively. These results suggest that international public opinion is overwhelmingly in favour of government action at COP26. They highlight policies that are likely to attract majority support, and suggest that message-framing can have a very small impact.

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