EFFORTS TO BOOST CLIMATE CHANGE CONCERN MAY HAVE OPPOSITE EFFECT
Posted on Monday, March 03 @ 09:25:18 EST by jgprimenews |
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MCLEAN, VIRGINIA - Feb. 27, 2008 Mass media efforts to raise American public concern
about climate change -- such as Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" and
the "scientific consensus" media drumbeat - ironically may be having
just the opposite effect, according to a new study appearing in the
scientific journal Risk Analysis.
"Personal Efficacy, the Information Environment, and Attitudes toward
Global Warming and Climate Change in the USA" by three scientists at
Texas A&M University appears in the February 2008 issue (Vol. 28,
No. 1) of the peer-reviewed journal, which is published by the
McLean-based Society for Risk Analysis (www.sra.org).
Paul Kellstedt, Sammy Zahran and Arnold Vedlitz examined results from
an original and representative sample of Americans and found that "more
informed respondents both feel less personally responsible for global
warming, and also show less concern for global warming." The
researchers also found that "confidence in scientists has unexpected
effects: respondents with high confidence in scientists feel less
responsible for global warming, and also show less concern for global
warming."
The basis for the study was a national telephone survey of randomly
selected adults in July and August 2004. Overall, 1,093 interviews were
conducted, yielding a +/- 3 percent sampling error.
"Today, information about global warming and climate change is readily
available to average Americans who watch television news and who are
able to see satellite pictures of changes in ocean temperatures, or of
glaciers melting," the authors report.
"But discussions of global warming are spreading beyond the news media and into popular culture"
"An underlying assumption is that providing information about global
warming " in effect, taking the scientific consensus and popularizing
it "will lead to increased public concern about the risks of global
warming... The goal of this article is to test this assumption"
"Perhaps ironically, and certainly contrary to... the marketing of
movies like "Ice Age" and "An Inconvenient Truth," the effects of
information on both concern for global warming and responsibility for
it are exactly the opposite of what were expected. Directly, the more
information a person has about global warming, the less responsible he
or she feels for it; and indirectly, the more information a person has
about global warming, the less concerned he or she is for it."
(Note to editors: The complete study is available upon request from
Joseph L. Walker, SRA communications advisor, 703-491-3301 or
walkercom2@aol.com; contact Walker to interview lead author Paul
Kellstedt.)
SOURCE:
Society for Risk Analysis
CONTACT: Joseph L. Walker
TEL: 703-491-3301
EMAIL: walkercom2@aol.com
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