Following on from the previous post, showing that most people in the UK seem to adopt the Catherine Tate approach to climate change, here are three more new surveys. University of Michigan A report from the University of Michigan announces that a record 73% of Americans now think that there is solid evidence of global … Continue reading
Tag Archives: public opinion
Brits Lukewarm on Climate
A new version of the British Social Attitudes Survey is out. There’s a summary of the key findings of the whole survey, which says in its first bullet point, • The British public are not as worried about major global challenges as the experts who work on them. Public concern about the threat of climate … Continue reading
Ipsos Mori: UK climate concern decreasing
Today and tomorrow there’s a conference for “environmental communicators” taking place, at Bristol Zoo. See the website or twitter tag. In a time of unprecedented social, economic and political change we urgently need proactive tools for successfully communicating environmental issues. Communicate goes straight to the interface and asks some difficult questions about current approaches as … Continue reading
Only half of Americans would pay $1 a month to fight climate change
Roger Pielke Jr has now moved on from the climate debate into sports policy, but he still issues occasional bulletins of climate stories that are well worth reading. The latest, Pielke on Climate #6, discusses emissions intensity, hurricanes, and ocean heat content, but starts off with a remarkable fact from a recent public opinion survey. … Continue reading
Climate not a priority for public
A new survey is out today, European Perceptions of Climate Change (EPCC), on public opinion in the UK, France, Germany and Norway. It’s being talked about at an echo chamber conference, see the twitter tag #EPCC17. It’s also discussed in the Guardian. The authors include some of the ‘usual suspects’, Nick Pidgeon and Adam Corner. The … Continue reading
Papal Bull
In June 2015, Pope Francis published his encyclical letter, Laudato Si, drawing on the inspiration from his namesake St Francis of Assisi to issue an appeal for the protection and conservation of the environment. Climate activists were delighted, and convinced that this was going to transform the climate debate and lead to global climate action. Pope … Continue reading
Consensus messaging doesn’t work
One-sentence summary: the Consensus Crew believe that telling people there’s a 97% consensus about climate change leads to support for action on climate change, but the data shows that it doesn’t, as explained in a new paper by Dan Kahan. Consensus as a gateway belief In February 2015, a paper came out in PLOS ONE, The … Continue reading
It isn’t a yes or no answer, it’s about how much
By TinyCO2 Supporters of the consensus are strangely attached to asking people if they believe in climate change. Ignoring the issue of ‘climate change’ instead of ‘CAGW’, the answer is irrelevant. People think they believe in all sorts of things but what they do is the measure of how much. To explain, it’s easier to … Continue reading
Sharman & Howarth on the climate debate
Amelia Sharman and Candice Howarth have a new paper out, Climate stories: Why do climate scientists and sceptical voices participate in the climate debate? It’s in a journal called Public Understanding of Science, but ironically, as Ben Pile remarked, it’s paywalled. It might be possible to find it on the Russian pirate site Scihub, but of course if … Continue reading
Spinning the climate message doesn’t work
For years, climate activists have been concerned and puzzled by the fact that a lot of people don’t agree with them. In order to rectify this problem, they tried to get the message out about climate change, thinking that if everyone had the correct information, we could all happily live together in a world of … Continue reading