Increased Knowledge about Global Warming Leads to Apathy? (U.S. Case Study)

[Karl]

ScienceDaily (Mar. 28, 2008) —

The more you know the less you care - at least that seems to be the case with global warming. A telephone survey of 1,093 Americans by two Texas A&M University political scientists and a former colleague indicates that trend, as explained in their recent article in the peer-reviewed journal Risk Analysis.

The study, entitled "Personal Efficacy, the Information Environment, and Attitudes toward Global Warming and Climate Change in the USA", indicated that more informed respondents both feel less personally responsible for global warming, and also show less concern for global warming. The study showed high levels of confidence in scientists among Americans that led to a decreased sense of responsibility for global warming. The diminished concern and sense of responsibility flies in the face of awareness campaigns about climate change, such as in the movies “An Inconvenient Truth” and “Ice Age: The Meltdown” and in the mainstream media's escalating emphasis on the trend.

The researchers admit that the findings were a “bit unexpected”. The focus of the study, was not to measure how informed or how uninformed Americans are about global warming, but to understand why some individuals who are more or less informed about it showed more or less concern. Now, for better or worse, scientists have to deal with the public's abundant confidence in them. “But it cannot be comforting to the researchers in the scientific community that the more trust people have in them as scientists, the less concerned they are about their findings” the researchers conclude in their study.

Source: Increased Knowledge About Global Warming Leads To Apathy, Study Shows

[Karl]

If you follow the link: (Increased Knowledge About Global Warming Leads To Apathy, Study Shows)

Quote:
“The research was conducted by Paul M. Kellstedt, a political science associate professor at Texas A&M; Arnold Vedlitz, Bob Bullock Chair in Government and Public Policy at Texas A&M's George Bush School of Government and Public Service; and Sammy Zahran, formerly of Texas A&M and now an assistant professor of sociology at Colorado State University.”

The survey was actually research in “political science”, so the underlying motivations of the report are uncertain. However, without access to the actual data, or more to the point, specific breakdowns by percentage (and other classifications), it is difficult to determine how reliable this “telephone survey” was, or even who or what the opinions represented. There is reference to the “more informed” respondents being more apathetic, but there is no information on how that could be properly determined from a telephone survey of ~1000 people. Also, there is no mention of exactly how the “apathy” was equated to having “confidence in scientists”.

But overall, there is probably some validity to the general findings, and this type of attitude is by no means restricted only to the U.S.

[Karl]

An interesting media survey (covering up to April 13, 2008) of US respondents on “what is the single most important issue in your choice for president”:

Picture+9.png (image)

This shows “global warming” consistently ranking, over the past 9 months, in the range of 0.0 – 0.5 %. The general issue of “environment” does not appear to be ranking much higher than “global warming”. What is also very interesting is that some other issues related to environment and sustainability, such as “health care” is only half as important as it was 6 months earlier, and “energy” is not even listed.

However, this survey does not necessarily demonstrate a total lack of concern for issues related to “environment” or “global warming” – it suggests that regardless of concern (or lack thereof), environmental issues are not seen as particularly important in deciding choice of presidential candidate. That may have many different causes. It could be part actual unconcern, part apathy, but it could also be part cynicism towards the political messages or the actual changes that any of them would be willing to make. The survey was on the “single most important issue” in choosing a president, so it is possible that at least some of the respondents (regardless of their personal opinion) see no point in selecting environmental concerns as an issue (= apathy?).

[Karl]

Regardless of these political “realities”, there is still a flood of information (from other “researchers”) over the past few years that appears to suggest something quite different from the "presidential choice" survey results, in terms of both global warming and general environment issues:

2008: (Despite Awareness Of Global Warming Americans Concerned More About Local Environment)
2007: (Americans Consider Global Warming An Urgent Threat, According To Poll)
2006: (Climate Change Tops Americans' Environmental Concerns)

[isenhand]

Most people care little beyond their own family and friends. That’s normal. Its called the monkey sphere. Until something effects someone personally they wont really do anything significant to change things.

.ui