Climate change in the American mind
Written on August 17, 2012 by Beyond Seasons End No Comments »
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It may be a completely rational decision to refute scientific evidence of climate change in favor of agreeing with your peers, according to a Yale professor of law and psychology. The problem, Dan Kahan claims in a column published in Nature, is that cultural polarization has polluted scientific communication about the issue, interfering with our collective ability to act in our common interest.
However, surveys conducted by the Center for Climate Change Communication suggest the majority of the American public do support action on climate change. The center’s three-part spring report showed that a large majority of Americans believe that global warming exacerbated recent extreme weather and natural disasters; that global warming and clean energy should be a national priority; and that citizens’ beliefs and attitudes about climate change over the past several months remained relatively stable, although for the first time since fall, 2008, alarmed Americans (13 percent) exceeded the proportion of dismissive Americans (10 percent). The center issued an additional report calculating the advantages to a political candidate of taking a pro-climate stand in 2012.
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