Correlates of Levels of Willingness to Engage in Climate Change Actions in the United States.

Carl A Latkin,Grace Yi,Lauren Dayton,Da-In Lee,Mudia Uzzi

doi:10.3390/ijerph18179204

Abstract

While the majority of the American public believe climate change is occurring and are worried, few are engaged in climate change action. In this study, we assessed factors associated with the level of willingness to engage in climate change actions using an online, longitudinal US study of adults. Climate change action outcomes included the level of willingness to post materials online, take political actions, talk with peers about climate change, and donate to or help an organization. Predictors included climate change attitudes, environmental attitudes, political ideology, political party affiliation, and demographic variables. Most (72%) of the 644 respondents only talked about climate change with peers a few times a year or less, though 65% were very or extremely worried about climate change. Many respondents indicated a willingness to do somewhat or a lot more, from 38% willing to talk to peers to 25% for willing to take political actions. In multinomial regression models, the Climate Change Concern scale was strongly and consistently associated with willingness to engage in climate change action. These findings indicate a need to both identify those who are willing to act and finding activities that fit with their interests and availability.

Highlights

A national poll conducted in December 2020 indicated that the majority of Americans are concerned about climate change, with 72% of respondents believing that global warming is occurring and 66% were “very” or “somewhat” worried about global warming [1]
We hypothesized that (1) high concerns about climate change would predict willingness to engage in climate change action; (2) negative attitudes toward environmentalist and environmentalism would predict willingness to engage in climate change action; and (3) political ideology and party affiliation would independently predict willingness to engage in climate change action
As the sample was over-representative of Democrats, we reported willingness to engage in four different climate change actions stratified by political party (Table 2)

Summary

Introduction

A national poll conducted in December 2020 indicated that the majority of Americans are concerned about climate change, with 72% of respondents believing that global warming is occurring and 66% were “very” or “somewhat” worried about global warming [1].prior research has found that climate change is not a frequent topic of conversation for most Americans [2]. Few Americans report that they are engaged in political activities about climate change, suggesting a disconnect between expressed concern and subsequent actions to address these concerns. The same December 2020 poll found that only 1% of Americans reported currently participating in a campaign to encourage elected officials to take action to reduce global warming. The focus of the paper was to examine the perceived potential for increased climate change activism among a sample of US adults. This national sample was drawn from an ongoing longitudinal study of well-being of Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion