Who is ready to pay for protecting the environment? Social and spatial divides in Europe

Despite scientific consensus, beliefs in human-driven climate change are often influenced by political orientation. Although this political polarization of beliefs may stall mitigation policies, few studies have investigated politicians’ beliefs in human-driven climate change compared to citizens. This study explores how political orientation affects belief in climate change and policy support among politicians (N = 714) and citizens (N = 18,281) in eight developed democracies (Australia, Belgium (Flanders and Wallonia separately), Czechia, Germany, Israel, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Norway). In all countries, we find weaker belief in human-driven climate change among right-leaning politicians and citizens. This polarization was even stronger among politicians, with right-leaning politicians showing weaker climate change beliefs than their electorate. Furthermore, these politically polarized beliefs play a crucial role in policymaking, since belief in climate change mediates the impact of political orientation on mitigation policy support among politicians. Our findings highlight the need to debias beliefs and realign politicians’ and voters’ views about climate change, especially on the right-wing, to promote mitigation action.

In recent years, mindfulness has been considered as a potential source of proenvironmental attitudes and behavior. Present research is aimed at consolidating and expanding previous knowledge by proposing that mindfulness is related to both proenvironmental behavior and belief in global climate change through social dominance orientation (SDO). A first study was conducted on undergraduate students ( n = 279) and found, as expected, that trait mindfulness was related to proenvironmental behavior through SDO. A second study using a known groups approach compared practitioners ( n = 44) and nonpractitioners ( n = 53) of Buddhist meditation, which is known to develop a mindful stance. Moreover, in Study 2, a measure of belief in global climate change was adopted as a further outcome. Again, trait mindfulness was related to both proenvironmental outcomes through SDO. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

The current article explores the impact of mindfulness on belief in climate change and the mediating effect of connectedness with nature in this relationship. Belief in climate change was assessed both explicitly (using a self-report questionnaire) and implicitly (using an Implicit Association Test [IAT]). A total of 103 university students were recruited for a between-subjects experiment. Participants were randomly assigned to a mindfulness or mindlessness intervention and then completed IAT and several questionnaires. The results showed that mindfulness significantly increased belief in climate change, both explicitly and implicitly. Our findings also showed that the relationship between mindfulness and climate change beliefs was mediated by an increase in connectedness with nature. These results indicate that mindfulness is an effective way to promote belief in climate change and that connectedness with nature plays an important role in this process.

Climate change beliefs and support for development: Testing a cognitive hierarchy of support for natural resource-related economic development in rural Pennsylvania

Enhancing the Social Amplification of Risk Framework (SARF) by exploring trust, the availability heuristic, and agricultural advisors' belief in climate change

Influencing climate change attitudes in the United States: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Brief, but psychometrically valid assessments of psychological constructs are increasingly needed to be included in larger psychological and other social scientific studies, such as Many Labs projects or representative surveys. Here, we provide a novel one-item measure of individual differences in belief in climate change. Based on two studies (N = 913, N = 288) recruited from various global regions, we establish convergent, predictive, and discriminant validity. More specifically, we find that the single-item measure correlates with other constructs measuring belief in climate change and with relevant downstream constructs, among them intentions to engage in pro-environmental behavior, actual consequential behavior, and self-reported everyday behaviors. We therefore conclude that the single item is a suitable instrument to measure belief in climate change when multiple-item assessments are either too costly or otherwise unfeasible.

Measuring outdoor recreationists' beliefs in climate change: Testing the Occurrence and Anthropogenic Causation Scale (OC-AN)

Despite overwhelming scientific consensus on the existence of human-caused climate change, public opinion among Americans remains split. Directly informing people of scientific consensus is among the most prominent strategies for climate communication, yet the reasons for its effectiveness and its limitations are not fully understood. Here, we propose that consensus messaging provides information not only about the existence of climate change but also traits of climate scientists themselves. In a large ( ) nationally representative survey experiment, we examine how consensus information affects belief in human-caused climate change by shaping perceptions of climate scientist credibility. In the control group ( ), we first show that people learn both from and about climate scientists when presented with consensus and that perceived scientist credibility (especially skill) mediates up to about 40% of the total effect of consensus information on climate belief. We demonstrate that perceptions of climate scientists are malleable with two novel interventions that increase belief in climate change above and beyond consensus information.

Farmers are front-line workers managing climatic change. As in many parts of the world, climate change in northern California is threatening natural resource-dependent communities by exacerbating droughts, heatwaves, and wildfires. This article draws on ethnographic methods, including 108 interviews with crop and livestock farmers and key informants, to query climate change experience, belief, and response in rural northeastern California. I find that farmers recognize and describe climate changes that match the meteorologic evidence of anthropogenic climate change, but attribute these changes to weather cycles and harsh geographies. However, irrespective of their belief in anthropogenic climate change, farmers implement climate adaptations—many of these practices with mitigation co-benefits, bolstering growing evidence that climate change belief and action are not tightly coupled. To accelerate farmer adaptation, this work suggests that policy and programming focus on actions and outcomes, rather than reshaping belief.

ABSTRACTExisting analysis suggests that individuals may reduce their concern for and belief in climate change as a result of macro-economic difficulties. Such conclusions are predominantly based on repeated cross-sectional and pooled data making it difficult to separate out the effects of economic conditions from other explanatory factors. Approaching this question through experimentally priming individuals to feel a certain way about the economy has also proven difficult due to economic perceptions being difficult to alter in a survey setting [Kachi, Bernauer, & Gampfer, 2015. Climate policy in hard times: Are the pessimists right? Ecological Economics, 114, 227–241]. This article thus investigates a related question on the effect of the salience of economic perceptions on climate change views using an online question-order experiment, whereby salience denotes the prominence of the issue in the mind of the respondent. Respondents were randomly assigned to receiving an economic prompting question before or after being asked about their climate change views. The results show no effect of the prompting on belief in anthropogenic climate change, but they do show an effect of prompting on prioritization of taking urgent action to address climate change. Those with a non-positive view of the economy were less likely to support urgent action in comparison to those who considered the economy to be performing well if they were asked first about their economic evaluations. The salience of economic evaluations and the direction of such evaluations would not be significant if economic evaluations themselves were not important, and thus the findings also reveal that economic evaluations do matter.Key policy insightsBelief in anthropogenic climate change is not affected by the salience of economic perceptions.Support for taking urgent action to implement policies to address climate change is impacted by the salience of macro-economic perceptions, with respondents who have their non-positive economic perceptions brought to the forefront of their minds displaying reduced support for urgent action.Policies that aim to tackle climate change are more likely to have bottom-up support from the public during periods when the economy is perceived to be prosperous.

Anger consensus messaging can enhance expectations for collective action and support for climate mitigation

There is mounting scientific evidence linking extreme weather events such as wildfires in the western United States and Hurricane Sandy with anthropogenic climate change. However, those in developed nations that contribute the most to carbon emissions associated with anthropogenic climate change are the least likely to suffer severe consequences. This asymmetry presents a challenge for climate change communication, given that those who most need to act on climate change (the largest emitters) are those likely to be the most removed from the impacts of carbon emissions, and may thus be less convinced of the critical need to act. The psychological distance that people perceive from the impacts of climate change may also have implications for their belief in, concern about, and willingness to act on climate change. Psychological distance is the extent to which an object is perceived as distant from the self in time, space, certainty, or social similarity. Though climate change may be perceived by those in developed nations as distant on any or all of these dimensions, temporal and geographic distance are likely to be particularly important in the context of climate change, given the global nature of the problem and the long time horizons associated with predicted impacts. Considering the potential distancing of climate change from the self, this review examines how perceptions of temporal and geographic distance impact public opinion about climate change, in terms of belief in anthropogenic climate change, concern, and support for action. Many researchers have suggested that the distal nature of climate change is a key reason for failures to engage in widespread mitigation action. However, studies of temporal and geographic distance reveal mixed effects on belief in climate change and support for action. For example, support for climate change action varies as a function of impacts being described as affecting near versus distant victims, and these effects vary as a function of political ideology, with Democrats more likely to support action when exposed to distal victims, and Republicans more supportive when victims are closer to them. Similarly, another study indicated that perceptions of global risk are associated with policy support, whereas perceptions of risk in one’s local area is linked to individual intentions to take action. These findings reveal that it may not always be ideal to perceive climate change as psychologically close in order to promote support for climate action, and a number of studies examined here explore when psychological distance and closeness may help or hinder climate change action.

In vitro and animal experimental studies have reported beneficial effects of selenium on colorectal cancer (CRC), yet results from epidemiological studies are inconsistent. Few of these studies have examined CRC risk among women, and none have been sufficiently large to examine risk in subgroups. This study investigated whether baseline serum selenium concentration was associated with subsequent CRC risk among postmenopausal women in a case-control study nested within the Women's Health Initiative Observational Study. We included 804 CRC cases diagnosed between October 1993 and September 2005 and 804 controls matched to cases on age, enrollment date, clinical center, race/ethnicity, hysterectomy status, and prevalent condition at baseline. Baseline serum selenium concentration was measured by atomic absorption spectrometry. Multivariate logistic regression was used to estimate the odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) associated with increasing serum selenium concentrations. The corresponding median selenium concentrations in the 1st to 5th quintiles were 110.5, 123.2, 133.5, 144.8, and 162.2 µg/l (range: 81.03 - 398.70 µg/l). The selenium concentration was weakly and positively associated with the risk of CRC (ptrend = 0.08); the adjusted ORs (95% CIs) for the risk of CRC comparing the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th quintile of serum selenium concentrations with the 1st quintile were 1.14 (0.83-1.58), 1.16 (0.84-1.60), 1.36 (0.99-1.87) and 1.27 (0.92-1.76). The trend was somewhat stronger for past and current smokers [OR (95% CI) for the 5th vs. 1st quintile = 1.38 (0.89-2.13), ptrend = 0.13] than never smokers [OR (95% CI) for the 5th vs. 1st quintile = 1.16 (0.72-1.87), ptrend = 0.48]. However, the difference was not statistically significant (pinteraction = 0.53). Findings from this large study with relatively high serum selenium concentrations suggest no beneficial effect of selenium on colorectal cancer among women, which is consistent with results of previous smaller observational studies. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 101st Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2010 Apr 17-21; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2010;70(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 4825.

We investigated whether neighborhood greenspaces were associated with physical activity in adulthood over 3 cohort visits after considering perceived safety and neighborhood contextual factors. We also evaluated whether the association with greenspace varied by neighborhood socioeconomic status. Participants (N = 4,800) from the Brazilian Longitudinal Study of Adult Health (ELSA-Brasil) residing in two Brazilian state capitals were evaluated in Visits 1 (2008-2010), 2 (2012-2014) and 3 (2017-2019). Greenspaces were categorized by quintiles of positive Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) scores. Physical activity frequency was given by the number of visits at which participants reported moderate/vigorous physical activity (none, 1 or 2, and 3 visits). We used multinomial logistic regression. After adjustment for age, sex, education, research center, residence in slums, individuals in the 4th and 5th NDVI quintiles showed 73% higher odds of physical activity over 3 visits than those in the 1st quintile (4th quintile: 95%CI = 1.24-2.43; 5th quintile: 95%CI = 1.24-2.41). The strength of the association was attenuated after adjustment for perceived safety. After adjustment for contextual factors quantity of sidewalks and streetlights, the OR for the 4th and 5th NDVI quintiles decreased to 1.66 (95%CI = 1.18-2.33) and 1.62 (95%CI = 1.16-2.28), respectively. Finally, after including average household income per capita, the OR for physical activity in 3 visits for the 4th and 5th NDVI quintiles decreased to 1.48 (95%CI = 1.04-2.12) and 1.43 (95%CI = 1.00-2.04; p = 0.053), respectively. Greater greenspace contributed to sustained physical activity during the eight years of follow-up, indicating the potential contribution of public greenspaces to reducing health-related inequalities.