Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
25
PUBLIC OPINION ON
CLIMATE CHANGE
In a democracy, effective and durable policies to slow global warming
must ultimately rest on public support. While the scientifi c basis has
become stronger over time, we observe a large and growing divide be-
tween climate scientists and popular opinion in the United States. What
are popular views on climate change? What are the reasons for the
growing gap in public understanding? These are the questions I exam-
ine in this chapter.
PUBLIC VIEWS ON SCIENCE AND GLOBAL WARMING
Before analyzing public opinion on global warming, let us step back
to examine public opinion on science. Climate change is a scientifi c
fi eld. It will be instructive to look at what people believe about other
scientifi c areas, some controversial, some not.
For several years, the U.S. National Science Foundation has spon-
sored surveys that measure public understanding of major scientifi c
concepts, called indexes of scientifi c literacy. Figure 41 shows the per-
centage of respondents who answered “correctly” on six important
statements are described as “basic constructs that are the intellectual
foundation for reading and understanding contemporary issues.” With-
out getting into deep discussions of epistemology, we might say that
these propositions are almost surely “true,” but as Feynman reminded
us in Chapter 24, it is possible but very unlikely that these statements
