Media Blog Post 1
Climate Change is a serious issue in which impacts the way we live and how our society and natural world operate. There are many misconceptions the American public holds on global warming and its impact on our environment. This is not only due to misleading information given out through the media, but also illustrates the lack of education in the topic by the American public. To really understand the thoughts on global warming, a study was conducted by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and was funded by the National Science Foundation. The study was reported online by Science Daily News, the Huffington Post and other news related sources. There were three principal investigators who conducted the study analysis and research. The online national survey was conducted from June through July 2010 with 2,030 American adults, ages 18 and older. The study included 81 questions that pertained to the causes of global warming, the possible affects of global warming and the solutions that would be possible to solve the issue. The following percentages provide interesting data which should be looked at further:
57% of Americans know that the greenhouse effects refers to the trapping of heat by gases in Earth's atmosphere
50% of Americans know that global warming is being caused mostly due to human activities
63% understand that global warming is happening but due to natural occurrences, while
7% state that global warming is not happening.
Only 1 in 10 (11-14%) adults say that they are "very well informed" about global warming, and 75%
say they would like to know more. It should also be noted that 75% of the sampled adults say that the public school system should teach about climate change, while 68% would agree for a national educational program to teach Americans about global warming.
39% say that they think most scientists think global warming is happening, while
38% say there is a lot of disagreement among scientists whether or not global warming
is happening.
16% of Americans say they are very worried about global warming
39% say they are somewhat worried about global warming, while 26% say they are not very worried, or not at all worried (19%).
Based on the grading scale given, only 1% of people would receive an A, 7% a B, 15% a C, 25% a D, and 52% an F.There was also a curve later completed for these grades to try to account for the more difficult questions. The mean percentage score was 54%. The standard deviations were then calculated, and in this way, 40% would have received a C and 31% would have received a B.
The conclusion: Relatively a small amount of Americans have an in-depth knowledge about climate change.
This conclusion over generalizes, as the word "Americans" is not clearly
defined (All Americans, or adult Americans? Were they even sure that
the people surveyed were fully-documented Americans?)
The analysis of the survey was measured to have a 95% confidence-the result of a "margin of sampling error" of plus or minus 2%.
Although this seems like a very objectified research survey, there were many places where problems could have arisen. First off, (as we have learned in class), clear definitions should be provided. For example, "global warming" is a very misleading term, and therefore many of the answered questions by the public would have been based off individuals' assumption that "warming" must mean that temperature would increase with global warming. That is why many researchers use "climate change" instead, which could have been defined on the top of the test instead of global warming. Also, the survey was to measure the amount of knowledge that American adults had on the issues of climate change. Some questions (as the study also admits), represent knowledge that would more than likely not be known by most of the American public. Therefore, these questions that were wrongly answered by the majority of people would have impacted the concluding statistical data considerably (That is why they also added in a curve to try to make up for the difficult questions). There are also other ways in which the test could have been an inaccurate measurement. The representative sample of the population (of American adults), seems quite low. 2,030 adults? Also, how were these adults chosen (was it random?). There are 81 questions on an online survey about scientific concerns about a controversial topic. It could be assumed that towards the end of the test, people could have become impatient and irritable. Also, it's a controversial topic being discussed online (answers could either come from personal or familial bias or the internet).
In conclusion, I do think that most Americans do not fully understand climate change. This is mostly due to our inept admiration towards the media as an authority figure (even though they have plenty of reasons ($$$) to persuade people in believing them). Even though I found places of possible error, the researchers tried to cover the errors that they proposed might happen, and did not seem to "hide" any information. Look down in the comments for my other opinions on the research as well!
Leiserowitz, A., Smith, N. & Marlon, J.R. (2010) Americans’ Knowledge of Climate Change. Yale
University. New Haven, CT: Yale Project on Climate Change Communication.
http://environment.yale.edu/climate/files/ClimateChangeKnowledge2010.pdf
What was particularly interesting to me were some of the questions, but mostly the answers that were agreed upon!
ReplyDeleteFor example, many Americans believe that if you ban aerosol spray cans and stop rockets from "punching holes" in the Ozone layer, that that would stop a lot of global warming (more than what is listed below).
I also noticed a pattern: The more controversial an answer sounds, the less likely it is chosen. When asked which of the following would reduce global warming if done worldwide, the obvious first answers were: switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy (43%), planting trees (40%) and stopping deforestation (37%). The numbers dramatically decreased on other CORRECT answers such as: Switching to nuclear power (16%), having larger taxes on fossil fuels (10%), having at most 2 children per family (10%) and stopping eating beef (4%)--Even though agriculture and meat production produce much of the greenhouse gases. For some reason, we like out beef, not being taxed, and definitely DO NOT want another Three Mile Island incident...
Caitlin, Thank you for your in depth discussion of this incredibly relevant topic. Although I had, what I would consider, a pretty in depth section in Biology about climate change I am sure that I would likely fall into the C or D category myself. It wasn't until college that I was forcefully exposed to any information about climate change and although I am an older college student (30) I wonder if it is because it wasn't as serious of an issue when I was in grade school. Because demographics for college students are shifting we might assume that older Americans are getting a better understanding of this issue; however, not all of this demographic are students and many are not self motivated to learn about it or make changes in their lifestyle which might slow down the effects. Thanks again, I really enjoyed reading this post.
ReplyDeleteYes, I myself only studied climate change (within school) for about three weeks in high school. It is sad to say the least, that we are not properly taught about such issues that frankly are incredibly crucial and important. Yet I am not surprised that such topics are not covered appropriately enough. There is too much profit in the oil industry, and also it is a huge, concerning problem (for many people, it is too big to even contemplate. It is ultimately depressing). But as you have said, with years there comes change. There has to be change. Thank you for your reply AJ!
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