IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/riskan/v14y1994i6p971-982.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What Do People Know About Global Climate Change? 2. Survey Studies of Educated Laypeople

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel Read
  • Ann Bostrom
  • M. Granger Morgan
  • Baruch Fischhoff
  • Tom Smuts

Abstract

Drawing on results from earlier studies that used open‐ended interviews, a questionnaire was developed to examine laypeople's knowledge about the possible causes and effects of global warming, as well as the likely efficacy of possible interventions. It was administered to two well‐educated opportunity samples of laypeople. Subjects had a poor appreciation of the facts that (1) if significant global warming occurs, it will be primarily the result of an increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere, and (2) the single most important source of additional carbon dioxide is the combustion of fossil fuels, most notably coal and oil. In addition, their understanding of the climate issue was encumbered with secondary, irrelevant, and incorrect beliefs. Of these, the two most critical are confusion with the problems of stratospheric ozone and difficulty in differentiating between causes and actions specific to climate and more general good environmental practice.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Read & Ann Bostrom & M. Granger Morgan & Baruch Fischhoff & Tom Smuts, 1994. "What Do People Know About Global Climate Change? 2. Survey Studies of Educated Laypeople," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 14(6), pages 971-982, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:riskan:v:14:y:1994:i:6:p:971-982
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1539-6924.1994.tb00066.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6924.1994.tb00066.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1539-6924.1994.tb00066.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:riskan:v:14:y:1994:i:6:p:971-982. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1539-6924 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.