[✔️] August 1, 2022 - Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
Richard at CredoandScreed.com
Mon Aug 1 09:10:16 EDT 2022
/*August 1, 2022*/
/[ Understanding mis-information and dis-information --- work by
Anthony Leiserowitz, Ph.D. Director, Yale Program on Climate Change
Communication ]/
*Yale Program on Climate Change Communication*
Dear Friends,
We are pleased to announce the publication of a new article,
“Information about the human causes of global warming influences causal
attribution, concern, and policy support related to global warming” in
the journal Thinking & Reasoning.
Scientists have known for over a century that increased carbon dioxide
in the atmosphere (from fossil fuel burning and land use change) acts
like a heat-trapping blanket, causing global warming. Yet, public
understanding of this process is low. As of 2022, more than 40% of
Americans do not understand that human activities – especially burning
coal, oil, and methane gas – are responsible for all of the observed
increase in global temperatures during the past century.
There are many reasons for this lack of public understanding, including
misinformation, poor science communication, and limited media reporting
on climate change. Moreover, the scientific nature and intense political
polarization of the issue inhibits many people from discussing it with
family and friends for fear of conflict or getting the details wrong.
Yet, social science demonstrates that talking about the issue of climate
change as well as understanding its causes is key to raising awareness
and building support for climate action.
Using four experimental and one control condition, we tested whether
information about the human causes of global warming increases
Americans’ beliefs and concerns about global warming and support for
climate policies. All four experimental conditions began with the
heat-trapping blanket metaphor:
“Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere traps heat and warms the Earth,
like a blanket traps heat and warms your body. Since the mid-1800s,
humans have been burning fossil fuels (coal, oil, and gas) to make
electricity, heat and cool buildings, and fuel our transportation
systems. Burning fossil fuels has released billions of tons of
carbon dioxide pollution into the atmosphere, making that blanket
thicker and trapping more heat, leading to global warming."
Condition #1 then used this blanket metaphor + explained how we know
that climate change is not naturally caused; condition #2 used the
blanket metaphor + information about climate change impacts; condition
#3 used the blanket metaphor + information about climate change
solutions; and condition #4 used the blanket metaphor + information
about both impacts and solutions. In the control condition, participants
read an unrelated passage about artificial intelligence.
Participants were then asked to estimate what proportion of global
warming is due to human activities. On average, respondents in the four
treatment conditions attributed 70% of global warming to human
activities. By contrast, respondents in the control group attributed 65%
of global warming to human activities. The four treatment conditions
increased understanding of the human causes of climate change among both
Democrats and Republicans.
We also found differences among the four experimental groups and the
control group in their concern about climate change and their support
for climate policies (see chart below), although those increases are
smaller than the increases in understanding that climate change is
human-caused.
Importantly, there were no backlash effects among Republicans, and in
fact understanding increased more among Republicans than among
Democrats, on average. This suggests that when informed about climate
change causes, impacts and solutions, most Americans will update their
own climate change beliefs, risk perceptions, and policy support.
These results are consistent with research by Bord et al. (2000) and
with Ranney and Clark (2016) who developed the website
howglobalwarmingworks.org, which uses more scientific language to
explain the physical mechanism behind the “heat-trapping blanket”.
Whether the blanket metaphor or the physics-based explanations are more
effective requires further research. In either case, however, providing
basic information about the human causes of global warming improves
public understanding of the problem.
You can find more details about the study on our website. The full
article is available here to those with a subscription to the journal
Thinking & Reasoning. If you would like to request a copy, please send
an email to climatechange at yale.edu with the subject line: Request
Human-caused paper. A pre-publication version is also available here.
https://www.researchgate.net/signup.SignUp.html
For media inquiries, please contact Lisa Fernandez and Jon Ozaksut.
As always, thanks for your interest and support of our work!
On behalf of the rest of the research team – Parrish Bergquist, Jennifer
Marlon, Matthew Goldberg, Abel Gustafson, and Seth Rosenthal
Cheers,
Tony
-----
Anthony Leiserowitz, Ph.D.
- -
/[ the original research paper ]/
*Information about the human causes of global warming influences causal
attribution, concern, and policy support related to global warming*
Parrish Bergquist, Jennifer R. Marlon, Matthew H. Goldberg, Abel
Gustafson,Seth A. Rosenthal &Anthony Leiserowitz
Abstract
Scientists know that human activities, primarily fossil fuel
combustion, are causing Earth’s temperature to increase. Yet in
2021, only 60% of the US population understood that human activities
are the primary cause of global warming. We experimentally test
whether information about the human causes of global warming
influences Americans’ beliefs and concerns about global warming and
support for climate policies. We find that communicating information
about the human-causes of global warming increases public
understanding that global warming is human-caused. This information,
both alone and with additional information about climate impacts and
policy solutions, also increases public concern about global warming
and support for climate policies, although the effects on climate
concern and policy support are smaller. Importantly, the treatment
effects are consistent across political party, with no backlash
effects among Republicans. This suggests that when informed about
climate change causes, impacts and solutions, most Americans can
update their own climate change beliefs, risk perceptions, and
policy support.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13546783.2022.2030407
/[ video - Professor Rupert Read calls for exercising power, and
principle and protest - can work as we also admit out powerlessness ]/
*“A new strategy for the Green Party, in the era of climate chaos?” |
Rupert Read | AGC Conference*
Jul 31, 2022 Rupert Read’s recent plenary address to the Association of
Green Councillors https://AGC.GreenParty.org.UK, laying out the
GreensCAN strategy https://www.Greens-CAN.earth, beginning in full
truth-telling, for how the Green Party could leverage real and perhaps
rapid change, even now.
https://RupertRead.net/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lw3UwoCVw8E
/[ PBS coverage of Kentucky flooding ]/
*Death toll rises as catastrophic flooding worsens in Kentucky, Appalachia*
431,556 views Jul 29, 2022 Eastern Kentucky is the epicenter Friday of
the nation's latest extreme weather disaster. At least 16 people have
died in flooding that rewrote the record books and ravaged neighboring
states as well. Amna Nawaz has our report.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrPB5jDsekM
- -
/[ Weather forecasting and return to Kentucky ]/
*A Feverish Storm Is About To Cause More Disasters, Heat Wave & Major
Flooding…*
Jul 31, 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GQ5u_Nanc4
[ Phoenix is the bird of rebirth by fire ]
*Phoenix could soon become uninhabitable — and the poor will be the
first to leave*
As climate change worsens, desert cities like Phoenix must adapt, or
face a mass exodus
By MATTHEW ROZSA...
Indeed, as the world warms, something called the "heat island effect" is
a major threat to countless cities. The heat island effect is a
phenomenon in which urban areas experience higher temperatures than the
areas adjacent to them. It is typically caused by infrastructure, like
buildings and roads, absorbing excess heat; they retain that heat that
they absorb during the day and keep cities hot, even at night time. This
is why the summer overnight low in cities like Phoenix, Ariz., is often
90° Fahrenheit or higher.
- -
While Phoenix is not quite at the point where it's beyond saving, only
radical infrastructure changes are likely to do the trick.
"The expansion of concrete infrastructure from mid-20th century to today
needs to be reversed; it is what is trapping the heat," Wortham-Galvin
told Salon. "The green/landscape areas that were reduced need to be
brought back as critical green infrastructure. Policy changes and new
regulations about how housing, commercial, industrial, and institutional
buildings are built must include green infrastrcuture at every scale.
Vertical gardens, roof gardens, rain gardens are all easily implements,
but they have to be part of a mandate, not just left up to the market."
https://www.salon.com/2022/07/31/phoenix-could-soon-become-uninhabitable--and-the-poor-will-be-the-first-to-leave/
/[The news archive - looking back at what we ignored almost a decade ago ]/
/*August 1, 2013*/
UPI reports: "Climate change is likely behind the larger and more
frequent extreme wildfires being experienced in the U.S. West,
researchers say.
"More of the unpredictable and erratic fires, harder to contain and
often resulting in catastrophic damage and loss of property and life,
could be in store with ongoing climate change, a study led by Michigan
State University indicates."
AUG. 1, 2013 / 5:11 PM
*Climate change said driving force behind larger, more extreme
wildfires*
EAST LANSING, Mich., Aug. 1 (UPI) -- Climate change is likely behind
the larger and more frequent extreme wildfires being experienced in
the U.S. West, researchers say.
More of the unpredictable and erratic fires, harder to contain and
often resulting in catastrophic damage and loss of property and
life, could be in store with ongoing climate change, a study led by
Michigan State University indicates.
The researchers analyzed current and future climate patterns and
their effect on the spread of fire in a mountainous region that
includes Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, a
university release said Thursday.
"Our findings suggest that future lower atmospheric conditions may
favor larger and more extreme wildfires, posing an additional
challenge to fire and forest management," MSU geography Professor
Lifeng Luo said.
The study focused on August -- the most active month for wildfires
in the western United States -- and found 3.6 million acres burned
there in that month in 2012, the most of any August since 2000.
However, the researchers noted, the number of fires was the second
fewest in that 12-year time frame, meaning the fires were much larger.
Exceptionally dry and unstable conditions in the Earth's lower
atmosphere can increase natural factors including the availability
of fuel (vegetation), precipitation, wind and the location of
lightning strikes, they said.
"Global climate change may have a significant impact on these
factors, thus affecting potential wildfire activity across many
parts of the world," the study authors said.
http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2013/08/01/Climate-change-said-driving-force-behind-larger-more-extreme-wildfires/UPI-42431375391483/#ixzz2mp7Qhmhl
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