{"title":"Climate Change Skeptics’ Environmental Concerns and Support for Clean Energy Policy: A Case Study of the US Pacific Northwest","authors":"Dilshani Sarathchandra, Kristin Haltinner","doi":"10.3390/cli11110221","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Resistance to clean energy policy in the United States stems partly from public hesitancy and skepticism toward anthropogenic climate change. This article examines self-declared climate change skeptics’ views of clean energy policy along a continuum of skeptical thought, spanning from epistemic denial to attribution doubt. To perform this, we use data from an online survey administered in the US Pacific Northwest and a series of pilot interviews conducted with skeptics in the same region. Results reveal that skeptics’ support for clean energy policy is consistently linked with their environmental concern across the skepticism continuum. Conspiracy ideation and distrust in science lead to a reduction in support. However, the positive effect of environmental concern trumps the effects of these beliefs. Important and hopeful implications of these findings for climate change communication and policy are discussed.","PeriodicalId":37615,"journal":{"name":"Climate","volume":"5 6","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0000,"publicationDate":"2023-11-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Climate","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3390/cli11110221","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"METEOROLOGY & ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Resistance to clean energy policy in the United States stems partly from public hesitancy and skepticism toward anthropogenic climate change. This article examines self-declared climate change skeptics’ views of clean energy policy along a continuum of skeptical thought, spanning from epistemic denial to attribution doubt. To perform this, we use data from an online survey administered in the US Pacific Northwest and a series of pilot interviews conducted with skeptics in the same region. Results reveal that skeptics’ support for clean energy policy is consistently linked with their environmental concern across the skepticism continuum. Conspiracy ideation and distrust in science lead to a reduction in support. However, the positive effect of environmental concern trumps the effects of these beliefs. Important and hopeful implications of these findings for climate change communication and policy are discussed.
ClimateEarth and Planetary Sciences-Atmospheric Science
CiteScore
5.50
自引率
5.40%
发文量
172
审稿时长
11 weeks
期刊介绍:
Climate is an independent, international and multi-disciplinary open access journal focusing on climate processes of the earth, covering all scales and involving modelling and observation methods. The scope of Climate includes: Global climate Regional climate Urban climate Multiscale climate Polar climate Tropical climate Climate downscaling Climate process and sensitivity studies Climate dynamics Climate variability (Interseasonal, interannual to decadal) Feedbacks between local, regional, and global climate change Anthropogenic climate change Climate and monsoon Cloud and precipitation predictions Past, present, and projected climate change Hydroclimate.