Dear Dawn and colleagues, I recently went to an eye-opening talk by Jon Krosnik regarding this issue of the seeming decline in "belief" about climate change (talk abstract and other details below). He showed us a long series of very carefully worded poll results conducted over 20 years that demonstrated that Americans had NOT changed their views regarding climate change very much at all, and in fact around 75% acknowledge it nationwide; moreover, in the past decade or more, there has been if anything an IMPROVEMENT in the number of people reporting their confidence at how well informed they felt. Scientists therefore seem to have done a better job than they or the media give themselves credit for. Politicians, on the other hand, need some help understanding what it is that their constituents want and therein lies the discrepancy. He also demonstrated that poorly worded surveys can distort these results, and pointed out specific instances in which results were exaggerated for effect by various media outlets and pollsters.
Please don't take my word for it, for more on this fascinating and carefully conducted research, see below. -Shermin -- Shermin de Silva, Ph.D http://elephantresearch.net/fieldnotes http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~sdesilva *The Harvard University Center for the Environment and Bank of America presents Green Conversations with:* *Jon A. Krosnick** *Frederic O. Glover Professor in Humanities and Social Sciences and Professor of Communication, Political Science, and Psychology at Stanford University “What Americans and Massachusetts ResidentsThink About Climate Change: Attitude Formation and Change in Response to a Raging Scientific Controversy” *Discussants:* *Stephen Ansolabehere*, Harvard University Department of Government *Andrew J. Hoffman, *Visiting Professor of Management, MIT; Holcim Professor of Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan *Moderated by* *Daniel P. Schrag*, Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences and Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering; Director, Harvard University Center for the Environment *Wednesday, April 6* *5:00 pm* * * ***New Location*** *Science Center A* *One Oxford St.* *Cambridge, MA* During the past decade, many climate scientists have been frustrated by the American public's apparent indifference to climate change and the threats it may pose. And in recent years, headlines on newspapers across the country have proclaimed: "Scientists and the American Public Disagree Sharply Over Global Warming" and "Public Concern About Climate Change Wanes". Is it really true? Do Americans really not accept the opinions of scientific experts on climate change? In this presentation, Professor Jon Krosnick will describe findings from a series of national surveys that he has designed and conducted since 1996, trackingwhat Americans do and do not believe on this issue and what they do and do not want to have done about it. And one of his newest surveys focused exclusively on residents of Massachusetts, illuminating what they want government to do and how they want their Senators and Congressional Representatives to vote. Surprising results challenge many widely-held presumptions about public opinion in the nation and in Massachusetts, illuminate the increasing politicization of the issue, and set the stage for future discussion of climate change in Washington and in Boston. A leading international authority on questionnaire design and survey research methods, Professor Krosnick has taught courses for professionals on survey methods for 25 years around the world and has served as a methodology consultant to government agencies, commercial firms, and academic scholars. His books include “Introduction to Survey Research, Polling, and Data Analysis” and "The Handbook of Questionnaire Design" (forthcoming, Oxford University Press), which reviews 100 years of research on how different ways of asking questions can yield different answers from survey respondents and on how to design questions to measure most accurately. His recent research has focused on how other aspects of survey methodology (e.g., collecting data by interviewing face-to-face vs. by telephone or on paper questionnaires) can be optimized to maximize accuracy. For more about Professor Krosnick: http://communication.stanford.edu/faculty/krosnick/ Green Conversations are sponsored by the Harvard University Center for the Environment with generous support from Bank of America. This lecture was originally scheduled for February 2. Reception to follow. Free and open to the public. On Sat, Apr 9, 2011 at 4:52 PM, Dawn Stover <[email protected]> wrote: > In the mainstream media, I see very little "he-said-she-said" reporting on > climate change anymore. And yet fewer Americans now "believe" in climate > change than just a year or two ago. I think this has a lot more to do with > the political climate and with cultural affiliations than with anything > science journalists are writing. When people have a certain cultural > mindset, they are very resistant to any facts that do not fit that mindset. > In fact, information that conflicts with their viewpoint often tends to > REINFORCE that viewpoint instead of undermining it. > Dawn Stover > >
