63% Believe Climate Change is Happening? Not bad!

Last week, the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies released a report called Americans’ Knowledge of Climate Change. The document is the result of an extensive analysis of how well Americans grasp the practical and scientific nature of climate change, and by the fifth page, the authors have declared the quality of the knowledge for 52% of those surveyed is worthy of an “F”.
The report received some coverage in the media, notably on The Huffington Post, where a slideshow detailing the most egregious gaps in knowledge appeared on Thursday. Yet the Yale researchers noted that their grades “should be interpreted with ca
ution,” while rightly observing, “…many of the questions reveal important gaps in knowledge and common misconceptions about climate change and the earth system.”
My first impression upon reading the report was that it isn’t nearly as bad as it could have been. From the start, data shows that 87% of Americans have heard of the “greenhouse effect” and 66% have an understanding of what that term entails. Slightly more worrisome is the slim majority (63%) of Americans, who “understand” that global warming is happening, coupled with only 50% of Americans who believe that this warming is tied to human activity.
The authors of the Yale report use certain words that aren’t often found in popular discourse on climate change. Typically, polls report the percentage of Americans that “believe” in climate change, while this document relies heavily on the word “understand.” Each observation is clearly made from the perspective that global warming exists and is a significant issue confronting America. This is a worthy and necessary change in the verbiage that scientists and policymakers use when analyzing the intersection between popular belief and scientific consensus.
The existence of this scientific consensus – affirmed by the national academies of 32 countries, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the American Association for the Advancement of Science – is question by the respondents in this report. Only 39% believe that “most scientists think global warming is happening.”
This statistic is by far the most damning, and the most revealing. Americans deserve a robust defense for gaps in knowledge about climate change. Firstly, earth and climate science isn’t easy to grasp. It’s part of a standard middle school curriculum, sometimes taught in high school, and confined to the environmental science test in the panoply of Advanced Plac
ement exams. Global warming, as a phenomenon, is still relatively recent. While it is indubitably important that Americans understand the rhythm of climate and planetary processes, it’s absurd to expect that vast numbers of Americans have had the time to study them and gain a confident understanding of how they work.
The onus, therefore, is on scientists. The report revealed that 94% of Americans who believe that global warming is not happening are extremely, very, or somewhat sure that it isn’t. This belief is fairly entrenched, but that is 94% of the 19% percent who responded with a definitive “no” to “Do you think global warming is happening?” It is then necessary to account for the statistic regarding scientific consensus, as a vast number of the respondents who believe in global warming doubted that consensus.
This consensus is so broad that scientists must do a better job of communicating the evidence for anthropologic climate change. Scientists have a hard enough time with their media image; they need to form an organized front on climate change. A debate about the minutiae of climate change is necessary, but that should occur at academic conferences. In the public sphere, it is imperative that scientists reinforce the consensus.
It’s also possible that the media, in one of their perpetual attempts to appear non-partisan and unbiased, is too often giving climate change deniers a public forum for their claims. It is essential that the press incorporates voices from all facets of an argument, but absurd climate deniers are given the stage they need to spread misinformation. The “Climategate” debacle, which erupted last year when emails from researchers at the University of East Anglia in Great Britain were intercepted and released to the media, is a prime example. The emails represented an exchange of scientific ideas and hearty debate, but soon the media had painted “Climategate” as a threat to scientific integrity and evidence that climate data was being suppressed.
The Yale report gave Americans a weighted grade of “C” for their climate knowledge, which seems fairer than the original F. Two additional reports are necessary, however, before a full grasp of the nebulous web of political, social, economic, cultural and scientific factors that contribute to the knowledge of global warming can be assessed. Yale should study “The Media’s Knowledge of Climate Change,” and “Scientists’ Ability to Convey Their Findings.”
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P.S. The folks at Huffington Post labeled the framed the slideshow on “Ridiculous Beliefs” about climate change. Americans’ understanding of the effects of climate change on past civilizations, detailed in slide 9, is actually correct.