Predictors of Pro-environmental Beliefs, Behaviors, and Policy Support among Climate Change Skeptics

Abstract

Previous research suggests that climate skeptics may hold a series of environmental concerns and support for environmental policy that, if engaged with, could serve to (in part) mitigate climate change. Using a unique data set from an online survey of 1,000 adults in the U.S. Pacific Northwest who are uncertain or skeptical of anthropogenic climate change, we explore the diversity of environmental concerns, environmental behaviors, and support for pro-environmental policy within and among those who do not accept climate science. Our results reveal statistically significant and consistent positive effects of (negative) environmental experiences on climate change skeptics’ environmental concerns, behaviors, and policy support. We also find that, among climate skeptics, religious ideation, conspiracy ideation, science distrust, political ideology (conservative), and gender (men) are negatively associated with certain pro-environmental attitudes, behaviors, and support for pro-environmental policy initiatives. We discuss the implications of these findings for climate change and science communication, environmental campaigns, and policy development.

Understanding the Effects of Individual and State-Level Factors on American Public Response to COVID-19

“…Online surveys have become a standard method in research across disciplines, ranging from public health to psychology, criminology, and sociology. 2,[9][10][11] Compared with other survey data collection modes, online surveys can result in more honest and accurate self-reports with less social desirability bias. 12,13 This approach can also assure cost-effective and timely survey administration while still providing robust and reliable results.…”

“It Wasn't Like a Big Light Bulb Moment”: Factors that Contribute to Changing Minds on Climate Change

“…People who spend time outdoors as children, or who grow up discussing environmental issues and watching nature shows also show higher levels of pro‐environmentalism (Eagles and Damare 1999; Rosa, Profice, and Collado 2018). Our earlier work also shows higher levels of environmentalism among people skeptical about climate change if they had encountered personal, negative environmental events (Haltinner and Sarathchandra 2021b).…”

Public trust and mistrust of climate science: A meta-narrative review

“…In our sample of survey-based papers, only two papers with different authors relied on the same inventory of trust questions adapted from previous studies by other authors not included in our sample (namely, 12 and 47, both based on Nisbet et al, 2015). We also found four papers based on the same inventory of questions developed by the authors themselves (22,23,49,50).…”

“…A total of 14 items showed high internal reliability and were used to calculate ‘the average score for each respondent’s overall distrust level’ (49: 7). The distrust in climate science scale, based on an inventory of these 14 items, was used in 2 other papers by the same authors ( 22 , 23 ).…”