Understanding the Communication of Climate Change Risk: Climate Scientists' Perspectives of Media Sources and Policy Makers Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • Despite the volumes of research that climate scientists produce examining the causes, effects, and history of global climate change, there continues to be an acceptance gap between these scientists and the public and government officials. While climate scientists share a consensus that climate change is occurring and is primarily caused by human activity, many citizens and public officials remain skeptical about climate change. One cause of this gap could be the nature of scientists' communications of their work to the media, the public, and decision makers within the government. We conducted a survey of climate scientists to find out how they view this gap, its causes, and potential solutions. We focus our analysis on the scientists' assessments of three intervening factorsknowledge, media relations, and trust.

published proceedings

  • RISK HAZARDS & CRISIS IN PUBLIC POLICY

altmetric score

  • 0.5

author list (cited authors)

  • Stoutenborough, J. W., Fette, R. N., Vedlitz, A., & Goldsmith, C. L.

citation count

  • 8

complete list of authors

  • Stoutenborough, James W||Fette, Robert Nicholas||Vedlitz, Arnold||Goldsmith, Carol L

publication date

  • December 2014

publisher