Nature & Environment
Scientists Agree Humans Causing Climate Change is Real--Again (Video)
Catherine Griffin
First Posted: May 16, 2013 12:30 PM EDT
Scientists agree that humans are causing climate change--again. They took an extensive survey of over 12,000 peer-reviewed climate science papers and have found that there was a major consensus when it came to deciding whether or not climate change was occurring--97 percent.
The new study included scientific articles that were published between 1991 and 2011. The fact that a majority these agreed that climate change is currently occurring highlights a pressing issue: there's a huge schism between the scientific community and the public at large. Yale's April 2013 climate change survey, for example, found that Americans' conviction that global warming is happening had dropped to 63 percent, according to The Huffington Post.
"There is a gaping chasm between the actual consensus and the public perception," said John Cook, a Climate Communication Fellow for the Global Chang Institute at the University of Queensland, in a statement. "It's staggering given the evidence for consensus that less than half of the general public think scientists agree that humans are causing global warming. This is significant because when people understand that scientists agree on global warming, they're more likely to support policies that take action on it."
This particular schism is partly due to the media. According to The Guardian, the media has assisted in the misconception with climate stories that are "balanced" with a "skeptic" perspective. Yet since 97 percent of scientific studies seem to agree, these media stories are actually giving an equal side to the mere three percent that disagrees.
While the researchers hope that their new study will help change these public perceptions, though, others remain skeptical. Robert Brulle, a sociologist at Drexel University, believes that this study only tackles some of the issues associated with public views.
"I don't think people really want to come around to grips with the fact that climate change is a highly ideological issue and it is not amenable to the information deficit model," said Brulle in an interview with The Guardian. "The information deficit model, this idea that if you just pile on more information people will get convinced, is just completely inadequate. It strengthens the people who actually read and pay attention, but it is certainly not going to change or shift the opinions of others."
Whether or not these scientists succeeded in changing public opinion with their latest survey, though, will remain to be seen.
The findings are published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
Want to learn more about the study? Check out the video below, originally appearing here.
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First Posted: May 16, 2013 12:30 PM EDT
Scientists agree that humans are causing climate change--again. They took an extensive survey of over 12,000 peer-reviewed climate science papers and have found that there was a major consensus when it came to deciding whether or not climate change was occurring--97 percent.
The new study included scientific articles that were published between 1991 and 2011. The fact that a majority these agreed that climate change is currently occurring highlights a pressing issue: there's a huge schism between the scientific community and the public at large. Yale's April 2013 climate change survey, for example, found that Americans' conviction that global warming is happening had dropped to 63 percent, according to The Huffington Post.
"There is a gaping chasm between the actual consensus and the public perception," said John Cook, a Climate Communication Fellow for the Global Chang Institute at the University of Queensland, in a statement. "It's staggering given the evidence for consensus that less than half of the general public think scientists agree that humans are causing global warming. This is significant because when people understand that scientists agree on global warming, they're more likely to support policies that take action on it."
This particular schism is partly due to the media. According to The Guardian, the media has assisted in the misconception with climate stories that are "balanced" with a "skeptic" perspective. Yet since 97 percent of scientific studies seem to agree, these media stories are actually giving an equal side to the mere three percent that disagrees.
While the researchers hope that their new study will help change these public perceptions, though, others remain skeptical. Robert Brulle, a sociologist at Drexel University, believes that this study only tackles some of the issues associated with public views.
"I don't think people really want to come around to grips with the fact that climate change is a highly ideological issue and it is not amenable to the information deficit model," said Brulle in an interview with The Guardian. "The information deficit model, this idea that if you just pile on more information people will get convinced, is just completely inadequate. It strengthens the people who actually read and pay attention, but it is certainly not going to change or shift the opinions of others."
Whether or not these scientists succeeded in changing public opinion with their latest survey, though, will remain to be seen.
The findings are published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
Want to learn more about the study? Check out the video below, originally appearing here.
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone