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Abstract As climate change intensifies, global publics will experience more unusual weather and extreme weather events. How will individual experiences with these weather trends shape climate change beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors? In this article, we review 73 papers that have studied the relationship between climate change experiences and public opinion. Overall, we find mixed evidence that weather shapes climate opinions. Although there is some support for a weak effect of local temperature and extreme weather events on climate opinion, the heterogeneity of independent variables, dependent variables, study populations, and research designs complicate systematic comparison. To advance research on this critical topic, we suggest that future studies pay careful attention to differences between self-reported and objective weather data, causal identification, and the presence of spatial autocorrelation in weather and climate data. Refining research designs and methods in future studies will help us understand the discrepancies in results, and allow better detection of effects, which have important practical implications for climate communication. As the global population increasingly experiences weather conditions outside the range of historical experience, researchers, communicators, and policymakers need to understand how these experiences shape-and are shaped by-public opinions and behaviors.
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Participating in a climate futures market increases support for costly climate policies
A large gap exists between the concerns over the risks of climate change and the support needed for effective climate actions. We show that participating in a market where individuals make predictions on future climate outcomes and earn money can change climate attitudes, behaviour and knowledge.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1835389
- PAR ID:
- 10481401
- Publisher / Repository:
- Nature Climate Change
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Nature Climate Change
- Volume:
- 13
- Issue:
- 6
- ISSN:
- 1758-678X
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 511 to 512
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01677-6
