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As urgency grows to address global warming, younger generations can play a strategic role in mobilizing communities that have generally been more opposed to climate action and policy, such as political and religious conservatives in the United States. American evangelical Protestants—and white evangelicals in particular—are the largest religious group in the U.S. and also the most skeptical of climate science. There is growing interest, however, around whether evangelicals are becoming ‘greener,’ and whether climate attitudes among younger generations are diverging from their elders. We analyze empirical evidence for such generational divides by comparing data from two Climate Change in the American Mind surveys (n= 2332) with a national survey of Generation Z evangelicals (n= 1063). Our results show that young evangelicals are highly likely to say that global warming is happening (89%) and anthropogenic (75%), with approximately a third of young evangelicals doing so despite perceptions that their parents disagree. They are also consistently more likely than older evangelicals to express pro-climate positions on a range of belief and attitudinal measures. The results are more mixed when young evangelicals are compared more broadly with the general American public as well as with Generation Z Americans. Notably, however, young evangelicals are more supportive of climate policies, such as funding renewable energy research, than Americans overall, even though they are also more politically conservative and Republican. These results suggest that a generational ‘greening’ of American evangelicals may indeed be taking place, potentially along with some decoupling of climate attitudes from political identity. This may have major implications for the future of climate action and policy in the United States and beyond.

 

Abstract Climate Matters is a localized climate change reporting resources program developed to support television (TV) weathercasters across the United States. Developed as a pilot test in one media market in 2010, it launched nationwide in 2013; in the autumn of 2019 more than 797 weathercasters were participating in the program. In this paper we present evidence of the impact of the Climate Matters program on Americans’ science-based understanding of climate change. We analyzed three sets of data in a multilevel model: 20 nationally representative surveys of American adults conducted biannually since 2010 ( n = 23 635), data on when and how frequently Climate Matters stories were aired in each U.S. media market, and data describing the demographic, economic, and climatic conditions in each media market. We hypothesized that 1) reporting about climate change by TV weathercasters will increase science-based public understanding of climate change and 2) this effect will be stronger for people who pay more attention to local weather forecasts. Our results partially support the first hypothesis: controlling for market-level factors (population size, temperature, political ideology, and economic prosperity) and individual-level factors (age, education, income, gender, and political ideology), there is a significant positive association between the amount of Climate Matters reporting and some key indicators of science-based understanding (including that climate change is occurring, is primarily human caused, and causes harm). However, there was no evidence for the second hypothesis. These findings suggest that climate reporting by TV weathercasters, as enabled by the Climate Matters program, may be increasing the climate literacy of the American people. 

Abstract Television weathercasters are uniquely situated to inform their audiences about the local impacts of global climate change and a growing number of them are adopting the role of climate change educator. We surveyed all American broadcast meteorology professionals in 2015 (N = 2,059; response rate = 22.6%), 2016 (N = 2017; response rate = 31.2%), and 2017 (N = 2,177; response rate = 22.1%) to assess weathercasters’ interest in reporting about climate change; if, where, and how they report about climate change; and the reactions they get from their audiences when they do. Many participating weathercasters indicated that they were moderately or very interested in reporting about climate change, especially using local historical climate information (56%). Just over half of the weathercasters (57.9%) had used one or more communication mode to inform their viewers, or other people in their community, about the local impacts of climate change in the prior year. The most commonly used modes were social media (42.7%), school visits (36.3%), community events (33.1%), and on-air broadcasts (31.3%). Most weathercasters who had reported about climate change on air indicated they received either positive viewer feedback or little feedback (61.9%); conversely, weathercasters who had not reported about climate change expected to receive mostly negative feedback (44.2%). In sum, this analysis suggests that large numbers of weathercasters have adopted the role of climate change educator in their communities; they use a range of communication modes to share climate change information with their audiences and receive mostly positive feedback from their audiences when they do. 

Abstract The journalistic norm of balance has been described as the practice of giving equal weight to different sides of a story; false balance is balanced reporting when the weight of evidence strongly favors one side over others—for example, the reality of human-caused climate change. False balance is problematic because it skews public perception of expert agreement. Through formative interviews and a survey of American weathercasters about climate change reporting, we found that objectivity and balance—topics that have frequently been studied with environmental journalists—are also relevant to understanding climate change reporting among weathercasters. Questions about the practice of and reasons for presenting an opposing viewpoint when reporting on climate change were included in a 2017 census survey of weathercasters working in the United States (N = 480; response rate = 22%). When reporting on climate change, 35% of weathercasters present an opposing viewpoint “always” or “most of the time.” Their rationale for reporting opposing viewpoints included the journalistic norms of objectivity and balanced reporting (53%), their perceived uncertainty of climate science (21%), to acknowledge differences of opinion (17%), to maintain credibility (14%), and to strengthen the story (7%). These findings show that climate change reporting from weathercasters sometimes includes opposing viewpoints, and possibly a false balance, but further research is necessary. Moreover, prior research has shown that the climate reporting practices among weathercasters are evolving rapidly and so the problem of false-balance reporting may already be self-correcting. 

Prior research suggests that climate stories are rarely reported by local news outlets in the United States. As part of the Climate Matters in the Newsroom project—a program for climate-reporting resources designed to help journalists report local climate stories—we conducted a series of local climate-reporting workshops for journalists to support such reporting. Here, we present the impacts of eight workshops conducted in 2018 and 2019—including participant assessments of the workshop, longitudinal changes in their climate-reporting self-efficacy, and the number and proportion of print and digital climate stories reported. We learned that participants found value in the workshops and experienced significant increases in their climate-reporting self-efficacy in response to the workshops, which were largely sustained over the next 6 months. We found only limited evidence that participants reported more frequently on climate change after the workshops—possibly, in part, due to the impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on the news industry. These findings suggest that local climate-reporting workshops can be a useful but not necessarily sufficient strategy for supporting local climate change reporting. Further research is needed to illuminate how to support local climate reporting most effectively.

As part of an NSF-funded project to support local climate change news reporting, we conducted a series of eight journalist workshops. Here we evaluate their impacts. Participants gave the workshops strong positive ratings and experienced significant increases in climate-reporting self-efficacy. There was only limited evidence, however, that the workshops led to more frequent reporting on climate change—a conclusion muddied by the impacts of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on the news industry. These findings suggest that local climate-reporting workshops may be a useful strategy but that additional research is needed to strengthen the approach.

 

The spread of influential misinformation, such as conspiracy theories about the existence of a secret, large-scale atmospheric spraying program (SLAP), is contributing to the politicization of science. In an important recent study, Sheareret al(2016Environ. Res. Lett.11084011) employ a novel methodology to quantify the expert consensus of popular SLAP assertions. The authors find that 99% (76/77) of surveyed experts have not encountered any evidence that would support the existence of such a program. Here we argue that this finding is important because a growing body of research has shown that the public’s perception of expert consensus on key societal issues acts an important ‘gateway’ to science acceptance. Furthermore, communicating normative agreement among experts, such as the strong scientific consensus against the existence of a SLAP, can help limit the spread of misinformation and promote more effective public decision-making about science and society.