Most research into the connections between water and energy, water and food, and food and energy has been scientific and technical; little research has examined the public's understandings of these connections. This article studies these understandings and awareness of nexus issues using a 2015 national public opinion survey on the water-energy-food nexus. Responses from this representative sample of U.S. adults are used to create "awareness measures" for elements of the nexus-water and energy, water and food, and energy and food-which are then used as independent variables to investigate the extent to which awareness is associated with support for public policies designed to address these nexus interconnections. All three measures are significantly correlated to support for policy options. Results suggest that awareness of the water-energy-food nexus may represent conditions necessary for supporting policies and that building such awareness
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 factors -knowledge, media relations, and trust.
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