Knowledge, Perception and Attitude in Relation to Climate Change: A Cross-sectional Survey

Abstract

A cross-sectional online survey was conducted using multiple online channels, where hundreds of responses were recorded from seven different countries, in order to provide a better understanding of the global public opinion about the awareness, perception and attitude about climate change. The results reflected that majority of people believe in the actual happening of Climate Change both by natural as well as anthropogenic causes. While most respondents believed in the anthropogenic causes of climate change, some people still displayed their confidence in the natural causation of climate change and thus affirmed their awareness of its natural causes. There was however, a difference of opinion regarding the mechanism behind the greenhouse effect. The respondents also provided their opinion on the impact of carbon aerosols on the atmospheric temperature. Further, the respondents were optimistic on the issue of climate change reversal and had also preferred some mitigation steps such as the use of geo-engineering over adjusting to the existing impacts of climate change. Although, people confirmed their belief in the human-induced nature of climate change, yet their agreement of having faced bizarre things about climate change like the lack of consensus among the scientists and climate change being a hoax shows their unawareness about the appropriate knowledge and the propaganda against this planetary emergency. Therefore, this study could prove helpful for policy makers and other stakeholders as it shows how much is done and how much more is pending.

Optimistic Environmental Messaging Increases State Optimism and in vivo Pro-environmental Behavior

“…Nonetheless, evidence has been mixed regarding whether trait optimism or closely related constructs, such as hope and future subjective wellbeing, are reliably associated with greater PEB (Ojala, 2012(Ojala, , 2015Kaida, 2016a,b, 2017). Similar mixed findings have been reported for the relations among support for geoengineering technologies, optimism, and engagement in conservation behavior (Murtagh et al, 2015;Rehman et al, 2021). Most of the research on the associations between subjective wellbeing, optimism-pessimism, and PEB has been crosssectional, precluding an examination of "true" causal mechanisms.…”

“…Some have posited a reliance on science and technology to solve environmental ills is problematic and may breed complacency and inaction regarding conservation behavior (Dunlap et al, 2000;Murtagh et al, 2015;Mittiga, 2019). Nonetheless, support for geoengineering technologies to abate climate change has been linked with expressing concern for the environment (Landry et al, 2018), and people seem to express optimism toward to efficacy of geoengineering interventions to mitigate environmental dilemmas (Rehman et al, 2021). We found that optimistic environmental messaging promoted support for geoengineering via heightened state optimism (Hypothesis 2).…”

“…Similarly, green purchasing has previously been associated with optimism, but not pessimism (Sadiq et al, 2020). Geoengineering represents a collection of technologies intended to abate climate change that people appear to express support of and optimism toward (Rehman et al, 2021). In previous work, Landry et al (2018) found a positive relation between support for geoengineering and environmental concern.…”