Although global warming has been the subject of some public discussion since the turn of the 20th Century, it was pushed into the national spotlight during the fall of 1997, when President Bill Clinton's administration instigated a campaign to build public support for the Kyoto treaty. To examine the effect of this campaign and the debate it sparked, we conducted two national surveys, one immediately before and the other immediately after the campaign. We addressed three questions: (1) What were Americans' beliefs and attitudes about global warming before the debate? (2) Did the debate catch the public's attention? and (3) Did the debate change people's beliefs and attitudes about global warming? We found that a majority of the American general public and of the global warming “issue public” endorsed the views advocated by President Clinton before the media campaign began. The debate did attract people's attention and strengthened the public's beliefs and attitudes. The debate produced almost no changes in public opinion when the nation's population is lumped together. But beneath this apparently calm surface, strong Democrats came to endorse the positions advocated by the Clinton administration, while strong Republicans were less inclined to endorse the administration's views.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
S. Ungar , “The Rise and (Relative) Decline of Global Warming as a Social Problem,”The Sociological Quarterly33 (1992): 483-501.
2.
Downs , “Up and Down with Ecology.”
3.
S. Arrhenius , Worlds in the Making: The Evolution of the Universe (New York: Harper, 1908).
4.
“Global Lukewarming,”The New York Times, November 5, 1989.
5.
Ungar , “The Rise and (Relative) Decline of Global Warming as a Social Problem.”
6.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , IPCC Second Assessment Synthesis of Scientific-Technical Information Relevant to Interpreting Article 2 of the U.S. Framework of the IPCC (Geneva Switzerland: IPCC Secretariat, 1995).
7.
“Who's Warming the Globe?: U.N. Group Emphasizes Role of Human Activity,”The Buffalo News, December 17, 1995.
8.
Newspaper and television stories were found using Lexis®-Nexis®, an on-line index of news stories. Transcripts from ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN were searched for the keyword “global warming,” as were stories in all national and regional U.S. newspapers (in both the “major” and “regional” Lexis®-Nexis® categories).
9.
P. E. Converse , “The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics,” in Ideology and Discontent, ed. D. E. Apter (New York: Free Press, 1964), 206-261.
10.
D. S. Boninger , J. A. Krosnick, and M. K. Berent, “Origins of Attitude Importance: Self-interest, Social Identification, and Value Relevance,”Journal of Personality and Social Psychology68 (1995): 61-80.
11.
R. A. Dahl , A Preface to Democratic Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956).
12.
J. A. Krosnick and S. Telhami, “Public Attitudes Toward Israel: A Study of the Attentive and Issue Publics”International Studies Quarterly39 (1995): 535-554.
13.
J. D. Miller , The American People and Science Policy (New York: Pergamon Press, 1983).
14.
A. D. Monroe , “Consistency Between Public Preferences and National Policy Decision,”American Politics Quarterly7 (1979): 3-19.
15.
D. S. Boninger , J. A. Krosnick, M. K. Berent, and L. R. Fabrigar, “The Causes and Consequences of Attitude Importance,” in Attitude Strength: Antecedents and Consequences, eds. R. E. Petty and J. A. Krosnick (Hillsdale, N. J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1995), 159-190.
16.
J. A. Krosnick , “Attitude Importance and Attitude Accessibility.”
17.
J. A. Krosnick , “Attitude Importance and Attitude Change.”
18.
P. S. Visser , “Assessing the Structure and Function of Attitude Strength.”
19.
J. A. Krosnick , “Governmental Policy and Citizen Passion.”
20.
P. S. Visser , “Assessing the Structure and Function of Attitude Strength.”
21.
R. H. Fazio , “A Practical Guide to the Use of Response Latency in Social Psychological Research,” in Research Methods in Personality and Social Psychology, eds. C. Hendrick and M. S. Clark (Newbury Park, CA: SAGE Publications, 1990), 74-97.
22.
R. E. Petty and J. A. Krosnick, Attitude Strength: Antecedents and Consequences (Mahway, N. J.: Lawrence Erlbaum and Associates, 1995).
23.
P. F. Lazarsfeld , B. Berelson, and H. Gaudet, The People's Choice: How the Voter Makes up His Mind in a Presidential Campaign (New York: Columbia University Press, 1948).
24.
D. R. Kinder and D. O. Sears, “Public Opinion and Political Action,” in Handbook of Social Psychology, 3rd Ed., eds. G. Lindzey and E. Aronson (New York: Random House, 1985), 659-741.
25.
D. F. Roberts and N. Maccoby, “Effects of Mass Communication,” in Handbook of Social Psychology, 3rd Ed., eds. G. Lindzey and E. Aronson (New York: Random House, 1985), 539-598.
26.
J. M. McLeod and B. Reeves, “On the Nature of Mass Media Effects,” In Television and Social Behavior, ed. S. B. Withey and R. P. Abeles (Hillsdale, N. J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1980), 17-54.
27.
A. Lupia and M. D. McCubbins, The Democratic Dilemma: Can Citizens Learn What They Really Need to Know? (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
28.
The CPS is based on a very large sample of the population, and 93 percent of the eligible households were interviewed.
29.
J. A. Krosnick and L. R. Fabrigar, Designing Great Questionnaires: Insights from Psychology (New York: Oxford University Press, in press).
30.
J. A. Krosnick , “Response Strategies for Coping with the Cognitive Demands of Attitude Measures in Surveys,”Applied Cognitive Psychology5 (1991): 213-236.
31.
Although air pollution refers to more than simply greenhouse gases (which are believed to be among the primary contributing factors in causing global warming), participants in focus groups we conducted around the country did not distinguish between the two, and we were concerned that many survey respondents might not understand the term “greenhouse gases” without a tutorial. Because such a tutorial might alter people's beliefs, we used the more readily understood term “air pollution” instead of “greenhouse gases.” We recognize that “air pollution” does not accurately and precisely characterize the causes of global warming and look forward to future research exploring whether such terminology changes alter measurements of public opinion.
32.
D. Read , A. Bostrom, M. G. Morgan, B. Fischoff, and T. Smuts, “What Do People Know about Global Climate Change? 2: Survey Studies of Educated Laypeople,”Risk Analysis14 (1994): 971-982.
33.
Results from the September-October survey used all 688 respondents as the denominator to calculate percentages unless otherwise specified.
34.
In the September-October wave of interviewing, 58 respondents were issue-public members, and 628 were nonmembers.
35.
Results for the December-February survey used 725 respondents to calculate the percentages unless otherwise specified.
36.
In the December-February wave of interviewing, 76 respondents were issue-public members, and 646 were nonmembers.
37.
P. J. Tichenor , G. A. Donohue, and C. N. Olien, “Mass Media Flow and Differential Growth to Knowledge,”Public Opinion Quarterly34 (1970): 159-170.
38.
M. McCombs , “The Agenda Setting Approach,” in Handbook of Political Communication, eds. D. Nimmo and K. Sanders (Beverly Hills: SAGE Publications, 1981).
39.
P. F. Lazarsfeld , B. Berelson, and H. Gaudet, The People's Choice.
40.
In the September-October survey, there were 115 strong Democrats and 81 strong Republicans. In the December-February survey, there were 73 strong Democrats and 89 strong Republicans.
41.
P. J. Tichenor , G. A. Donohue, and C. N. Olien, “Mass Media Flow and Differential Growth to Knowledge.”
