Abstract
TV weathercasters are a potentially important source of climate change information: They are a widely trusted source; they have frequent access to large audiences; and most have discussed climate change as part of their duties. Previous research, however, has shown that a significant minority of TV weathercasters disagree with the consensus science. Using multivariate analyses, this article identifies political ideology (conservative) and gender (male), but not age or science training, as predictors for being unconvinced that global warming is occurring; only ideology (conservative) predicts being unconvinced of anthropogenic causes of global warming. Ideology is also the strongest predictor, and gender is a secondary predictor, of trust in sources of climate change information: Conservative weathercasters expressed less trust in all seven science-based sources that were examined. These findings suggest that efforts to improve the quality of climate change reporting among these high-profile specialists must address political and personal ideology in addition to increased science training.
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