BOSTROM A, O'CONNOR RE, BÖHM G, HANSS D, BODI O, EKSTRÖM F, HALDER P, JESCHKE S, MACK B, QU M, ROSENTRATER L, SANDVE A AND SÆLENSMINDE I. 2012. Causal Thinking and Support for Climate Change
Policies: International Survey Findings. Global Environmental Change 22: 210 – 222.
Abstract
Few comparative international studies describe the climate change
policies people are willing to support and the reasons for their support
of different policies. Using survey data from 664 economics and
business undergraduates in Austria, Bangladesh, Finland, Germany,
Norway, and the United States, we explore how perceived risk
characteristics and mental models of climate change influence support
for policy alternatives. General
green policies such as funding research on renewable technologies and
planting trees were the overwhelmingly most popular policy alternatives.
Around half the students support carbon reduction policies such as
requiring higher car fuel efficiency and increasing taxes on fossil
fuels. Least popular were engineering alternatives such as fertilizing
the oceans and replacing fossil fuels with nuclear power. Variations
among nations are generally small. Support for different policy
alternatives corresponds with different causal thinking. Those who hold a
pollution model of the causes of climate change, tend to blame
environmental harms (e.g., air pollution from toxic chemicals), see
general green policy alternatives as effective, and support general
green policies. Support of carbon reduction strategies is associated
with seeing carbon emissions as the cause and reducing carbon emissions
as effective solutions. Support of engineering solutions increases with
identifying volcanoes among causes and regarding engineering solutions
as effective. Although these international students agree that climate
change is a threatening problem, their causal thinking correlates with
support for different mitigative policy actions, with the most popular
ones not necessarily the most effective.
Highlights
►
Business undergraduates in six countries see climate change as a threat
and support policies to address it. ► Three distinct patterns of causal
thinking emerge that correlate with support for corresponding
mitigative policies. ► The three most popular solutions are general
“green” policies, the two least popular geoengineering. ► The policy
with the second highest “no” votes is increasing taxes on fossil fuels.
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