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How Climate Change Science Is Reflected in People’s Minds. A Cross-Country Study on People’s Perceptions of Climate Change

The way people perceive climate change scientific evidence becomes relevant in motivating or demotivating their climate actions. Climate change is one of the most publicized topics globally, and media has become an important “validator” of science. Therefore, science has become more exposed to criti...

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Autores principales: Petrescu-Mag, Ruxandra Malina, Burny, Philippe, Banatean-Dunea, Ioan, Petrescu, Dacinia Crina
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8998260/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35409962
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19074280
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author Petrescu-Mag, Ruxandra Malina
Burny, Philippe
Banatean-Dunea, Ioan
Petrescu, Dacinia Crina
author_facet Petrescu-Mag, Ruxandra Malina
Burny, Philippe
Banatean-Dunea, Ioan
Petrescu, Dacinia Crina
author_sort Petrescu-Mag, Ruxandra Malina
collection PubMed
description The way people perceive climate change scientific evidence becomes relevant in motivating or demotivating their climate actions. Climate change is one of the most publicized topics globally, and media has become an important “validator” of science. Therefore, science has become more exposed to criticism. Even when most scientists, decision makers, and laypeople agree on the robust evidence of climate science, there is still room for disagreement. The main aim of this paper is to reveal how climate change knowledge generated by science is perceived by the laypeople and to observe a possible gap between them. The study answered two questions “What are the main contrasting climate change topics in the scientific literature?” and “What are Romanian and Belgian participants’ perceptions of these topics?”. A qualitative approach was chosen for data analysis, using Quirkos software. The present cross-country study showed commonalities and differences of views between the two groups of participants regarding six climate change topics. Divergent perceptions among Belgians and Romanians came out, for example, within the theme “The heroes, villains, and victims of climate change.” Thus, whereas Belgians considered all people, including themselves, responsible for climate change, Romanians blamed mostly others, such as big companies, governments, and consumers. Additionally, both groups stated that climate change existed, but contrary to Belgians, Romanians voiced that climate change was often used as an exaggerated and politicized topic. The analysis revealed that perceptions about climate change, its causes, and its impacts are social constructs with a high degree of variability between and within the two national groups. The study argued that the cleavages between scientific literature and people’s views were blind spots on which a participatory approach was needed to better cope with climate change challenges.
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spelling pubmed-89982602022-04-12 How Climate Change Science Is Reflected in People’s Minds. A Cross-Country Study on People’s Perceptions of Climate Change Petrescu-Mag, Ruxandra Malina Burny, Philippe Banatean-Dunea, Ioan Petrescu, Dacinia Crina Int J Environ Res Public Health Article The way people perceive climate change scientific evidence becomes relevant in motivating or demotivating their climate actions. Climate change is one of the most publicized topics globally, and media has become an important “validator” of science. Therefore, science has become more exposed to criticism. Even when most scientists, decision makers, and laypeople agree on the robust evidence of climate science, there is still room for disagreement. The main aim of this paper is to reveal how climate change knowledge generated by science is perceived by the laypeople and to observe a possible gap between them. The study answered two questions “What are the main contrasting climate change topics in the scientific literature?” and “What are Romanian and Belgian participants’ perceptions of these topics?”. A qualitative approach was chosen for data analysis, using Quirkos software. The present cross-country study showed commonalities and differences of views between the two groups of participants regarding six climate change topics. Divergent perceptions among Belgians and Romanians came out, for example, within the theme “The heroes, villains, and victims of climate change.” Thus, whereas Belgians considered all people, including themselves, responsible for climate change, Romanians blamed mostly others, such as big companies, governments, and consumers. Additionally, both groups stated that climate change existed, but contrary to Belgians, Romanians voiced that climate change was often used as an exaggerated and politicized topic. The analysis revealed that perceptions about climate change, its causes, and its impacts are social constructs with a high degree of variability between and within the two national groups. The study argued that the cleavages between scientific literature and people’s views were blind spots on which a participatory approach was needed to better cope with climate change challenges. MDPI 2022-04-02 /pmc/articles/PMC8998260/ /pubmed/35409962 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19074280 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Petrescu-Mag, Ruxandra Malina
Burny, Philippe
Banatean-Dunea, Ioan
Petrescu, Dacinia Crina
How Climate Change Science Is Reflected in People’s Minds. A Cross-Country Study on People’s Perceptions of Climate Change
title How Climate Change Science Is Reflected in People’s Minds. A Cross-Country Study on People’s Perceptions of Climate Change
title_full How Climate Change Science Is Reflected in People’s Minds. A Cross-Country Study on People’s Perceptions of Climate Change
title_fullStr How Climate Change Science Is Reflected in People’s Minds. A Cross-Country Study on People’s Perceptions of Climate Change
title_full_unstemmed How Climate Change Science Is Reflected in People’s Minds. A Cross-Country Study on People’s Perceptions of Climate Change
title_short How Climate Change Science Is Reflected in People’s Minds. A Cross-Country Study on People’s Perceptions of Climate Change
title_sort how climate change science is reflected in people’s minds. a cross-country study on people’s perceptions of climate change
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8998260/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35409962
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19074280
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