Global Environmental Change最新文献

{"title":"Discourses of climate inaction undermine public support for 1.5 °C lifestyles","authors":"Catherine Cherry ,&nbsp;Caroline Verfuerth ,&nbsp;Christina Demski","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102875","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102875","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Urgent action to tackle the climate crisis will only be possible with significant public support for radical lifestyle change. Arguments that seek to delay climate action and justify inadequate mitigation efforts, often termed ‘discourses of delay’, are widespread within political and media debate on climate change. Here we report the results of novel public deliberation and visioning workshops, conducted across the UK in 2020/2021 to explore visions of a 1.5 °C future. We found that despite very strong public support for many low-carbon lifestyle strategies in principle, entrenched discourses of delay are limiting beliefs that a fair, low-carbon future is possible. Consisting of four overarching narratives of climate inaction (Resisting personal responsibility; Rejecting the need for urgency; Believing change is impossible; and Defending the social contract), this public discourse of delay is characterised by three distinct repertoires (each with its own emotional resonance), that act to weaken support for climate action by producing defensive responses to discussions of low-carbon lifestyle change and undermining public sense of agency. We argue that countering these narratives, and the defensive responses they invoke, is essential for achieving meaningful public action on climate change.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":"87 ","pages":"Article 102875"},"PeriodicalIF":8.9,"publicationDate":"2024-06-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378024000797/pdfft?md5=6f29a9a1cf01543c8c433b5c5fb73709&pid=1-s2.0-S0959378024000797-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141423859","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Impact of lifestyle, human diet and nutrient use efficiency in food production on eutrophication of global aquifers and surface waters","authors":"A.F. Bouwman ,&nbsp;A.H.W. Beusen ,&nbsp;J.C. Doelman ,&nbsp;E. Stehfest ,&nbsp;H. Westhoek","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102874","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102874","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>A spatially explicit (0.5 degree resolution) analysis is presented of the impact of human lifestyle, diet and nutrient use efficiency in food production and wastewater treatment on exceedance of threshold concentrations for nitrate in groundwater, and total N and total P concentrations in surface water, as well as criteria for their ratio. This analysis starts from the middle-of-the-road (SSP2) and the sustainability (SSP1) Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSP), focusing on the year 2050. The scenarios with changed lifestyle assume a reduction of food wastage and a low-meat diet for all world inhabitants, implying large reductions of meat and milk consumption and production in industrialized countries. Scenarios with improved nutrient use efficiencies assume maximum achievable efficiencies under practical conditions. The SSP2 scenario combined with assumptions on lifestyle and human diet leads to improvement in industrialized countries only, and increased levels in many other regions. A strong improvement is achieved in SSP1, but not in many developing countries, and SSP1 combined with changed lifestyle leads to improvement of groundwater and surface water quality in industrialized countries only. Therefore, changed lifestyle needs to be combined with efforts to improve the efficiency in food production systems and wastewater treatment to achieve reductions of the area affected by groundwater contamination and eutrophication of surface waters. Reduction strategies need to find a balance between N and P, since it is easier to reduce N in rivers to levels below the threshold than P.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":"87 ","pages":"Article 102874"},"PeriodicalIF":8.9,"publicationDate":"2024-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378024000785/pdfft?md5=2372a642dcc939639089c96de7d58d5a&pid=1-s2.0-S0959378024000785-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141328580","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Migrants as sustainability actors: Contrasting nation, city and migrant discourses and actions","authors":"Claudia Fry ,&nbsp;Emily Boyd ,&nbsp;Mark Connaughton ,&nbsp;W. Neil Adger ,&nbsp;Maria Franco Gavonel ,&nbsp;Caroline Zickgraf ,&nbsp;Sonja Fransen ,&nbsp;Dominique Jolivet ,&nbsp;Anita H. Fábos ,&nbsp;Ed Carr","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102860","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102860","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Although it is widely recognized that migration is socially transformative, the potential contributions of migrants to transformations towards sustainability in their destination areas are often overlooked in mainstream discourse on environmentalism and sustainability. Here we seek to identify current narratives of migrants and sustainability across individual, urban, and national scales. Migrants are commonly framed in public policy as having no or even negative impacts on sustainability. The study hypotheses that the lived experience of sustainability by migrants within urban destinations differ from dominant discourses and perceptions of migrant populations within societies. We test and document such divergence using data from 21 interviews with key stakeholders from the city and Swedish national level, an attitudinal survey of 895 migrants and non-migrants in Malmö, Sweden; and a media analysis of local and national Swedish newspapers. Survey results show that migrants engage more extensively with a number of sustainability actions compared to non-migrants culminating in new insights on ‘migrants as sustainability actors’. By contrasting individual scale practices against urban to national sustainability narratives, the study illuminates current barriers to and the potential of migrants to play a transformative role in progress towards sustainability that is unrecognized in dominant policy discourses. To tap into this potential, the study emphasizes that sustainability policy across scales should embrace plurality and migration as fundamental parts of progress towards sustainability.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":"87 ","pages":"Article 102860"},"PeriodicalIF":8.9,"publicationDate":"2024-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378024000645/pdfft?md5=4457d6da679cd1e4d5d705e2cfda6174&pid=1-s2.0-S0959378024000645-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141324077","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Biological invasions as burdens to primary economic sectors","authors":"Anna J. Turbelin ,&nbsp;Emma J. Hudgins ,&nbsp;Jane A. Catford ,&nbsp;Ross N. Cuthbert ,&nbsp;Christophe Diagne ,&nbsp;Melina Kourantidou ,&nbsp;David Roiz ,&nbsp;Franck Courchamp","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102858","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102858","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Many human-introduced alien species economically impact industries worldwide. Management prioritisation and coordination efforts towards biological invasions are hampered by a lack of comprehensive quantification of costs to key economic sectors. Here, we quantify and estimate global invasion costs to seven major sectors and unravel the introduction pathways of species causing these costs — focusing mainly on primary economic sectors: agriculture, fisheries and forestry. From 1970 to 2020, costs reported in the InvaCost database as pertaining to <em>Agriculture, Fisheries</em>, and <em>Forestry</em> totaled $509 bn, $1.3 bn, and $134 bn, respectively (in 2017 United States dollars). Pathways of costly species were diverse, arising predominantly from cultural and agricultural activities, through unintentional contaminants with trade, and often impacted different sectors than those for which species were initially introduced. Costs to <em>Agriculture</em> were pervasive and greatest in at least 37 % (n = 46/123) of the countries assessed, with the United States accumulating the greatest costs for primary sectors ($365 bn), followed by China ($101 bn), and Australia ($36 bn). We further identified 19 countries highly economically reliant on <em>Agriculture</em>, <em>Fisheries</em>, and <em>Forestry</em> that are experiencing massive economic impacts from biological invasions, especially in the Global South. Based on an extrapolation to fill cost data gaps, we estimated total global costs ranging from at least $517–1,400 bn for <em>Agriculture</em>, $5.7–6.5 bn for <em>Fisheries</em>, and $142–768 bn for <em>Forestry</em>, evidencing substantial underreporting in the <em>Forestry</em> sector in particular. Burgeoning global invasion costs challenge sustainable development and highlight the need for improved management action to reduce future impacts on industry.</p></div><div><h3>Significance</h3><p>With rapidly rising biological invasion rates, efficient management is critical for economic and environmental impact mitigation. Specifically, improved quantification of the economic cost of biological invasions to the world’s primary economic sectors could provide crucial information for policymakers who must prioritise actions to limit ongoing and future impacts. We show that since 1970, over $600 bn in impacts has been incurred across <em>Agriculture</em>, <em>Fisheries</em> and <em>Forestry</em>, with the largest share reported in <em>Agriculture</em>. We further identify 19 countries, which rely heavily on primary sectors, facing comparatively high impacts from invasions, requiring urgent action. However, gaps in cost reporting across invasive taxa and countries suggest that these impacts are grossly underestimated. Proactive prioritisation by policymakers is needed to mitigate future impacts to primary sectors.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":"87 ","pages":"Article 102858"},"PeriodicalIF":8.9,"publicationDate":"2024-06-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141315400","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"From grey to green? Tipping a coal region incrementally","authors":"Franziska Mey ,&nbsp;Arno Weik ,&nbsp;Johan Lilliestam","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102862","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102862","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>A rapid and full decarbonisation of both energy and industry is essential to meet the targets in the Paris agreement, which brings coal- and carbon-intensive regions under significant pressure. Some regions have advanced in their transition and can provide insights in the system change processes. In this paper, we investigate the socio-economic transition processes of Essen and Duisburg as part of the wider structural change in the Ruhr Region/ Germany. We explore causes and effects of their trajectories in the last 30 + years and identify differences in outcome as a function of the interventions and/or contextual differences, while investigating whether either city crossed a tipping point in their transition process (yet). Therefore, we specifically evaluate the cities’ development trajectories by seeking evidence for “no”, “incremental” or “radical or tipping” changes in sets of qualitative and quantitative indicators.</p><p>Our analysis shows that both cities experienced incremental changes in their demographic, economic and political trajectories but we found no evidence for either city to have crossed a tipping point in their transition process yet. However, distinct developments in the cities’ policy narratives and visions indicate qualitative changes while putting them on different development trajectories potentially leading to tipping points in the future. Our study shows that the sequence of interventions and timing are important factors for the trajectory of a region determining the quality of societal change. It also suggests that radical change and tipping are the exception rather than the rule, especially in the highly complex social systems of cities.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":"87 ","pages":"Article 102862"},"PeriodicalIF":8.9,"publicationDate":"2024-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378024000669/pdfft?md5=06d530ef305c637f7680cac599389e43&pid=1-s2.0-S0959378024000669-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141315399","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Methodological issues with deforestation baselines compromise the integrity of carbon offsets from REDD+","authors":"Thales A.P. West ,&nbsp;Barbara Bomfim ,&nbsp;Barbara K. Haya","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102863","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102863","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The number of voluntary interventions seeking to generate carbon offsets by reducing deforestation and forest degradation, generally known as REDD+ projects, has increased significantly over the past decade. Offsets are issued based on project performance in comparison to a baseline scenario representing the expected deforestation in a project area in the absence of REDD+. Baselines from most ongoing REDD+ projects were established following four methodologies approved by the largest voluntary carbon offset certification scheme worldwide, the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) from Verra. These methodologies often rely on oversimplified assumptions about deforestation that remain overlooked by project developers, certification bodies, and buyers. Here, we explore what these methodological assumptions are and their implications. We then construct alternative deforestation baselines for four ongoing VCS-certified projects using the four VCS-REDD+ methodologies and examine how they differ. Overall, we observe large discrepancies among the project baselines. On average, the highest baseline value we calculate for each project is more than 14 times greater than the lowest value across the four projects studied. This illustrates the lack of robustness and consistency across the VCS-REDD+ methodologies. The results also call into question the additionality of carbon offsets issued based on these methodologies. New baseline methods need to be urgently developed if voluntary REDD+ projects are to reliably estimate their additional contribution to climate change mitigation. The incorporation of causal inference methods represents current best practices in measuring the efficacy of REDD+ interventions. Regrettably, these methods remain largely overlooked by project developers, certification standards, and governmental and international bodies. Dynamic baselines developed by independent analysts could potentially enable project developers to distinguish the impacts of the REDD+ intervention from confounding factors and properly estimate additionality.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":"87 ","pages":"Article 102863"},"PeriodicalIF":8.9,"publicationDate":"2024-06-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378024000670/pdfft?md5=f9ab68170469412f6219f5074f7efe3e&pid=1-s2.0-S0959378024000670-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141303377","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Greening to shield: The impacts of extreme rainfall on economic activity in Latin American cities","authors":"Rafael Van der Borght,&nbsp;Montserrat Pallares-Barbera","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102857","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102857","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Latin American cities are increasingly impacted by floods and this trend is likely to be further exacerbated under the combined effects of climate change and urbanisation. To reduce urban flood risk, green infrastructure and the ability to preserve and rehabilitate green spaces is often mentioned as an option to improve the hydraulic response of cities. Yet, little empirical evidence exists about the degree to which a greener city land cover can reduce the impacts of extreme rainfall on urban economic activity. Using earth observations from 630 cities across Latin America, this paper shows that extreme rainfall has a negative impact on urban economic activity, as proxied by cities’ night lights. Importantly, it finds that this negative impact diminishes as city’s land cover becomes greener: for cities where dense vegetation represents more than 20 % of total city area, the marginal impact of extreme rainfall is broadly halved vis-a-vis cities below this threshold. A counterfactual analysis for the year 2015 suggests that increasing the greenness of 25 % of the cities in our sample could have reduced losses by US$ 6,500 million -equivalent to a 19 % reduction of total estimated losses. These results evidence the benefits that a greener city land cover that makes room for green infrastructure can provide to adapt to more erratic rainfall patterns.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":"87 ","pages":"Article 102857"},"PeriodicalIF":8.9,"publicationDate":"2024-06-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095937802400061X/pdfft?md5=cfb400f49c1d9729e05b00fb7b40a830&pid=1-s2.0-S095937802400061X-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141291876","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Tracking the global anthropogenic gallium cycle during 2000–2020: A trade-linked multiregional material flow analysis","authors":"Ziyan Gao ,&nbsp;Yong Geng ,&nbsp;Meng Li ,&nbsp;Jing-Jing Liang ,&nbsp;Khaoula Houssini","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102859","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102859","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Byproduct metals are essential to global low carbon transition since they are irreplaceable in modern renewable energy technologies. Gallium (Ga) is classified as one critical byproduct metal due to its extensive use in electronic applications and low carbon technologies, as well as its limited resource endowment. It is urgent to uncover the global and regional Ga stocks and flows so that the potential supply risks can be mitigated. This study maps the global and regional Ga cycles for the period of 2000–2020 by employing a trade-linked multiregional material flow analysis (MFA) method. Our results show that 79% of the global Ga co-mined from bauxite ended up in red mud or entered the aluminum cycle as an impurity, indicating a significant recycling potential. Different involved regions have different but complementary roles in the global Ga supply chain. China dominates the global primary Ga production, accounting for 97% of the global total in 2020. Japan and the United States are key players in high-purity Ga refining and rely on Ga to support their electronic devices manufacturing. Unfortunately, Ga recycling practices are still not occurring due to the low Ga concentrations in major applications. Since the global demand for Ga will continue to grow in the near future, it is urgent to initiate collaborative efforts so that Ga recycling can be enhanced. These efforts are critical to ensure the sustainable Ga supply and facilitate the global transition toward low carbon development.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":"87 ","pages":"Article 102859"},"PeriodicalIF":8.9,"publicationDate":"2024-06-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141291875","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Divergent agricultural development pathways across farm and landscape scales in Europe: Implications for sustainability and farmer satisfaction","authors":"Julian Helfenstein ,&nbsp;Samuel Hepner ,&nbsp;Amelie Kreuzer ,&nbsp;Gregor Achermann ,&nbsp;Tim Williams ,&nbsp;Matthias Bürgi ,&nbsp;Niels Debonne ,&nbsp;Thymios Dimopoulos ,&nbsp;Vasco Diogo ,&nbsp;Wendy Fjellstad ,&nbsp;Maria Garcia-Martin ,&nbsp;Józef Hernik ,&nbsp;Thanasis Kizos ,&nbsp;Angela Lausch ,&nbsp;Christian Levers ,&nbsp;Jaan Liira ,&nbsp;Franziska Mohr ,&nbsp;Gerardo Moreno ,&nbsp;Robert Pazur ,&nbsp;Tomasz Salata ,&nbsp;Felix Herzog","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102855","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102855","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Current agricultural practices in Europe are increasingly aggravating societal and environmental safety concerns. This creates social and regulatory pressures on farmers, which can lead to declining material and social status of farmers, farmer discontent, and anti-regulation protests. These tensions are rooted in conflicting value systems for agricultural development, which can range from productivist pathways (i.e. valuing production above all else) to increasing multifunctionality pathways (i.e. valuing agriculture for its contribution to multiple economic, environmental and societal needs). It is largely unknown to what degree individual farms and agricultural landscapes are transitioning towards increasing productivism or multifunctionality in practice. Here, we mapped landscape changes and interviewed farmers (n = 274) to examine the diversity of agricultural development pathways in 17 study sites across Europe over the last 20 years (2000–2020). We also assessed the associations between the development pathways and farmers’ perceptions of socio-economic outcomes, namely job satisfaction, societal valuation, and economic performance. Farm-level development was largely aligned with productivist pathways, while landscape-level changes aligned more closely with an increasing multifunctionality pathway. Farmers on pathways of increasing multifunctionality did not perceive improved outcomes on livelihood indicators as compared to productivist farmers. Furthermore, farms on increasing multifunctionality pathways were concentrated in sites with very high management intensities that face strong pressure from environmental regulations, as well as low-intensity, mountainous sites, where opportunities for intensification are limited. These results suggest that current pathways that increase multifunctionality arise mostly by necessity. Successful agricultural transformation will therefore require policy to create enabling environments that provide socioeconomic benefits for farmers to increase multifunctionality, and a civil society and market conditions that value sustainable agriculture.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":"86 ","pages":"Article 102855"},"PeriodicalIF":8.9,"publicationDate":"2024-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378024000591/pdfft?md5=bf87064751fc94665ae8b9d5c78a23e6&pid=1-s2.0-S0959378024000591-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141084235","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The educational divide in climate change attitudes: Understanding the role of scientific knowledge and subjective social status","authors":"Anne G. Hoekstra,&nbsp;Kjell Noordzij,&nbsp;Willem de Koster,&nbsp;Jeroen van der Waal","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102851","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102851","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Research has frequently found that less-educated citizens are more skeptical about climate change and show less trust in climate science than their more-educated counterparts. We advance insights on why this educational divide exists by: 1) scrutinizing the relevance of the dominant knowledge-deficit explanation by uniquely using an objective measure of scientific knowledge; and 2) theorizing and empirically testing a novel explanation on the importance of subjective social status. Building on recent sociological insights, we theorize that less-educated citizens have a lower subjective social status and feel misrecognized by more-educated citizens, inciting frustration and opposition toward the attitudes and lifestyle of the latter. Because belief in and concern about climate change are predominantly embraced by more-educated citizens and have strong status connotations, less-educated citizens’ opposition to the lifestyle of more-educated citizens is likely also directed at the issue of climate change. We test hypotheses derived from both approaches by analyzing unique survey data gathered among members of a high-quality panel representative of the Dutch population. We focus on two outcome measures: climate change skepticism and distrust in climate science. We find that both the knowledge-deficit approach and the novel explanation involving subjective social status contribute to understanding the educational divide in climate change attitudes, in addition to other approaches covered by control variables such as income and political ideology. Our study concludes with a reflection on the theoretical implications of these findings and their practical implications for information campaigns, which our study suggests should be careful not to prime less-educated citizens’ perceived lower social standing.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":"86 ","pages":"Article 102851"},"PeriodicalIF":8.9,"publicationDate":"2024-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378024000554/pdfft?md5=152732bb953b237795168406ed80be67&pid=1-s2.0-S0959378024000554-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141090653","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}