ABS45827

2 ABS57610.1177/0002764212458272American Behavioral ScientistLeiserowitz et al.

2011 SAGE Publications

Reprints and permission: http://www.

sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

Article
American Behavioral Scientist

Climategate, Public Opinion, 57(6) 818837

2012 SAGE Publications
Reprints and permissions:
and the Loss of Trust sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0002764212458272
abs.sagepub.com

Anthony A. Leiserowitz1, Edward W. Maibach2,

Connie Roser-Renouf 2, Nicholas Smith1,
and Erica Dawson1

Abstract
Nationally representative surveys conducted in 2008 and 2010 found significant
declines in Americans climate change beliefs, risk perceptions, and trust in scientists.
Drawing upon the Social Amplification of Risk Framework, this analysis empirically
examines the impact of climategatean international scandal resulting from the
unauthorized release of emails between climate scientists in England and United
States. The results demonstrate that climategate had a significant effect on public
beliefs in global warming and trust in scientists. The loss of trust in scientists, however,
was primarily among individuals with a strongly individualistic worldview or politically
conservative ideology. Nonetheless, Americans overall continued to trust scientists
more than other sources of information about global warming. Several other
explanations for the declines in public understanding are also explored, including the
poor state of the economy, a new administration and Congress, diminishing media
attention, and abnormal winter weather.

Keywords
climategate, trust, public opinion, climate change, risk perception

In 2007 and 2008, climate change reached the top of the international agenda, with
world leaders discussing the issue at international summits. Former vice president Al
Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shared the 2007 Nobel
Peace Prize for their efforts to alert the world to the threat. Media coverage and public

1
Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
2
George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA

Corresponding Author:
Anthony A. Leiserowitz, School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, Yale University,
New Haven, CT 06511, USA.
Email: [email protected]
Leiserowitz et al. 819

concerns about global warming reached historic highs. Barack Obama, who had cam-
paigned, in part, on the need to address climate change, won the U.S. presidential
election along with a large majority of Democrats in both houses of the U.S. Congress.
On June 26, 2009, the House of Representatives passed the first major piece of climate
change legislation in American history. Meanwhile, the nations of the world were
negotiating an internationally binding treaty to be concluded in Copenhagen in
December 2009.
By the end of 2009, however, the situation had changed dramatically. The climate
bill stalled in the U.S. Senate. President Obama remained mired in a bruising fight
over health care reform, and Copenhagen failed to produce a new internationally bind-
ing treaty. Climate science itself was attacked on several fronts after a server at the
Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom
was breached and more than a thousand emails and other documents were posted on
the Internet. A few of these emails were cited by climate change critics as evidence
that British and American scientists had changed their results to make global warming
appear worse than it is, suppressed global warming research they disagreed with, and
conspired to delete communications relevant to freedom of information requests.
One series of emails in particular attracted widespread interest. In conversations
between Phil Jones, director of the CRU, and Michal Mann, director of the Earth
System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, Jones described a trick
employed to allegedly hide the decline in warming over the past half century as
recorded by some tree ring records (New York Times, 2009). Jones, Mann, and other
scientists argued that both statements had been taken out of context and misinter-
preted. Meanwhile, the story moved from the blogosphere into mainstream newspa-
pers and television news and opinion programs. Dubbed climategate by climate
skeptics and some in the media, the scandal generated considerable press attention
across the United States and around the world, with articles and editorials published in
major newspapers and scientific journals and stories broadcast on major television and
radio networks. Several books were quickly written by climate change deniers who
used the controversy as proof that climate change is not happening or is a hoax (e.g.,
see Sussman, 2010). More broadly, climategate became the latest in a series of
events and arguments climate change dismissives have used in a two-decade campaign
to convince the world that climate change is not occurring (Hoggan & Littlemore,
2009; Oreskes & Conway, 2010).
The scandal also had significant ramifications for the scientists involved. Phil Jones
temporarily stepped down as director of the CRU, pending an independent investiga-
tion, although he has since been exonerated (Russell, Boulton, Clarke, Eyton, & Norton,
2010). Michael Mann was also subject to a university review, which subsequently
exonerated him on all four charges (Pennsylvania State University, 2010). Both men
and other scientists received physical and death threats, and in an interview Jones
admitted that he had contemplated suicide several times (Sunday Times, 2010).
The consequences were also felt within the broader climate science community. The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), for example, faced allegations
820 American Behavioral Scientist 57(6)

that these scientists had pressured the IPCC to ignore several contrarian articles as part
of the 4th Assessment Report, a claim the IPCC denied. Since the email scandal, how-
ever, several errors were identified in the 4th Assessment Report, leading the United
Nations to order an independent review of the IPCC review process (BBC, 2010). The
allegations also swirled through the Copenhagen Climate Summit and into the halls of
the U.S. Congress, where Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma (R) called for criminal
investigations of 17 climate scientists by the U.S. Department of Justice (U.S.
Senate, 2010).
Although American public understanding of the reality of anthropogenic climate
change had been increasing since the late 1990s (Nisbet & Myers, 2007), these events
coincided with widespread declines in public acceptance that global warming is hap-
pening, human-caused, or a serious threat (e.g., Pew, 2009a; Gallup, 2009, 2010a;
Leiserowitz, Maibach & Roser-Renouf 2009, 2010). This article reports results from a
national study on the impact of climategate on public beliefs in global warming and
trust in climate scientists, and describes several additional factors that likely contrib-
uted to the overall declines in American public opinion.

Theoretical Background: The

Social Amplification of Risk

The study of the social amplification of risk aims to examine broadly, and in
social and historical context, how risk and risk events interact with psychologi-
cal, social, institutional, and cultural processes in ways that amplify or attenuate
risk perceptions and concerns, and thereby shape risk behavior, influence insti-
tutional processes, and affect risk consequences. (J.X. Kasperson, Kasperson,
Pidgeon, & Slovic, 2003, p. 2)

In particular, the theory describes an interconnected system or network of commu-

nication, in which messages about risk emerge from one part of the system (e.g.,
scientists discover that smoking causes cancer), the threat is then amplified by other
actors in the system (e.g., doctors and public health groups) and downplayed by other
actors (e.g. cigarette companies), leading over time to changes in mass media cover-
age, public opinion, consumer markets, and government policy (R. E. Kasperson et al.,
1988). The secondary and tertiary ripple effects of this process can occasionally be
quite large, leading to the collapse or emergence of entire markets, new laws, regula-
tions, institutions, and changes in mass behavior, as the smoking example illustrates.
In particular, this approach examines how different representations of risk and
uncertainty diffuse through a society and are selectively amplified, attenuated, or rein-
terpreted in the process, leading to changes in individual decision making and public
policy. Different actors and organizations within the system, including scientists and
scientific institutions, special interest groups, the private sector, government officials,
reporters and the mass media, and the public, all play critical roles in this process
Leiserowitz et al. 821

(Flynn, Slovic, & Kunreuther, 2001; Leiserowitz, 2004; Pidgeon, Kasperson, &
Slovic, 2003). Some risk signals diffuse quickly through the system, encountering
little resistance and a lot of amplification (e.g., recent concern about the H1N1 virus
or swine flu), whereas other risk signals diffuse slowly, receiving relatively little
media attention (e.g., radon). Finally, some risks are highly controversial, with differ-
ent actors competitively trying to either amplify or attenuate the risk signal.
Climate change science and policy are an excellent case in point, in which new
scientific findings and assessments, extreme weather events, mass media events (e.g.,
An Inconvenient Truth), and proposed government policies have generated a complex
set of amplification and attenuation efforts by a broad range of actors within the sys-
tem over several decades. Likewise, scientific, economic, and political uncertainties
are often deployed strategically by various actors within the social amplification sys-
tem. Climate skeptics often try to amplify uncertainties or doubts about climate sci-
ence to delay action (Dunlap & McCright, 2010; Hoggan & Littlemore, 2009;
McCright & Dunlap, 2003). Uncertainty about the technical feasibility, economic
cost, and efficacy of solutions are also often used as a delaying tactic (this will bank-
rupt the economy, the Kyoto Protocol wont make any difference). Meanwhile,
environmentalists may attempt to amplify other scientific uncertainties to motivate
action (e.g., the possibility of abrupt and catastrophic climate change) (Nisbet, 2009).
Drawing upon two nationally representative survey studies, this article reports a
significant decline in the American publics beliefs that climate change is happening,
human-caused, and a serious threat, along with declines in public trust in climate sci-
ence and scientists. The social amplification of risk provides a conceptual framework
that helps to identify several key factors that likely contributed to these large-scale
trends. In particular, we empirically examine the impact of climategate as a risk
attenuation event, amplified by climate skeptics within particular online and media
networks, on different segments of the American public.

Methods
Survey Method

From 2008 to 2010, we conducted two nationally representative surveys of American

adults to assess shifts in public climate change beliefs, risk perceptions, policy prefer-
ences, and behaviors, and the impact of climategate on public opinion.
2008. From October 7 through November 12, 2008, we conducted a nationally
representative survey of American adults aged 18 or older using KnowledgePanel, an
online panel operated by Knowledge Networks. Recruited nationally using random-
digit dialing (RDD) telephone methodology, KnowledgePanel is representative of the
U.S. population. The panel tracks closely the December 2007 Current Population
Survey (CPS; published jointly by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor
Statistics) on age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, geographic region, employment status, and
other demographic variables. Completed questionnaires were received from 2,164
respondents, a 54% within-panel completion rate, with a margin of sampling error of
plus or minus 2%, with 95% confidence.
822 American Behavioral Scientist 57(6)

2010. From December 24, 2009 to January 4, 2010, we conducted a second nation-
ally representative survey of American adults (n = 1,001), again using KnowledgePanel.
Completed questionnaires were received from 1,001 American adults, aged 18 or
older, a 53% within-panel completion rate. The margin of sampling error was plus or
minus 3%, with 95% confidence.
To reduce the effects of any nonresponse and noncoverage bias in the overall panel
membership, poststratification weights were applied to both survey datasets using demo-
graphic distributions from the most recent CPS for each survey. Benchmark distribu-
tions for Internet access among the U.S. population of adults were obtained from
KnowledgePanel recruitment data since this measurement is not collected as part of the
CPS. The poststratification variables were as follows: Gender (male/female); Age
(1829, 3044, 4559, and 60+); Race/Hispanic ethnicity (White/non-Hispanic,
Black/non-Hispanic, other/non-Hispanic, 2+ races/non-Hispanic, Hispanic); Education
(less than high school, high school, some college, bachelor and beyond); Census Region
(Northeast, Midwest, South, West); Metropolitan Area (yes/no); Internet Access (yes/no).

Measures
In both surveys, respondents were asked whether they believed global warming is
happening, what they believed is causing it, how worried they were about it, and how
much they trusted a variety of information sources on the issue. In the 2010 survey,
respondents were additionally asked whether they had heard of climategate; how
closely they had followed the stories about it; what impact, if any, the stories had on
their levels of certainty that global warming is or is not happening; and their trust in
scientists as sources of information about global warming. Questions assessing cul-
tural worldviews and sociodemographics were also asked.
Belief was assessed by asking, Recently, you may have noticed that global warm-
ing has been getting some attention in the news. Global warming refers to the idea that
the worlds average temperature has been increasing over the past 150 years, may be
increasing more in the future, and that the worlds climate may change as a result.
What do you think? Do you think that global warming is happening? (1) Yes; (2) No;
and (3) Dont know. A follow-up question asked those who responded either yes or
no how certain they were of their belief: (1) not at all certain; (2) somewhat certain;
(3) very certain; or (4) extremely certain.
Causation was assessed by asking, Assuming global warming is happening, do
you think it is . . . (1) Caused mostly by human activities; (2) Caused mostly by natural
changes in the environment; (3) Other (Please specify); (4) None of the above because
global warming isnt happening. The first and second response options were rotated
to control for order effects, and the other text responses were content analyzed to
create two additional categories: (5) Caused by both human activities and natural
changes in the environment; and (6) Dont know.
Worry was assessed by asking, How worried are you about global warming? (1)
Not at all worried; (2) not very worried; (3) somewhat worried; (4) very worried.
Leiserowitz et al. 823

Source trust was assessed by asking, How much do you trust or distrust the fol-
lowing as a source of information about global warming? (1) Strongly distrust; (2)
somewhat distrust; (3) somewhat trust; (4) strongly trust. The 2008 survey included a
randomized list of nine sources for respondents to rate; the 2010 survey included a
partly overlapping list of eight. Those items common to both surveys were scientists,
television weather reporters, religious leaders, the mainstream news media, Al Gore,
and Barack Obama.
Climategate awareness and impact were assessed in the 2010 survey with a
short series of questions: Respondents were first asked, Have you heard anything in
the news recently about controversial emails between climate scientists in England
and the US? Some news organizations have called the release of these emails
Climategate. (1) Yes; (2) No; (3) Dont know.
Respondents who answered yes were then asked, How closely have you fol-
lowed the news stories about the controversial emails? (1) Not at all; (2) a little; (3)
somewhat closely; (4) very closely.
The impact of the stories on people who followed them was then assessed with
several items: Respondents who answered a little, somewhat closely, or very
closely, were asked,

1. Would you say the news stories about the controversial emails made you:
(5) Much more certain that global warming IS happening; (4) somewhat
more certain that global warming IS happening; (3) they had no influence
on my level of certainty; (2) somewhat more certain that global warming
IS NOT happening; (1) much more certain that global warming IS NOT
happening.
2. Have these stories about the controversial emails caused you to have more
or less trust in climate scientists? (5) Much more trust; (4) somewhat more
trust; (3) no change in my level of trust; (2) somewhat less trust; (1) much
less trust. For regression analyses, this item was recoded to create a 3-point
scale: Increased trust and no change in trust (responses 5 through 3) were
collapsed into a single category to reduce the skew caused by the small num-
bers who said their trust had increased.
3. How much do you agree or disagree with the following statements?
(4) Strongly agree; (3) somewhat agree; (2) somewhat disagree; (1) strongly
disagree. The order of the four statements was randomized.
Scientists changed their results to make global warming appear worse
than it is.
Scientists conspired to suppress global warming research they dis-
agreed with.
Nothing in the emails contradicts the scientific conclusion that global
warming is happening.
Climate skeptics are intentionally taking the emails out of context in
order to cast doubt on the reality of global warming.
824 American Behavioral Scientist 57(6)

Cultural worldviews of egalitarianism and individualism were assessed using a series

of questions derived from cultural theory and from scales used by Dake (1992), Peters and
Slovic (1996), and Leiserowitz (2006). For analysis, egalitarianism and individualism
indices were created, each with a high reliability score ( = .78 and .85, respectively).1
Sociodemographic information assessed included gender, age, education, house-
hold income, ethnicity, political ideology (liberal-conservative), and political party
identification (Democrat, Independent, Republican).

Results
A Decline in Public Understanding

In 2008, 71% of Americans said yes, global warming is happening. By 2010, how-
ever, this number had dropped to 57%. Meanwhile the proportion that said no,
global warming is not happening doubled from 10% to 20%, whereas those who said
dont know increased from 19% to 23% of the public ( = 80.94, p < .001, n = 3,149).2
Those respondents who said yes were then asked how sure they were that global
warming is happening. By 2010, only 59% said they were very or extremely sure
global warming is happeninga 13-percentage-point drop from 2008 (t = 5.54,
p < .001, n = 2,104). Respondents who said global warming is not happening did not
become significantly more certain of their views (t = 0.66, ns, n = 403).
All respondents were then asked whether global warming is mostly human or natu-
rally caused. In 2008, more than half of Americans (57%) said human activities were
causing global warming. By 2010, however, this had dropped 10 points to 47%.
Meanwhile those attributing global warming to natural changes rose 3 points to 36%.
Those who volunteered the answer both human and natural changes increased 1
point to 6%. Finally, the proportion of Americans who said none of the above,
because global warming isnt happening rose 6 points to 9% ( = 68.52, p < .001,
n = 3,468). In line with the declines in public understanding that global warming is
happening and human-caused, by January 2010 only 50% of Americans said they were
somewhat or very worried about global warming; a 13-point drop from 63% in
2008 (t = 7.29, p < .001, n = 3,125).
Importantly, the study also found a 9-point drop (t = 5.85, p < .001, n = 3,076) since
the fall of 2008 in public trust (strong or somewhat) in scientists as a source of infor-
mation about global warming.3 In January 2010, 22% of the public strongly trusted
and 52% somewhat trusted scientists, whereas 19% somewhat distrusted and 7%
strongly distrusted them. Despite the decline, however, scientists (74%) remained
much more trusted than weather reporters (56%), President Obama (51%), Al Gore
(47%), religious leaders (45%), or the mainstream media (36%) as sources of informa-
tion on global warming.
Leiserowitz et al. 825

The Impact of Climategate

To investigate the impact of climategate on American public opinion, we included
a set of questions on the survey we conducted from December 24 to January 3, nearly
2 months after the emails were first posted online and approximately 1 month after
the story finally entered mainstream news publications and broadcasts. The survey
found that 29% of Americans said they had heard of the story, whereas 56% said
they had not and 16% said they didnt know.
The 29% who had heard of the story were then asked how closely they had fol-
lowed it. Of these respondents, 14% said they had followed it very closely, 30% said
somewhat closely, 41% said a little, and 16% said not at all. Subtracting those
who said not at all, approximately 1 out of 4, or 58 million, American adults had
both heard of and followed the climategate story.
Those respondents who had at least followed the story a little were then asked
whether the news stories had made them more or less certain that global warming is
happening or not. Forty-seven percent said the stories had made them somewhat (18%)
or much more certain (29%) that global warming is not happening. Forty-one percent
said the stories had no influence on their level of certainty, and 11% said the story had
actually made them somewhat (8%) or much more certain (3%) global warming is
happening.
The respondents were then asked, Have these stories about the controversial
emails caused you to have more or less trust in climate scientists? Over half (53%)
said that the stories had caused them to have much less (29%) or somewhat less (24%)
trust in scientists, whereas 43% said it had not affected their level of trust. Five percent
said they had more trust in scientists as a result of the news stories.
Finally, respondents were asked several questions to investigate the conclusions
they had reached about the scandal itself and its wider meaning for the issue of global
warming. Of those Americans paying attention to the story, 69% said that they some-
what (36%) or strongly agreed (33%) with the statement, Scientists changed their
results to make global warming appear worse than it is (Figure 1). Likewise, 66%
somewhat (33%) or strongly agreed (33%) that Scientists conspired to suppress
global warming research they disagreed with.
More broadly, 64% of Americans attentive to the story somewhat (29%) or strongly
disagreed (35%) with the statement, Nothing in the emails contradicts the scientific
conclusion that global warming is happening. Finally, 54% somewhat (22%) or
strongly disagreed (32%) that Climate skeptics are intentionally taking the emails out
of context in order to cast doubt on the reality of global warming.
Extrapolated to the entire U.S. adult population, approximately 25% of Americans
were aware of and followed the news stories about climategate. About 12% to 13%
of all Americans said that the stories had led them to become more certain that global
warming is not happening and to have less trust in scientists. Roughly 17% of all
Americans said that the scientists involved in the scandal had either falsified their
results or conspired to suppress contrary research. Likewise, 16% of all Americans
826 American Behavioral Scientist 57(6)

Figure 1. Public interpretations of climategate.

believed the emails undermined the conclusion that global warming is happening.
These findings all suggest that the scandal had a significant impact on overall public
opinion, despite the fact that a large majority of Americans had not heard of it, at least
as of early January 2010. The email story also appears to have influenced the publics
opinions of both climate science and scientists.
But the American public is neither homogeneous nor monolithic. Some Americans
were more influenced by climategate than others. For example, whereas 80% of the
self-identified conservatives who followed the story reported less trust in scientists as
a result of climategate, only 9% of the liberals who followed the story had this
response. To determine more fully which Americans lost trust in climate scientists as
a result of the scandal, we constructed multiple regression models to test the individual
and combined influence of demographics (i.e., sex, age, education, income, and race),
political orientation (conservative vs. liberal and political party), and underlying cul-
tural worldviews (egalitarianism and individualism) on public interpretations of and
responses to the scandal (Table 1).
In Model 1: Sociodemographics, Whites were slightly more likely to have lost trust
in climate scientists, due to the scandal (p < .05; F = 1.60; Adj. R2 = .011). In Model 2:
Political Orientation, political ideology and political party were strong predictors of
Leiserowitz et al. 827

Table 1. Change in Trust in Scientists, by Demographics, Political Orientation, and Values.

Model 2: Model
Model 1: Political Model 3: 4: Full
Sociodemographics orientation Worldview model
Gender .059 .128**
Age .075 .144***
Education .083 .041
Household income .094 .031
Race/ethnicity .127* .031
Political ideology .409*** .256***
Republican .267*** .035
Independent, other, or no party .323** .154**
Egalitarianism .355*** .302***
Individualism .472*** .385***
Adjusted R2 .011 .368 .471 .569
F 1.60 53.13*** 123.19*** 36.36***
N 278 268 274 268
Note: The question was, Have these stories about the controversial emails caused you to have more or
less trust in climate scientists? (2 = no decline in trust; 1 = some decline in trust; 0 = large decline in trust).
Cell entries are standardized regression weights. Negative values indicate a loss of trust. For gender,
female is coded as the higher value. For the race/ethnicity variables, non-Hispanic Whites are compared
to all other groups: Blacks, Hispanics, Others, and mixed-race respondents. For the dummy coding of
political party, the excluded category was Democrat.
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

public loss of trust in climate scientists. Conservatives were the most likely to have
lost trust, whereas Republicans, Independents, other party members, and individuals
with no party affiliation lost significantly more trust in scientists than Democrats, the
omitted dummy variable group. Together, political ideology and party identification
explained 37% of the variance in the loss of trust (F = 53.13, p < .001). In Model 3:
Worldview, individualism was a strong predictor of the loss of trust, whereas egalitari-
anism was a strong predictor of those Americans who did not lose trust in scientists.
Worldview explained 47% of the total variance (p < .001; F = 123.19; Adj. R2 = .471).
Finally, in Model 4, the demographic, political, and worldview variables were all
included in a full model. Individualism was the single best predictor of public loss of
trust, followed by conservative political ideology, whereas egalitarianism strongly
predicted those Americans that reported no loss of trust. This model explained 57% of
the total variance in public loss of trust in scientists due to climategate (F = 36.36,
p < .001).
In short, the impact of climategate on those who followed the story varied con-
siderably and mainly affected the views of those who were ideologically predisposed
to be skeptical of global warming to begin with.
828 American Behavioral Scientist 57(6)

Discussion
The Impact of Climategate
The results reported above strongly suggest that the climategate scandal in
November and December of 2009 deepened and perhaps solidified the observed
declines in public beliefs that global warming is happening, human-caused, and of
serious concern. It also helps to explain the erosion of public trust in scientists as
sources of information on global warming.
These results also demonstrate the important roles that cultural worldviews, politi-
cal ideology, and motivated reasoning play in mediating public interpretations of and
responses to global warming. Prior research has found that the underlying cultural
worldviews of egalitarianism and individualism are strongly correlated with climate
change risk perceptions and policy preferences. Egalitarians are predisposed to per-
ceive climate change as a serious risk and to support a variety of policies to address it.
Individualists, however, are predisposed to perceive climate change as a nonexistent
or low-risk and to generally oppose climate specific policies, especially those that
involve government action (Leiserowitz, 2006). These cultural orientations have also
been found to predict public responses to a variety of other risks, including nuclear
power, nanotechnology, vaccinations, and genetically modified organisms (e.g.,
Slovic & Peters, 1998; Steg & Sievers, 2000; Kahan, 2010).
Likewise, political orientation has long been recognized as a significant factor in
public perceptions of climate change, with liberals and Democrats generally more
concerned about climate change, and conservatives and Republicans less so (Krosnick,
Visser & Holbrook, 1998); these differences have been increasing over time (McCright
& Dunlap, 2011). Our results demonstrate that climate change continues to be a
sharply partisan and ideological issue and that much of the decline in public trust in
scientists came from drops among political conservatives and Americans with a
strongly individualistic worldview. Interestingly, however, a few liberals and egalitar-
ians who followed the news story said they became more convinced that climate
change is happening and more trusting of climate scientists as a result.
Both patterns are consistent with motivated reasoning. People are not dispassionate
consumers of information. Instead, their motivational statestheir values, wishes, and
preferencesinfluence what information they pay attention to, how they evaluate
data, and the conclusions they draw (Dawson, Savitsky, & Dunning, 2006; Ditto,
Scepansky, Munro, Apanovitch, & Lockhart, 1998; Kunda, 1990). As a result, people
are often inclined to accept data and interpretations that appear to validate their prior
views. They may search for any evidence that their preferred conclusion is valid and
stop once confirmation is found. By contrast, people tend to view with suspicion data
that contradict their preferences and beliefs. They give greater scrutiny to and look for
reasons to reject the validity of contradictory claims (Dawson, Gilovich, & Regan,
2002; Ditto & Lopez, 1992). Because most real-world bodies of evidenceand cer-
tainly those related to climate changehave flaws, inconsistencies, and ambiguities,
Leiserowitz et al. 829

people motivated to accept or reject a claim can often find at least some grounds for
doing so.
Motivated reasoning has been shown to play a significant role in the evaluation of
scientific evidence (Munro, Leary, & Lasane, 2004); the formation and maintenance
of political beliefs (Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003; Taber & Lodge,
2006); the communication of uncertain information (Schweitzer & Hsee, 2002);
underestimation of risk (Knaper, Kornik, Atkinson, Guberman, & Aydin, 2005);
and censoring of data about potentially serious, but unchangeable, conditions
(Dawson et al., 2006). Our finding that individualists and political conservatives were
significantly more likely to lose trust in scientists, whereas some egalitarians and
liberals were more likely to gain trust in scientists, suggest that climategate was in
some ways like a Rorschach testa set of ambiguous impressions, leading to widely
divergent interpretations, and revealing as much about the interpreters as of the objec-
tive facts.

Other Potential Contributing Factors to the Decline in Public

Understanding
2009 also witnessed the confluence of several other large-scale events that collec-
tively created a perfect storm that cascaded through the climate change social
amplification of risk system, leading to dampened risk perceptions of climate change
among the American public.
The economy. In October 2008, unemployment in the United States stood at 6.6%.
By December 2010, it had risen substantially to 10.0% (Bureau of Labor Statistics,
2010). Public opinion polls found that the economy became the overwhelming number
one priority of Americans by the fall of 2008 (Gallup, 2010c; Pew, 2009b). By con-
trast, the Pew Center for People & the Press found that by January 2010, only 28% of
the public said addressing global warming should be a top priority, down 10 points
from 2007 (Pew, 2009b). Other issues, including protecting the environment, energy,
illegal immigration, and crime had also dropped in national priority. The drop in the
priority of other issues is consistent with the psychological finding that individuals
have a finite pool of worry (Linville & Fischer, 1991; Weber, 2006). As concerns
about one risk increase (e.g., the economy), concerns about other risks tend to decrease.
Likewise, a recent study using county-level data by Kahn and Kotchen (2010) found
that high unemployment rates were significantly correlated with declines in public
concern for the environment and support for policies designed to mitigate climate
change. Thus, it is likely that soaring public worries about jobs and the state of the
economy contributed to the decline in public concerns about climate change and other
issues.
A new administration and Congress. The George W. Bush administration was widely
perceived as antagonistic to many environmental issues, including climate change. In
2001, President Bush renounced a campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide as a
pollutant; withdrew the United States from the Kyoto Protocol negotiations; and
830 American Behavioral Scientist 57(6)

proposed national energy legislation to increase drilling for oil and natural gas, increase
mining for coal, and build more than a thousand new fossil fuelburning power plants
(Leiserowitz, 2005, 2006). In the fall of 2008, however, the United States elected
President Barack Obama, a Democrat who had campaigned, in part, upon a platform
to improve environmental quality and address climate change. Democrats also estab-
lished stronger control over the House of Representatives and achieved a filibuster-
proof majority in the Senate for the first time since the 1970s. As Democrats took
control, public optimism about the outlook for environmental quality increased. In
2008, only 26% of the public believed that environmental quality was getting better.
By 2009 and 2010, surveys by Gallup found that this perception of environmental
quality had increased 15 points to 41%. The surge was almost entirely driven by the
changing views of Independents and Democrats. This increased optimism about the
prospect of improved environmental quality under a Democratic administration and
Congress among these groups may also have contributed to the decline in public wor-
ries about climate change (Gallup, 2010b), although they cannot explain the separate
drop in public beliefs that global warming is happening.
Media attention. The media can play an important agenda-setting role (Dearing &
Rogers, 1996), especially for issues like climate change, which are largely impercep-
tible to most Americans except through media accounts. Carbon dioxide and other
greenhouse gases are invisible and the consequences are typically perceived as distant
in time and space (Leiserowitz, 2005; Lorenzoni, Leiserowitz, Doria, Poortinga, &
Pidgeon, 2006). Most Americans only learn about the issue through media reporting,
and when the quantity and quality of media coverage changes, it likely influences
public opinion. For example, in North America newspaper coverage of global warm-
ing peaked in 2007 and steadily declined through 2008 and 2009, dropping to roughly
one third of the peak before a spike of news stories before and during COP15 in
Copenhagen, followed by a subsequent drop back to the relatively low levels of 2009
(Boykoff & Mansfield, 2010). A separate analysis found that nightly news coverage of
global warming on NBC, CBS, and ABC also peaked in early 2007, but by 2009, it had
dropped to approximately one fifth of the peak, again with a temporary increase in the
month surrounding Copenhagen (Brulle, 2010). These patterns in the sheer quantity of
media reporting demonstrate that the media have not kept climate change readily
present, available, and salient in the minds of much of the public. Moreover, climate
change has never been a significant proportion of total news and has almost always
been dwarfed by other news stories, ranging from economic and political affairs to
celebrity scandals. For example, the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism found
that in 2007 and 2008, the environment as a whole (not just climate change), accounted
for only 1.7% of national news stories (Pew, 2010).
Abnormal winter weather. Across the United States, 2009 was 0.2C (0.3F) above
the 20th century average. At a regional level, the Southwest to Louisiana and Florida
had slightly above average temperatures, the Midwest experienced slightly below
average temperatures, and the rest of the nation was near normal (NOAA, 2009a).
Thus, contrary to some perceptions, there was no national-scale, unidirectional
Leiserowitz et al. 831

cooling trend in 2009. One of the first surveys to identify a significant downward trend
in public opinion occurred in the spring (Gallup, 2009). Several other surveys docu-
menting declines in public opinion were conducted in November, in the run-up to
Copenhagen (e.g., Washington Post-ABC, 2009b; AP-Stanford, 2009). Nationally,
however, November 2009 was the third warmest in U.S. history, with the national
average temperature 2.2C (4.0F) warmer than the 20th century average (NOAA,
2009b). All of these results suggest that the declines in public opinion identified
through most of 2009 were not being driven by the experience of unusually cold
weather.
Our survey, however, was conducted from December 24 to January 7, 2010at the
end of an unusually cold and wet December that brought record snowfalls to the
Southeast and above normal precipitation to the East and Central regions of the coun-
try (NOAA, 2009c). It is possible that for this study conducted at this time, some
Americans may have shifted their opinions based on their own direct experience of
these events. It is also possible that some opinions changed not because of individual
experience, but due to the influence of media reportsboth of the event itself (e.g.,
Snowmaggedon) and of climate change opponents who used record snowfalls as
proof that climate change is not occurring. Nonetheless, significant declines in pub-
lic belief that global warming is happening were identified months before the events
of December 2009 (e.g., Gallup, 2009; Pew, 2009a), so these weather events alone are
an inadequate explanation.

Prognosis
These observed changes in public opinion should be viewed in context. Although
there have been significant declines since 2008 in public beliefs that global warming
is happening, human-caused, and a serious threat, as of May 2011 a majority of
Americans (64%) believed it is happening. A plurality (47%) believed that it is caused
mostly by human activities, and approximately half said they were worried about it
(52%). Scientists remained by far the most trusted source of information on global
warming (76%), despite the fact that a plurality of the public (40%) believed there is
a lot of disagreement among scientists about whether global warming is happening
(Leiserowitz, Maibach, Roser-Renouf, & Smith, 2011). Moreover, the declines
occurred amidst a serious national recession with high unemployment, an intensely
partisan political environment, a significant drop in media attention, an unusually cold
December, and a series of scandals and attacks on climate science and scientists. We
also found that the loss of trust in scientists among those Americans who followed the
climategate scandal was primarily among Americans already predisposed, for ideo-
logical or cultural worldview reasons, to disbelieve climate science. Each of these
events, as interpreted and amplified by a variety of actors in the social amplification
of climate change system, contributed to the dampening of public perceptions of cli-
mate change as a serious and/or urgent threat.
832 American Behavioral Scientist 57(6)

What happens to public opinion from here? Is this just a temporary drop that will
soon rebound to prior levels, a new plateau, or the middle of a continuing trend of
declining public belief in and concern for climate change? Public responses to climate
change are influenced by multiple factors, and it is impossible to predict what will
happen as events unfold. However, it may be safe to assume that the economy will
eventually improve, unemployment will decline, and Americans will again feel more
secure addressing a problem still viewed by most as relatively distant. Certainly the
memory of the unusual weather events of December will fade, perhaps to be replaced
by the experience of record high temperatures or extreme weather events in the future.
Media coverage, however, is likely to remain episodic, and deeper structural changes
in the media will have significant implications for climate change and scientific report-
ing in general, as news organizations downsize and cut science and environmental
reporters. Continued efforts to pass federal climate legislation will probably amplify
partisan and worldview divides, as core values are engaged in political debate.
As trusted information sources, scientists can play an important role in helping to
improve public understanding of the causes, consequences, and potential solutions to
climate change, and help lay the foundations for informed decision making for years
to come. Scientists still have strong credibility with most of the public, although there
does appear to be growing distrust of scientists by conservatives and individualists, at
least regarding climate change. Finding ways to rebuild this trust should become an
important priority for the scientific community, lest it risk marginalization of science-
based information in the policy-making process. At a minimum, the scientific com-
munity needs to engage in more effective dialogue with key stakeholders and the
public and develop more effective communication skills. Serious concerns held by key
stakeholders should be taken seriously and addressed directly.
Finally, the climate system itself will likely play an ever-greater role in shaping
public risk perceptions, policy preferences, and behaviors. As Americans begin to
directly experience and are taught to observe the impacts of climate change occurring
locally, regionally, and nationally, these recent declines may eventually reverse. The
key question is whether this tipping point in public engagement will come too late
to avoid dangerous climate change (Leiserowitz, 2005).

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article: Support was provided by the Betsy and Jesse Fink Foundation,
and a Health Policy Investigator Award from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Notes
1. Methodological details about the indices are available from the authors upon request.
Leiserowitz et al. 833

2. Using differently worded measures, Pew (2009a) and Gallup (2010a) also found similar
declines since 2008.
3. Polls taken 2 weeks apart by AP-Stanford (2009) and Washington Post-ABC (2009a) used
identical questions and found an 11% drop in trust in the things scientists say about the
environment.
4. Due to small sample size (N = 236), confidence intervals for these results are +/ 6%.

References
AP-Stanford. (2009). Associated PressStanford University Environment Poll. Palo Alto, CA:
Stanford University. Retrieved from http://woods.stanford.edu/docs/surveys/AP-Stanford-
University-Environment-Poll-2009.pdf
BBC. (2010). Scientists to review climate body. Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/
hi/8561004.stm
Boykoff, M., & Mansfield, M. (2010). 2004-2010 world newspaper coverage of climate change
or global warming. Boulder, CO: University of Colorado. Retrieved from http://sciencepolicy
.colorado.edu/media_coverage/
Brulle, R. (2010). Nightly news coverage of global warming. Retrieved from http://dotearth.
blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/02/the-greatest-story-rarely-told/
Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2010). Retrieved from http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/
SurveyOutputServlet?data_tool=latest_numbers&series_id=LNS14000000
Dake, K. (1992). Myths of nature: Culture and the social construction of risk. Journal of Social
Issues, 48, 2127.
Dawson, E., Gilovich, T., & Regan, D. T. (2002). Motivated reasoning and performance on
the Wason selection task. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28(10), 13791387.
Dawson, E., Savitsky, K., & Dunning, D. (2006). Dont tell me, I dont want to know: Under-
standing peoples reluctance to obtain medical diagnostic information. Journal of Applied
Social Psychology, 36(3), 751768.
Dearing, J., & Rogers, E. (1996). Agenda-setting. London: Sage.
Ditto, P. H., & Lopez, D. F. (1992). Motivated skepticism: The use of differential decision crite-
ria for preferred and nonpreferred conclusions. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology,
63(4), 568584.
Ditto, P. H., Scepansky, J. A., Munro, G. D., Apanovitch, A. M., & Lockhart, L. K. (1998).
Motivated sensitivity to preference-inconsistent information. Journal of Personality &
Social Psychology, 75(1), 5369.
Dunlap, R. E., & McCright, A. M. (2010). Climate change denial: Sources, actors and strategies.
In C. Lever-Tracy (Ed.), Routledge handbook of climate change and society (pp. 240259).
Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
Flynn, J., Slovic, P., & Kunreuther, H. (Eds.). (2001). Risk, media, and stigma: Understanding
publicchallenges to modern science and technology. London: Earthscan.
Gallup. (2009). Increased number think global warming is exaggerated. Princeton, NJ: Gallup.
Retrieved from http://www.gallup.com/poll/116590/increased-number-think-global-warming-
exaggerated.aspx
834 American Behavioral Scientist 57(6)

Gallup. (2010a). Americans global warming concerns continue to drop. Princeton, NJ:
Gallup. Retrieved from http://www.gallup.com/poll/126560/Americans-Global-Warming-
Concerns-Continue-Drop.aspx
Gallup. (2010b). Americans more upbeat about environmental quality. Princeton, NJ: Gallup.
Retrieved from http://www.gallup.com/poll/126620/Americans-Upbeat-Environmental-
Quality.aspx
Gallup. (2010c). Most important problem. Princeton, NJ: Gallup. Retrieved from http://www.
gallup.com/poll/1675/Most-Important-Problem.aspx
Hoggan, J., & Littlemore, R. (2009). Climate cover-up: The crusade to deny global warming.
Vancouver, Canada: Greystone Books.
Jost, J. T., Glaser, J., Kruglanski, A. W., & Sulloway, F. J. (2003). Political conservatism as
motivated social cognition. Psychological Bulletin, 129(3), 339375.
Kahan, D. (2010). Fixing the communications failure. Nature, 463(21), 296297.
Kahn, M. E. & Kotchen, M. J. (2010). Environmental concern and the business cycle: The chill-
ing effect of recesion. National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 16241. Cam-
bridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. Retrieved from: http://www.nber.org/
papers/w16241
Kasperson, J. X., Kasperson, R. E., Pidgeon, N., & Slovic, P. (2003). The social amplification
of risk: Assessing fifteen years of research and theory. In N. Pidgeon, R. E. Kasperson, &
P. Slovic (Eds.), The social amplification of risk (pp. 1346). Cambridge: University of
Cambridge Press.
Kasperson, R. E., Renn, O., Slovic, P., Brown, H. S., Emel, J., & Goble, R. (1988). The social
amplification of risk: A conceptual framework. Risk Analysis, 8, 177187.
Knaper, B., Kornik, R., Atkinson, K., Guberman, C., &, Aydin, C. (2005). Motivation influ-
ences the underestimation of cumulative risk. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 31,
15111523.
Krosnick, J. A., Visser, P. S., & Holbrook, A. L. (1998). American opinion on global warming:
The impact of the fall 1997 debate. Resources, 133, 59.
Kunda, Z. (1990). The case for motivated reasoning. Psychological Bulletin, 108, 480498.
Leiserowitz, A. (2004). Before and after The Day After Tomorrow: A U.S. study of climate
change risk perception. Environment, 46(9), 2237.
Leiserowitz, A. (2005). American risk perceptions: Is climate change dangerous? Risk Analysis,
25(6), 14331442.
Leiserowitz, A. (2006). Climate change risk perception and policy preferences: The role of
affect, imagery, and values. Climatic Change, 77, 4572.
Leiserowitz, A., Maibach, E., & Roser-Renouf, C. (2009). Climate change in the American
mind: Americans climate change beliefs, attitudes, policy preferences, and actions in
November, 2008. Yale University and George Mason University. New Haven, CT: Yale
Project on Climate Change. Retrieved from http://environment.yale.edu/climate/files/CC
_American_Mind.pdf
Leiserowitz, A., Maibach, E., & Roser-Renouf, C. (2010). Climate change in the American
mind: Americans global warming beliefs and attitudes in January 2010. Yale University
Leiserowitz et al. 835

and George Mason University. New Haven, CT: Yale Project on Climate Change. Retrieved
from http://environment.yale.edu/uploads/AmericansGlobalWarmingBeliefs2010.pdf
Leiserowitz, A., Maibach, E., Roser-Renouf, C., & Smith, N. (2011). Climate change in the
American mind: Americans global warming beliefs and attitudes in May 2011. Yale University
and George Mason University. New Haven, CT: Yale Project on Climate Change Commu-
nication. http://environment.yale.edu/climate/files/ClimateBeliefsMay2011.pdf
Linville, P. W., & Fischer, G. W. (1991). Preferences for separating and combining events: A
social application of prospect theory and the mental accounting model. Journal of Personal-
ity & Social Psychology, 60, 523.
Lorenzoni, I., Leiserowitz, A., Doria, M., Poortinga, W., & Pidgeon, N. (2006). Cross-national
comparisons of image associations with global warming and climate change among
laypeople in the United States of America and Great Britain. Journal of Risk Research, 9(3),
265281.
McCright, A. M., & Dunlap, R. E. (2003). Defeating Kyoto: The conservative movements
impact on U.S. climate change policy. Social Problems, 50, 348373.
McCright, A. M., & Dunlap, R. E. (2011). The politicization of climate change: Political polar-
ization in the American publics views of global warming. Sociological Quarterly, 52,
155194.
Munro, G. D., Leary, S. P., & Lasane, T. P. (2004). Between a rock and a hard place: Biased
assimilation of scientific information in the face of commitment. North American Journal
of Psychology, 6(3), 431444.
New York Times. (2009). Hacked e-mail is new fodder for climate dispute. Retrieved from
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/science/earth/21climate.html
Nisbet, M. C. (2009). Communicating climate change: Why frames matter to public engage-
ment. Environment, 51(2), 1223.
Nisbet, M. C., & Myers, T. (2007). Twenty years of public opinion about global warming. Pub-
lic Opinion Quarterly, 71(3), 444470.
NOAA. (2009a). State of the climate national overview annual 2009. Retrieved from
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/?report=national&year=2009&month=13&submitted
=Get+Report
NOAA. (2009b). State of the climate national overview November 2009. Retrieved from
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/?report=national&year=2009&month=11&submitted=
Get+Report
NOAA. (2009c). State of the climate national overview December 2009. Retrieved from
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/?report=national&year=2009&month=12&submitted=
Get+Report
Oreskes, N., & Conway, E. M. (2010). Merchants of doubt. New York, NY: Bloomsbury.
Pennsylvania State University. (2010, June 4). RA-10 final investigation report involving
Dr. Michael E. Mann. Retrieved from: http://live.psu.edu/fullimg/userpics/10026/Final
_Investigation_Report.pdf
Peters, E., & Slovic, P. (1996). The role of affect and worldviews as orienting dispositions in
the perception and acceptance of nuclear power. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 26,
1427-1453.
836 American Behavioral Scientist 57(6)

Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. (2009a). Fewer Americans see solid evi-
dence of global warming. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from http://pewresearch.org/
pubs/1386/cap-and-trade-global-warming-opinion
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. (2009b). Publics priorities for 2010: Econ-
omy, jobs, terrorism. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from http://people-press.org/
report/584/policy-priorities-2010
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. (2010). Global warming generates little
heat in the media. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from http://www.journalism.org/
numbers_report/global_warming_generates_little_heat_media
Pidgeon, N., Kasperson, R. E., & Slovic, P. (2003). The social amplification of risk. Cambridge:
University of Cambridge Press.
Russell, M., Boulton, G., Clarke, P., Eyton, D., & Norton, J. (2010). The independent cli-
mate change e-mails review. Retrieved from: http://www.ccereview.org/pdf/FINAL%20
REPORT.pdf
Schweitzer, M. E., & Hsee, C. K. (2002). Stretching the truth: Elastic justification and motivated
communication of uncertain information. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 25(2), 185201.
Slovic, P., & Peters, E. (1998). The importance of worldviews in risk perception. Risk Decision
and Policy, 3(2), 165170.
Steg, L., & Sievers, I. (2000). Cultural theory and individual perceptions of environmental risks.
Environment and Behavior, 32(2), 250269.
Sunday Times. (2010). I thought about killing myself, says climate scandal professor Phil Jones.
Retrieved from: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7017922.ece
Sussman, B. (2010). Climategate: A veteran meteorologist exposes the global warming scam.
Washington DC: WorldNetDaily.
Taber, C. S., & Lodge, M. (2006). Motivated skepticism in the evaluation of political beliefs.
American Journal of Political Science, 50(3), 755769.
U.S. Senate. (2010). United States Senate report Consensus exposed: The CRU controversy.
U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works Minority Staff. Washington,
DC: Author. Retrieved from: http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.
View&FileStore_id=7db3fbd8-f1b4-4fdf-bd15-12b7df1a0b63
Washington Post-ABC. (2009a). Washington PostABC News PollDecember. Washington,
DC: Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/
polls/postpoll_121509.html
Washington Post-ABC. (2009b). Washington PostABC News PollNovember. Washington,
DC: Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/
polls/postpoll_111609.html
Weber, E.U. (2006). Experience-based and description-based perceptions of long-term risk:
Why global warming does not scare us (yet). Climatic Change, 77(1-2), 103120.

Author Biographies
Anthony A. Leiserowitz is a research scientist and director of the Yale Project on Climate
Change Communication at the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale
University. His research focuses on American and international public opinion on global
Leiserowitz et al. 837

warming, including public perception of climate change risks, support and opposition for cli-
mate policies, and willingness to make individual behavioral change.

Edward W. Maibach is a university professor and director of the Center for Climate Change
Communication at George Mason University. His research focuses on enhancing public
engagement in climate change.

Connie Roser-Renouf is an assistant term research professor at the Center for Climate Change
Communication at George Mason University. Her work focuses on the psycho-social predictors
of climate-relevant behavior.

Nicholas Smith is a postdoctoral associate for the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication
at the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University. His research explores
public understanding of climate change and how the issue is communicated by the mass media.

Erica Dawson is visiting assistant professor of organizational behavior at Cornells Johnson

Graduate School of Management. Her research focuses on motivated reasoning and decision
processes.