Public Opinion
gregladen | March 18, 2016Though not enough. And for the wrong reasons. But this is still good news.
Somewhere around 1990, but you could justify an earlier date if you like, science knew enough about global warming, the increase in the planet's surface temperatures caused by human release of greenhouse gas pollution and other human effects, to have initiated meaningful action to shift our energy supply away from fossil fuels. We didn't know exactly what would happen, but we knew stuff would happen. How long has it taken for this science to turn into effective policy to address global warming? We don't know, because…
nisbetmc | July 29, 2010
In the wake of last week's defeat of cap and trade, the predictable narrative offered by bloggers and commentators has been to blame the failure on industry, skeptics, and Republicans. It's also the explanation likely echoing in the minds of many scientists and environmental advocates.
But it's important to take a step back from the easy emotional reaction and take a look at the complexity of factors that shape societal gridlock on this issue. As I remarked to Andrew Revkin at Dot Earth earlier this month:
If we were able to statistically model societal inaction on climate change, what…
nisbetmc | June 14, 2010Credit: NY Daily News
Over the weekend, Politico ran a lengthy feature by Josh Gerstein in which he asks various experts to assess how environmental groups have reacted to the Obama administration's handling of the BP oil disaster.
In my own comments quoted in the article, I note that environmental groups appear to have adopted a smart strategy, letting the heavy news attention and general emphasis on public accountability do the communication work for them. If environmental groups were to become more open in their criticism of the Administration or too visible in news coverage, they risk…
jstemwedel | February 22, 2010From a recent article in the New York Times considering University of Alabama-Huntsville shooter Amy Bishop's scientific stature and finding it lacking, this comment on why so many denizens of the internet think they can understand why she did what she did:
Why did people who knew Dr. Bishop only through reading about her crime make excuses for her?
Joanathan D. Moreno, a professor of medical ethics and the history and sociology of science at the University of Pennsylvania, thinks reactions have to do with a long tradition that goes back to Plato. The idea, he said, is that someone who is…
nisbetmc | February 6, 2010
On Thursday, at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, I served as one of the panelists at the event "The Public Divide over Climate Change: Science, Skeptics and the Media." The two hour session drew roughly 100 attendees, was organized and moderated by Belfer Center fellow Cristine Russell, and featured Andrew Revkin of the New York Times' Dot Earth blog and Thomas Patterson, Bradlee Professor of Government and the Press at the Kennedy School.
Audio of the panel is available at the Kennedy School web site and the event was covered in detail by the Columbia Journalism Review and the…
nisbetmc | January 22, 2009
Call it a case of extreme optimistic bias: Many climate advocates point to polls that show when the public is asked directly, a majority say they are "concerned" about global warming and favor action. But what's missing from this poll assessment is where global warming sits relative to other political priorities. When you examine this comparison, public support for action turns up as soft, even among Dems and Independents, suggesting that it will be very difficult for Obama to rally the needed public input to pass meaningful legislation through Congress.
One way to assess the strength of…
nisbetmc | December 4, 2008The National Academies is doing some preliminary pilot research on a new communication initiative. As part of that process, they want to find out what science blogs readers think are the most important and pressing issues in science. Below is a description and a link to an online survey that they would like readers to take a few minutes to complete.
What topics in science, engineering, and medicine matter most to you? The National Academies are interested in developing useful and engaging print and web-based educational materials on the topics that you'd like to learn more about. They…
nisbetmc | November 26, 2007
You can debate the wisdom of spending more than $100 million a year on your athletics program or whether you want someone like Jim Tressel to be the national face of your university. Yet this time of year, love it or hate it, college football reigns supreme in the minds of most students and faculty.
Gallup has even released a nationally representative telephone survey evaluating which conference Americans rate the toughest. Across the sample, the SEC rates tops with 30% of all respondents saying that the SEC has been the strongest over the last 10 years. But this total aggregate number is…
nisbetmc | August 29, 2007Here are the major implications from our study analyzing twenty years of American public opinion data on global warming:
1. Global warming skeptics continue to make an impact on public opinion.
As we describe in the article, although a strong majority of Americans say that they believe that global warming is real, that temperatures are rising, and that the release of carbon dioxide is a cause, the public remains relatively uncertain about whether the majority of scientists agree on the matter. As long as the public remains confused about where the experts stand, public support for policy…
nisbetmc | August 27, 2007NOTE: Unfortunately, the article is only free access from most university IP addresses. Please email me at nisbetmc@gmail.com and I can send you a copy.
I have the following article forthcoming at the fall issue of the journal Public Opinion Quarterly that is now available as part of their free advanced access. Full text here and abstract below:
Nisbet, M.C. & Myers, T. (2007). Twenty years of public opinion about global warming. Public Opinion Quarterly, 71, 3, 1-27.
Over the past 20 years, there have been dozens of news organization, academic, and nonpartisan public opinion surveys on…
nisbetmc | July 27, 2007
Gallup has released an analysis of how support for various presidential candidates breaks down by church attendance. Somewhat surprisingly, in a general election match up, Hillary and Rudy are neck and neck among non-church going whites.
Most of this aggregate split is attributable to the ambivalence of non-church going independents. Here's what Gallup reports:
Overall, 54% of whites say they would vote for Giuliani if the election was being held today, while 41% would vote for Clinton. This is testimony in and of itself to the dependence Democrats have on ethnic, non-white voters to win…
nisbetmc | July 17, 2007As part of their conversation series with scientists, the NY Times this week runs an interview with Harvard's Eric Mazur featuring the headline "Using the 'Beauties of Physics' to Conquer Science Illiteracy."
Mazur discusses his teaching approach in his physics course, stating that his goal is to end "science illiteracy" among college students. "It's important to mentally engage students in what you're teaching," he explains. "We're way too focused on facts and rote memorization and not on learning the process of doing science."
But what does science literacy exactly mean? When science…
nisbetmc | July 16, 2007The Sunday Washington Post leads with a story that greenhouse gas mitigation proposals in Congress are likely to stall, in part because several key lawmakers believe (or at least claim) that the public will not support the economic impacts associated with the proposals.
Michigan Democrat John Dingell is the leading skeptic when it comes to public support and his selective framing of where the public stands on the matter is in line with his close auto industry ties. As the Post reports:
"I sincerely doubt that the American people are willing to pay what this is really going to cost them,"…
nisbetmc | July 12, 2007
Pew has released a survey analysis comparing American Muslims to other American religious groups, comparing levels of religious intensity, political identification, and policy preferences. I summarize and quote from some of the key findings below.
Muslims account for less than one percent of the country's population, whereas eight-in-10 Americans are Christian. Recent public opinion surveys by the Pew Research Center find that, with respect to the intensity of their religious beliefs, Muslim Americans most closely resemble white evangelicals and black Protestants.
Among the findings, as…
nisbetmc | June 28, 2007
In new survey released by Pew, Americans see few ideological differences among the three broadcast TV news networks, but among regular viewers of cable TV news, content differences are readily apparent, and these perceptions flow heavily from partisanship.
In general, the public sees few differences among the three broadcast networks. Fully 74% say ABC News, CBS News and NBC News are all pretty much the same. Only 18% say there are real differences between the three. But impressions of the three major cable news networks differ substantially. While 40% of the public says CNN, the Fox News…
nisbetmc | June 27, 2007
The news frenzy over Andrew Speaker, the honeymooning lawyer with a rare strain of anti-biotic resistant TB, did little to shape public views on the disease as a global health problem. Though top news outlets such as the NYTimes and NPR used the focusing event as a news peg to provide more thematic and contextual coverage of the TB epidemic, the news organizations where most Americans get their news-- including local TV news, cable, and soft/celebrity news outlets--portrayed the event mostly in human interest terms.
Not surprisingly, in a poll released this week, Gallup finds the following…