rethinking science literacy climate change deficit model

I spent the past three days with my colleague Ed Maibach and several graduate students conducting one-on-one interviews about climate change with participants recruited and screened from among the diversity of visitors to the National Mall in Washington, DC. In conducting these qualitative interviews--which varied in time between 30 minutes to more than an hour--I was amazed at the forms of localized knowledge and depth of reasoning that participants from different educational backgrounds and with varying political views brought to the topic of climate change. The experience reflected…