Journal Articles

Communicating Sea Level Rise

Communicating Sea Level Rise
Three quarters of the world’s large cities are located on coasts. As climate change causes oceans to warm and expand, and triggers vast influxes of water from melting ice sheets and glaciers, by the end of the 21st century, as many as 650 million people globally may be below sea levels or subject to recurrent…
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How to Inoculate the Public Against Misinformation About Climate Change

How to Inoculate the Public Against Misinformation About Climate Change
In this study, we tested whether preemptive “inoculation messages” can protect the beneficial effects of communicating the scientific consensus against real-world misinformation. We found that inoculation messages can protect much of the beneficial effect of the scientific consensus message, across politically diverse members of the public. Just as a small dose of vaccine activates the body’s…
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The Consumer as Climate Activist

The Consumer as Climate Activist
Consumption of green products is growing rapidly in the United States. We assessed the extent to which this consumption is motivated by a desire to promote societal-level change in corporate practices that affect the climate, and posit a social–cognitive model in which people’s global warming beliefs and consumer activism beliefs predict their green purchasing goals,…
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TV Meteorologists as Local Climate Change Educators

TV Meteorologists as Local Climate Change Educators
Five years ago – in partnership with Climate Central and WLTX (Columbia, SC) – we tested the premise that if TV weathercasters educate their viewers about the local relevance of global climate change, it will make a difference. Indeed it did: viewers learned; they appreciated the information; and ratings grew. Today, we are pleased to announce…
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