Dryden, R, Granger Morgan, M, Bostrom, A et al. (1 more author) (2018) Public Perceptions of How Long Air Pollution and Carbon Dioxide Remain in the Atmosphere. Risk Analysis, 38 (3). pp. 525-534. ISSN 0272-4332
Abstract
The atmospheric residence time of carbon dioxide is hundreds of years, many orders of magnitude longer than that of common air pollution, which is typically hours to a few days. However, randomly selected respondents in a mail survey in Allegheny County, PA (N = 119) and in a national survey conducted with MTurk (N = 1,013) judged the two to be identical (in decades), considerably overestimating the residence time of air pollution and drastically underestimating that of carbon dioxide. Moreover, while many respondents believed that action is needed today to avoid climate change (regardless of cause), roughly a quarter held the view that if climate change is real and serious, we will be able to stop it in the future when it happens, just as we did with common air pollution. In addition to assessing respondents’ understanding of how long carbon dioxide and common air pollution stay in the atmosphere, we also explored the extent to which people correctly identified causes of climate change and how their beliefs affect support for action. With climate change at the forefront of politics and mainstream media, informing discussions of policy is increasingly important. Confusion about the causes and consequences of climate change, and especially about carbon dioxide's long atmospheric residence time, could have profound implications for sustained support of policies to achieve reductions in carbon dioxide emissions and other greenhouse gases.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2017 Society for Risk Analysis. This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Dryden, R, Granger Morgan, M, Bostrom, A et al. (2017) Public Perceptions of How Long Air Pollution and Carbon Dioxide Remain in the Atmosphere. Risk Analysis. ISSN 0272-4332, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/risa.12856. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving. |
Keywords: | Air pollution; atmospheric residence time; carbon dioxide |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Business (Leeds) > Management Division (LUBS) (Leeds) > Management Division Decision Research (LUBS) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 06 Jun 2017 10:20 |
Last Modified: | 30 Jun 2019 00:41 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/risa.12856 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:117272 |