TY - JOUR
T1 - A Study of American Response to Climate Change and the Influence of Carbon Dependency, Social Capital, and Political Orientation
AU - Hao, Feng
AU - Shao, Wanyun
AU - Michaels, Jay L.
PY - 2023/1/1
Y1 - 2023/1/1
N2 - Climate change is one major challenge that has brought substantial costs to the United States. To implement mitigation measures and gain public support, it is critical to understand Americans’ attitudes toward this issue. Our study investigates how carbon dependency, social capital, and political orientation influence public response to climate change by perceiving its threat, changing behaviors, and supporting policies. We first build an integrative paradigm to explore the theoretical connections. Next, we employ data from different sources to measure these key concepts at individual and state levels and then estimate the relationships empirically. Multilevel regression results show that carbon dependency inhibits public response while social capital enhances such response. Democrats and liberals are motivated to respond and residents of Democratic Party controlled states are also more likely to believe in climate change and perceive the risk than their counterparts. These factors can be leveraged to mobilize public engagement in climate activism.
AB - Climate change is one major challenge that has brought substantial costs to the United States. To implement mitigation measures and gain public support, it is critical to understand Americans’ attitudes toward this issue. Our study investigates how carbon dependency, social capital, and political orientation influence public response to climate change by perceiving its threat, changing behaviors, and supporting policies. We first build an integrative paradigm to explore the theoretical connections. Next, we employ data from different sources to measure these key concepts at individual and state levels and then estimate the relationships empirically. Multilevel regression results show that carbon dependency inhibits public response while social capital enhances such response. Democrats and liberals are motivated to respond and residents of Democratic Party controlled states are also more likely to believe in climate change and perceive the risk than their counterparts. These factors can be leveraged to mobilize public engagement in climate activism.
KW - Carbon Dependency
KW - Political Orientation
KW - Public Response to Climate Change
KW - Social Capital
KW - Multilevel Modeling
UR - https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/soc_facpub_sm/44
UR - https://doi.org/10.1080/08941920.2023.2212238
U2 - 10.1080/08941920.2023.2212238
DO - 10.1080/08941920.2023.2212238
M3 - Article
VL - 36
JO - Society & Natural Resources
JF - Society & Natural Resources
ER -