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Sterman and Booth paper on public attitudes and GHG mitigation

Back in August, when you are were on summer vacation, we highlighted a John Sterman and Linda Booth Sweeney preprint titled "Understanding public complacency about climate change: adults’ mental models of climate change violate conservation of matter." Their paper is now out in Climatic Change and is well worth the repeat notice here.

Between last August's post and today we've seen the November midterms sweep in a Congress seemingly committed to addressing climate change, six months more of consistent media coverage of the issue, ten industry titans push the federal government for limits on CO2, and the release of the IPCC Summary for Policymakers. Does that translate into the American public demanding action on climate change? Apparently not yet.

To help understand why, here's the Sterman/Sweeney abstract:

Public attitudes about climate change reveal a contradiction. Surveys show most Americans believe climate change poses serious risks but also that reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions sufficient to stabilize atmospheric GHG concentrations can be deferred until there is greater evidence that climate change is harmful. US policymakers likewise argue it is prudent to wait and see whether climate change will cause substantial economic harm before undertaking policies to reduce emissions. Such wait-and-see policies erroneously presume climate change can be reversed quickly should harm become evident, underestimating substantial delays in the climate’s response to anthropogenic forcing. We report experiments with highly educated adults – graduate students at MIT – showing widespread misunderstanding of the fundamental stock and flow relationships, including mass balance principles, that lead to long response delays. GHG emissions are now about twice the rate of GHG removal from the atmosphere. GHG concentrations will therefore continue to rise even if emissions fall, stabilizing only when emissions equal removal. In contrast, most subjects believe atmospheric GHG concentrations can be stabilized while emissions into the atmosphere continuously exceed the removal of GHGs from it. These beliefs – analogous to arguing a bathtub filled faster than it drains will never overflow – support wait-and-see policies but violate conservation of matter. Low public support for mitigation policies may arise from misconceptions of climate dynamics rather than high discount rates or uncertainty about the impact of climate change. Implications for education and communication between scientists and nonscientists (the public and policymakers) are discussed.