
Edward W MaibachGeorge Mason University | GMU · Center for Climate Change Communication (4C)
Edward W Maibach
PhD, MPH
About
448
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Introduction
Skills and Expertise
Additional affiliations
January 2003 - December 2005
August 2005 - August 2007
August 2007 - present
Publications
Publications (448)
Science is crucial for evidence-based decision-making. Public trust in scientists can help decision makers act on the basis of the best available evidence, especially during crises. However, in recent years the epistemic authority of science has been challenged, causing concerns about low public trust in scientists. We interrogated these concerns w...
Science is integral to society because it can inform individual, government, corporate, and civil society decision-making on issues such as public health, new technologies or climate change. Yet, public distrust and populist sentiment challenge the relationship between science and society. To help researchers analyse the science-society nexus acros...
Public trust in scientists may be essential for widespread acceptance of science-based solutions to societal problems, including climate change. Across 68 countries (N = 69,534), individuals expressed less trust in climate scientists than scientists in general. In most countries and overall, conservative political orientation was more strongly asso...
Science communicators, educators, and policy-makers around the world need robust evidence on how people inform themselves about science-related issues and communicate about them with others. We provide such evidence, drawing on a global population survey (n = 71,922 in 68 countries) that gives nationally representative insights into people’s scienc...
This 68-country survey (n = 71,922) examines how people encounter information about science and communicate about it with others, identifies cross-country differences, and tests the extent to which economic and sociopolitical conditions predict such differences. We find that social media are the most used sources of science information in most coun...
Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and intense due to climate change. This might affect support for climate policies, especially if more people attribute these events to climate change. Yet little is known about whether actual impacts of extreme events and subjective attribution of these events to climate change influence climate pol...
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) employs emission scenarios to explore a range of future climate outcomes but refrains from assigning probabilities to individual scenarios. However, IPCC authors have their own views on the likelihood of different climate outcomes, which are valuable to understand because authors possess both exp...
Large language models (LLMs) can be used to estimate human attitudes and behavior, including measures of public opinion, a concept referred to as algorithmic fidelity. This study assesses the algorithmic fidelity and bias of LLMs in estimating public opinion about global warming. LLMs were conditioned on demographics and/or psychological covariates...
Building public consensus about the threat of climate change is critical for enacting meaningful action to address it. To understand how Americans are changing their beliefs about climate change, research typically relies on cross-sectional survey responses. Data that is collected from the same individuals over time– panel data– provides clearer ev...
In this commentary, we argue that health professionals can play a pivotal role in accelerating the adoption of public policies that will help communities, nations, and the world end fossil fuel pollution and rise to the challenges of climate change. We briefly describe our previously published research showing that communicating about fossil fuel p...
Trust in climate science provides the foundation for evidence-based policymaking on climate change mitigation and adaptation and public perceptions of the urgency of climate change. Here we consider the possibility that lack of public trust in climate science and climate scientists may undermine the effectiveness of climate science communication. T...
The optimal emotional tone for climate communication has been debated by scholars and the press, but little is known about the effects of emotions on different types of policy support. In this paper we examine multiple discrete emotions people experience in reaction to climate change, and assess the strength of these emotions as predictors of suppo...
Beliefs and attitudes form the core of public opinion about climate change. Network analysis can reveal the structural configuration of these beliefs and attitudes. In this research, we utilize a belief system framework to identify key psychological elements, track change in the density of these belief systems over time and across political groups,...
Increasingly, climate activists use nonviolent civil disobedience (NVCD) to raise awareness about the need to end fossil fuel use. In two small studies we explored the potential of NVCD to enhance U.S. public support for this goal. Study 1 showed that some NVCD actions (e.g., marches and sit-ins) and some targets of those actions (e.g., fossil fuel...
This second edition of Climate Change and Public Health provides a comprehensive review of the health consequences of climate change. It also covers what is being done and can be done to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, which cause climate change, and to adapt to the consequences of climate change. The first edition of this book, which was publis...
Scientific information is crucial for evidence-based decision-making. Public trust in science can help decision-makers act based on the best available evidence, especially during crises such as climate change or the COVID-19 pandemic 1,2. However, in recent years the epistemic authority of science has been challenged, causing concerns about low pub...
Science is integral to society because it can inform individual, government, corporate, and civil society decision-making on issues such as climate change. Yet, public distrust and populist sentiment may challenge the relationship between science and society. To help researchers analyse the science society nexus across different cultural contexts,...
Scientific information is crucial for evidence-based decision-making. Public trust in science can help decision-makers act based on the best available evidence, especially during crises such as climate change or the COVID-19 pandemic. However, in recent years the epistemic authority of science has been challenged, causing concerns about low public...
Scientific information is crucial for evidence-based decision-making. Public trust in science can help decision-makers act based on the best available evidence, especially during crises such as climate change or the COVID-19 pandemic. However, in recent years the epistemic authority of science has been challenged, causing concerns about low public...
Effectively responding to global warming requires mitigation and adaptation efforts worldwide. Although developed countries have pledged substantial financial support to help developing countries respond to climate change, these pledges have yet to be fulfilled. A majority of American voters support providing aid to developing nations, however, lev...
The 2017 March for Science was an international march organized in response to concerns over the Trump administration’s misuse of science that drew unprecedented numbers of supporters as well as attention from the media, celebrities, and political figures. The March’s turnout and publicity begs the question: what motivates people to defend science?...
Background
Climate change is already harming human health, both directly and indirectly. Physical and rehabilitation medicine professionals are at the frontlines of addressing climate change and health, as their patients are particularly vulnerable to these health harms. It is, therefore, important to understand how these health professionals under...
Large language models (LLMs) have demonstrated their potential in social science research by emulating human perceptions and behaviors, a concept referred to as algorithmic fidelity. This study assesses the algorithmic fidelity and bias of LLMs by utilizing two nationally representative climate change surveys. The LLMs were conditioned on demograph...
Trust in climate science provides the foundation for evidence-based policymaking on climate change mitigation and adaptation. If the IPCC and climate scientists are right, global decarbonization should be one of humanity's top priorities. Yet, most countries are not on track to meet the emissions reduction goal ratified under the Paris Agreement an...
Curbing the worst impacts of global climate change will require rapidly transitioning away from fossil fuel across all sectors of the economy. This transition will also yield substantial co-benefits, as fossil fuel combustion releases harmful pollutants into the air. In this article, we present an analysis of the co-benefits to health and health-ca...
Introduction
As emotions are strong predictors of climate policy support, we examined multiple discrete emotions that people experience in reaction to various types of information about climate change: its causes, the scientific consensus, its impacts, and solutions. Specifically, we assessed the relationships between four types of messages and fiv...
Background. Climate change is already harming human health, both directly and indirectly. Physical and rehabilitation medicine professionals are at the frontlines of addressing climate change and health, as their patients are particularly vulnerable to these health harms. It is therefore important to understand how these health professionals unders...
Accelerating the decarbonisation of local and national economies is a profound public health imperative. As trusted voices within communities around the world, health professionals and health organisations have enormous potential to influence the social and policy landscape in support of decarbonisation. We assembled a multidisciplinary, gender-bal...
Political advocacy is arguably the most powerful form of action that citizens concerned about climate change can take. One motivator for political advocacy is the perception that there is a social norm (i.e., inherently understood social rules and standards that serve to guide social behaviors) for doing so. Using nationally representative survey d...
Because of the world's dependence on fossil fuels, climate change and air pollution are profoundly harming both human and planetary health. Fortunately, climate solutions are also health solutions, and they present both local and global opportunities to foster cleaner, healthier, and safer communities. In this review, we briefly discuss the human h...
Public attitudes toward climate change influence climate and energy policies and guide individual mitigation and adaptation behaviors. Over the last decade, as scientific certainty about the causes and impacts of, and solutions to the climate crisis has increased, cities, states, and regions in the United States have pursued diverse policy strategi...
A science-based understanding of climate change and potential mitigation and adaptation options can provide decision makers with important guidance in making decisions about how best to respond to the many challenges inherent in climate change. In this review we provide an evidence-based heuristic for guiding efforts to share science-based informat...
As urgency grows to address global warming, younger generations can play a strategic role in mobilizing communities that have generally been more opposed to climate action and policy, such as political and religious conservatives in the United States. American evangelical Protestants-and white evangelicals in particular-are the largest religious gr...
Plain Language Summary
In this Commentary we share results from a global risks perceptions survey of a community of scientists and compare findings with a similar survey focusing on the business community. We find that the many global impacts of the COVID‐19 pandemic raised risk perceptions of infectious diseases, but both the surveyed business and...
In 2016, concern among physicians about the health harms of climate change led to the founding of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health, a coalition of medical societies and ultimately other health organizations, to publicly sound the alarm and address profound and growing health and equity consequences of climate change. Building on...
Because of the world’s dependence on fossil fuels, climate change and air pollution are profoundly harming both human and planetary health. Fortunately, climate solutions are also health solutions, and they present both local and global opportunities to foster cleaner, healthier, and safer communities. Social science research provides an evidence-b...
Americans increasingly accept that global warming is happening and a serious threat. Using secondary data from national probability surveys of the US adult population and preregistered hypotheses, we explore how and why Americans self-report changing their minds about global warming. Common reasons included learning more about the issue, hearing or...
Prior research suggests that climate stories are rarely reported by local news outlets in the United States. As part of the Climate Matters in the Newsroom project—a program for climate-reporting resources designed to help journalists report local climate stories—we conducted a series of local climate-reporting workshops for journalists to support...
Climate change poses serious threats to public health and is exacerbating health inequities. Policy changes are essential to mitigate climate change impacts on human and planetary health. The purpose was to describe recommendations by the Policy and Advocacy Subgroup of the Society of Behavioral Medicine (SBM) Climate Change, Behavior Change and He...
A message-testing experiment assessed the effectiveness of targeted video messages in changing six audience segments’ climate change understanding and concern. Participants viewed one of four short videos addressing their segment’s informational needs, as identified by survey data on their segment’s climate change beliefs. Segments that are skeptic...
This research letter investigates the role of feelings of responsibility to reduce climate change (i.e., “felt responsibility”) as an antecedent to climate change related political behaviors and intentions, including willingness to join a campaign, likelihood of supporting pro-climate presidential candidates, and past contact with elected officials...
Strategic communication requires the identification and understanding of target audiences for tailored communication. The Global Warming’s Six Americas analysis segments the U.S. public into six distinct, but internally consistent audiences, who each respond differently to the issue of climate change. The segments include the Alarmed, Concerned, Ca...
Background: Climate change represents a threat to the health of all Americans. We wanted to know if federal representatives are informing their constituents about this risk.
Methods: To answer this question, we reviewed the official websites of all 100 United States senators to determine if they made statements about health, climate change, and the...
While the most promising climate change solutions have yet to be widely implemented, journalists are well-positioned to ensure that solutions are on the public's agenda. Here, we investigate the climate solutions reporting interests and practices of environmental journalists (N = 592), paying particular attention to negative emissions technologies...
Chinn and Hart (2021) argue that their experiment on the effects of communicating the scientific consensus on climate change revealed “mixed” and “inconsistent findings”. We note that Chinn and Hart (2021) provide clear and consistent evidence that the scientific consensus message has positive indirect effects on climate beliefs, attitudes, and sup...
National polls reveal stark and growing political divisions on the issue of climate change within the United States. However, few studies have explored whether these trends generalize to communities of color, who experience disproportionate environmental risks. Synthesizing over a decade of nationally representative survey data (2008–2019; N = 23,7...
Health professionals are in a unique position to accelerate creation of policies to mitigate and adapt to the public health emergency that is the climate crisis. At the forefront of the burgeoning climate and health movement are state and national health professional networks that are educating their colleagues and the lay public about the gravity...
In 2015, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommended that the health effects of climate change be incorporated into the existing anticipatory guidance framework. Despite this recommendation, there are only anecdotal accounts of pediatricians offering climate change counseling, and no literature evaluates such counseling effectiveness in an...
Chinn and Hart (2021) conclude that communicating the scientific consensus on climate change causes psychological reactance. Here we identify several issues that cast doubt on these findings. First and foremost, the authors replicate the finding from van der Linden, Maibach, et al. (2019) that consensus messages do not increase perceptions of manip...
In light of the disproportionate impacts of climate change on marginalized communities, there is merit in seeking to understand any differences in climate change beliefs and reporting behaviors for news professionals of non-White ethnicities. Unsurprisingly, considering the greater environmental hazards that many minority communities contend with,...
Previous research has shown that providing information about the health consequences of climate change can increase climate change issue engagement and support for mitigation policies. Here, we extend that research by testing the motivational value of three categories of climate information (termed information categories): health consequences of cl...
Public perceptions of climate change in the United States are deeply rooted in cultural values and political identities. Yet, as the public experiences extreme weather and other climate change-related impacts, their perceptions of the issue may shift. Here, we explore whether, when, and where local climate trends have already influenced perceived e...
Health professionals have the potential to address the health threats posed by climate change in many ways. This study sought to understand the factors that influence health professionals’ willingness to engage in climate advocacy. We hypothesized and tested a model with six antecedent factors predicting willingness to engage in advocacy for streng...
Background: Parental attitudes about vaccinating themselves against COVID-19 may offer insights into their attitudes about vaccinating their children when the time comes. The objective was to identify parents with high COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy to prioritize for vaccine education interventions.
Methods. We conducted multiple logistic regression on...
Climate change arguably represents one of the greatest global health threats of our time. Health professionals can advocate for global efforts to reduce emissions and protect people from climate change; however, evidence of their willingness to do so remains scarce. In this Viewpoint, we report findings from a large, multinational survey of health...
A stable climate is the most fundamental determinant of human health. Therefore, the goal of the Paris Agreement—limiting global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius—is arguably humanity's most important public health goal. To accomplish this goal, nearly all nations must greatly increase the ambition of their Nationally Determined Contributio...
Climate change has triggered a global public health emergency that, unless adequately addressed, is likely to become a multigenerational public health catastrophe. The policy actions needed to limit global warming deliver a wide range of public health benefits above and beyond those that will result from limiting climate change. Moreover, these hea...
Limiting climate change requires effective policy solutions. In democratic societies, voting for candidates who support climate policy solutions is arguably the most important action citizens can take. Therefore, understanding the dynamics of global warming as a voting issue is crucial for building public and political will for climate solutions. U...
This paper is available, open-access:
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abcfe2/pdf
Abstract
Advantageous new ideas and practices have a vexing track record of taking root slowly, if at all.Identifying or creating, and then supporting, communities of practice is a promising approach to enhancing the likelihood that science-base...
Despite Greta Thunberg's popularity, research has yet to investigate her impact on the public's willingness to take collective action on climate change. Using cross‐sectional data from a nationally representative survey of U.S. adults (N = 1,303), we investigate the “Greta Thunberg Effect,” or whether exposure to Greta Thunberg predicts collective...