Predictors of global warming risk perceptions among Latino and non-Latino White Americans
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Predictors of global warming risk perceptions among Latino and non-Latino White Americans Matthew H. Goldberg 1 & Abel Gustafson 1 & Matthew T. Ballew 1 & Seth A. Rosenthal 1 & Matthew J. Cutler 2 & Anthony Leiserowitz 1 Received: 13 May 2019 / Accepted: 27 April 2020/ # Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract
Global warming will disproportionately affect people of color (e.g., Latinos). Previous research has found that Latinos in the USA are more engaged with global warming than are non-Latino Whites, in part, because they are more likely to perceive it as a serious risk. It was unclear, however, what factors most strongly explain Latinos’ elevated perceptions of risk. This study uses two parallel, nationally representative surveys of Latino and non-Latino White Americans to investigate these different levels of risk perception. Mediation analyses indicate that Latinos’ greater risk perceptions may be explained by (in order of magnitude) their stronger pro-climate injunctive social norms and egalitarian worldviews, stronger identification with the Democratic party, more frequent communication with family outside the USA, greater harm from environmental hazards, stronger descriptive norms, and a weaker individualist worldview. These findings help inform strategies for communicating with different subgroups of Americans that have different global warming risk perceptions. Keywords Climate change . Global warming . Latino . Risk perceptions . Norms . Communication
1 Introduction Global warming is one of the most serious and far-reaching issues of our time. One of the challenges in communicating about the issue is that many people believe that its effects are Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-02002728-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
* Matthew H. Goldberg [email protected]
1
Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, Yale University, 205 Prospect St., New Haven, CT 06511, USA
2
Northeast Fisheries Science Center, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Woods Hole, MA, USA
Climatic Change
distant in time and space (Leiserowitz 2006; Leiserowitz et al. 2018). As a result, many people do not perceive global warming as a serious risk to the USA, their local community, or their own well-being.
1.1 Latinos and global warming Global warming and other environmental hazards have a disproportionate impact on communities of color. For example, Latinos are more likely than non-Latino Whites to live in areas exposed to hazardous waste (Mohai et al. 2009) and high concentrations of air pollution (Clark et al. 2014). Additionally, Latinos have stronger global warming risk perceptions (i.e., beliefs that it will cause harm) than other ethnic/racial groups, on average (Leiserowitz et al. 2017). For example, 34% of non-Latino Americans think global warming is harming people right now, whereas 50% of Latino Americans do. Further, a recent nationally representative survey found that Latinos are substant
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