The Article, “Uncertainty, Risk, Trust, and Information: Public Perceptions of Environmental Issues and Willingness to Take Action” written by Reneé J. Johnson and Michael J. Scicchitano in its current form is unfit for publication. Johnson and Scicchitano should be commended for identifying a gap in our ability to accurately quantify the strength and intensity of environmental concerns. This gap is certainly worthy of further study; however, their execution and attempt to quantify this phenomena does not have the necessary wherewithal to close the gap in the literature as it stands. The problems with their work begins almost immediately in the initial literature review. The literature review is plagued by Ill-defined, or simply …show more content…
Further, the literature review suffers from an additional lack of clarity in the paragraph on the bottom of page 634. Here, the authors begin to delve into the theory and rationalization behind including uncertainty as an appropriate measure. The authors write, “Uncertainty can affect an individuals willingness to act on environmental beliefs in several ways” signaling to the reader that a laundry list of factors is to follow. However, they only make mention of one tangentially linked evidence based factor, that an increase in the complexity of issues leads to increased uncertainty in the scientific community. No further examples in support of uncertainty follow this one. Instead, the authors pivot towards unfounded speculation about uncertainties role in individuals willingness to take environmental action, and then they abruptly transition to their discussion of trust. The issue of uncertainty persists in the manner with which the authors have chosen to operationalize their research question. When operationalizing their research question the authors made several critical clerical errors that could have impacted their results. In their discussion of uncertainty there is a lack of clarity in the definition used which could cause confusion given the associated context in which the measure is being used. The definition of uncertainty within the scientific community most certainly differs from the
According to an annual Gallup survey, “Americans are way more worried about water pollution than global warming, air pollution, or other major environmental concerns.” (Loughlin). Drinking polluted water will harm individuals and their families but global warming has not appeared to danger us and so we do not worry about it (Walker). In the article, The Sacred Balance: Rediscovering Our Place in Nature, by David Suzuki, it is indicated that humans have lost interconnectedness with nature. In other words, people have put importance to the more unnecessary things, which are the main causes for us consuming chemicals in food and creating dangerous pollution and diseases. The ignorance of our modernist society faces has led us all to severe problems. One should be more aware of what 's happening around us instead of just letting things happen. We must be more cautious so that we can live in a safe environment.
Barry opens his nonfiction text by emphasizing that certainty is a confident resilience while uncertainty produces frailty, but in a way that sends out opposite outcomes. He enhances this purpose by constantly using repetition with the word uncertainty to amplify how scientific research is an uncertain apparatus. By way of illustration,
The Indicated Review had 80 studies involving 11,337 students (Weissberg, Taylor, Schellinger, Payton, Pachan, Dymicki and Durlak,
Whether research is experimental or developmental, there are no guarantees of perfect study processes or results, since both random and systematic errors are expected. Errors and uncertainties of a study’s outcomes surface almost every time. Faulty, aged or incorrectly calibrated instruments, during an experiment, can lead to important alterations of results. Distracting environments definitely influence the outcome. Finally, the human parameter in the sense of having ability to properly operate instruments and correctly interpret measurements definitely consist another factor of imperfect research (Bell 7-9).
8. In exploring the certainty with which people hold their beliefs a researcher proposes that those with more information about the topic will be more certain about their belief about that topic. Half of the participants are given 20 facts about a topic and are asked about their belief about that topic. The other half of the participants are given 5 facts about a topic and are asked about the strength of their belief about that topic.
Through his research, McCright proves that that there is sizable political divide between liberals/Democrats and conservatives/Republicans on the issue of global warming, which consequently has caused the divide between the public. The constant flow of political messages and media coverage of political debates, especially those concerning climate change, highly contribute to the growing divide between the public. Americans’ political orientations, moderate educational attainment and self-reported understanding are completely consistent with the predictions of the politicians’ hypothesis and information-processing theory. Given the bifurcated flow of conflicting information on climate change from the politicians on both sides of the political spectrum, ideological and partisan camps in the general public receive completely different information on climate change, which reinforces their existing political differences. This provides strong evidence of both ideological and political polarization on climate change beliefs and concern over the past decade. It demonstrates that since political ideologies so heavily influence people’s opinions and
The fear appeal for texting and driving personally didn’t work for me. Sometimes when I’m driving I will look at my phone. I know it’s wrong but the fact is all you hear is that you will crash or die. When it doesn’t happen to you, you are probably going to still do it. I don’t do it that often so I’m not really worried about
Climate scientists have come to the deduction that human activity is responsible for the Earth’s surface temperature rising at a very rapid rate over the past thirty years and the very serious implications that could result. The purpose of this paper is to answer why there are an astounding number of Americans that deny global warming despite the overwhelming consensus in the scientific community. The hypothesis of this paper is: due to America’s shift from a functionalist perspective to a postmodern perspective; the population is more susceptible to information released by self interest groups attempting to sway public opinion. The study was a compilation of diverse methods. Using qualitative as well as quantitative research, the author came
o Review of related literature: In what ways does the literature review support the need for this study?
The authors relied heavily on two studies to create their argument. The first study mentioned was the Pinto et al article. In this study, "Pinto and colleagues (5) assessed the
Since few studies have explored the relationship between depositional optimism and environmental attitudes, my goal is to discover if the personality trait might have an influence on attitudes and the willingness to act. My first hypothesis is that on a spectrum between dispositional optimism and pessimism, those who reside on the extreme ends of both spectrums will be less likely to act in an environmental friendly manner. If an individual, who is located on the high end of dispositional optimism will contemplate that there are no issues with climate change or that a certain intervention will happen that will reduce the adverse reaction, will not act to protect the environment. However, an individual at the high end of dispositional pessimism might consider that the problem is too overwhelming and feel that his or her involvement will not accomplish any difference.
The relation between scientific knowledge and its inherent uncertainty creates a conundrum for policy makers as to whether to take action, which can limit or increase financing for environmental management depending on if both policy makers and the surrounding
Uncertainty is ubiquitous and accompanies all events in the real world. It covers all fields of scientific studies, and is inevitable in many aspects of decision making [28]. The essence of uncertainty is the lack of complete knowledge at the time a decision must be made [7]. Uncertainty arises from different sources in various forms, and complicates and affects decision making [28]. Even worse, it may
Environment has attained centrality in the national and international arena in the past few decades. The primary reason for this has been environmental degradation as a consequence of varied socio-economic, institutional and technological factors. The need for sensitisation is imperative and which can be substantially achieved through legislation and communication. Communication designs of environmental issues influence public awareness, opinion, and action.
Method biases are pointed out to be one of the reasons behind the measurement errors. These measurement errors therefore contribute to weakening of the validity of conclusions particularly the conclusions on the relationships between measures that are used in the research. These measurement errors are here grouped into random and systematic components.