Understanding how global warming occurs is a critical step toward believing it’s real, the researchers concluded.
The greenhouse gas effect describes how greenhouse gases – such as carbon dioxide, water vapor and methane – act like a blanket, absorbing energy from the sun and trapping warm air in the earth’s atmosphere. Despite scientists’ overwhelming consensus that burning fossil fuels warms the planet by increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, many Americans don’t believe in climate change or its tie to human activity.
“Our studies found a significant portion of individuals whose attitudes about global warming changed through education,” said Andrew Perkins, an associate professor of marketing and international business at the WSU Carson College of Business. “After learning about the mechanism by which climate change is occurring, they had the facts to understand it.”