Yale Program on Climate Change Communication

We are delighted to announce the publication of a new research article, “Understanding six ‘key truths’ about climate change predicts policy support, discussion, and political advocacy,” in the journal Climatic Change.

Effective communication is critical to efforts to reduce the risks of climate change. In this article, we investigated predictors of public support for government action on climate change, seeking and sharing information about climate change, and engaging in political advocacy to support climate action.

We focused on the role that six “key truths”Many of you may know the original “five key facts” about climate change. This analysis adds another key fact—“others care”—to the original five. about climate change play in predicting these attitudes and actions:

• It’s real (Climate change is happening)
• It’s us (Human activity is causing climate change)
• Experts agree (There is a scientific consensus about human-caused climate change)
• It’s bad (Climate change harms people)
• Others care (Most people are concerned about climate change and support action)
• There’s hope (Actions can be taken to limit the harm)

We found that understanding all six facts is highly predictive of at least one, and in some instances many, of the attitudes and actions analyzed. For instance, nearly all truths were linked to greater support for climate policies.

Moreover, some of the truths are more predictive than others. For example, perceived social norms (‘others care’) are a strong predictor of climate change conversations and political advocacy. Likewise, collective efficacy (‘there’s hope’) is a strong predictor of political advocacy and policy support, indicating that messages that increase perceived social norms or collective efficacy may promote these outcomes.

These and other findings can be found in the free online article in Climatic Change.