Yale Program on Climate Change Communication

5. Personal and Social Engagement with Global Warming

Measures of personal and social engagement with global warming include how often people in India hear about global warming in the media, willingness to join a citizen’s campaign to take action on global warming, and how personally important global warming is as an issue.Differences between the four segments in personal importance is partially driven by the use of that variable in the segmentation analysis – refer to Appendix: Methods

Alarmed

The Alarmed are the segment most engaged with global warming. The majority of the Alarmed (59%) say they hear about global warming in the media either “at least once a week” (40%) or “at least once a month” (19%), and only 9% say they “never” hear about it. The Alarmed are also the most motivated segment to join a citizens’ campaign to convince leaders in India to take action on global warming. A large majority of the Alarmed (85%) say they are either already participating in such a campaign (7%) or that they “definitely would” (66%) or “probably would” (12%) join one. The Alarmed also have the highest levels of issue importance – nearly all of the Alarmed (94%) say global warming is either “extremely important” (54%), “very important” (37%), or “somewhat important” (3%) to them personally.

Concerned

The Concerned are also highly engaged with global warming, but to a lesser extent than the Alarmed. The majority of the Concerned (55%) say they hear about global warming in the media either “at least once a week” (36%) or “at least once a month” (18%), and only 11% say they “never” hear about it. Furthermore, the majority of the Concerned are motivated to join a citizens’ campaign to convince leaders in India to take action on global warming. Eight in ten of the Concerned (80%) say they are either already participating in such a campaign (5%) or that they “definitely would” (55%) or “probably would” (19%) join one. Nearly all of the Concerned (96%) say global warming is at least somewhat personally important. However, they are much more likely than the Alarmed to say it is “somewhat important” (41%), while fewer say it is “extremely important” (29%) or “very important” (26%) to them personally.

Cautious

While the Cautious are less engaged with global warming than are the Alarmed and Concerned, a considerable percentage do show interest in the issue. More than four in ten (46%) say they hear about global warming in the media either “at least once a week” (26%) or “at least once a month” (20%), while 22% say they “never” hear about it. The majority of the Cautious (64%) say they are either already participating in a citizens’ campaign to convince leaders in India to take action on global warming (5%), or that they “definitely would” (47%) or “probably would” (12%) join one. A majority of the Cautious (55%) say global warming is personally important (“extremely important,” 14%; “very important,” 15%; “somewhat important,” 26%), however, about one in four (24%) say global warming is either “not very important” (11%) or “not at all important” (14%) to them personally.

Disengaged

The Disengaged are the least engaged with global warming of the segments and are the most likely to say they don’t know or to not to express an opinion when asked about it (ranging from 87% to 91% across questions). Few (9%) say they hear about global warming in the media either “at least once a week” (6%) or “at least once a month” (2%). Only 8% of the Disengaged say they are either already participating in a citizens’ campaign to convince leaders in India to take action on global warming (1%), or that they “definitely would” (6%) or “probably would” (1%) join one. Additionally, only 7% of the Disengaged say global warming is either “extremely important” (6%), “very important” (1%), or “somewhat important” (1%) to them personally.