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National data from the 2018 Australian Survey of Social Attitudes show that knowledge of climate change is positively associated with the scientific consensus position on anthropogenic climate change. Responses to factual quiz questions that include climate trigger terms such as "greenhouse gas" or reference to increased ocean temperature and acidification are influenced by one’s political party identification, with Liberal and National party identifiers tending to score lower than Labor partisans on climate knowledge scales. Yet, responses to climate-related factual questions sans trigger terms are not influenced by political partisanship. Climate skeptics tend to score lower on climate knowledge scales than those who accept anthropogenic climate change, although skeptics also tend to have inflated confidence in their factual knowledge of climate change.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	climate change, climate change skeptics, political divide, Australia, climate change knowledge
Research Division:	Human Society
Research Group:	Sociology
Research Field:	Environmental sociology
Objective Division:	Environmental Policy, Climate Change and Natural Hazards
Objective Group:	Understanding climate change
Objective Field:	Understanding climate change not elsewhere classified
UTAS Author:	Tranter, B (Professor Bruce Tranter)
ID Code:	145434
Year Published:	2021
Deposited By:	Office of the School of Social Sciences
Deposited On:	2021-07-21
Last Modified:	2021-09-22
Downloads:	16 View Download Statistics