Knowledge and Confidence in Knowledge About Climate Change Among Experts, Journalists, Politicians, and Laypersons

Abstract

Knowledge and confidence in one's own knowledge of climate change was investigated among experts, journalists, politicians, and laypersons. Subsamples of 65 experts, 72 environmental journalists, 145 politicians being chairs of environmental committees, and 621 laypersons in Sweden responded to survey questions concerning current climate state, causes, and consequences of climate change. Experts presented the highest level of knowledge, followed by journalists, politicians, and laypersons. In all the groups, knowledge of causes was greater than that of climate state and of future consequences, and among the latter knowledge was less of health consequences than that of weather and sea/glacier consequences. Also, experts expressed the highest level of confidence in their own knowledge, followed by journalists, politicians, and laypersons. Nevertheless, the adjustment of confidence in one's own knowledge to actual knowledge was somewhat higher among journalists than among experts.