Do natural science experiments influence public attitudes towards environmental problems?

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Global Environmental Change 13 (2003) 185–194

Do natural science experiments influence public attitudes towards environmental problems? Astrid Wallner*, Marcel Hunziker, Felix Kienast Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Zuercherstrasse 111, 8903 Birmensdorf, Switzerland

Abstract We investigated the significance of risk assessment studies in the public discussion on CO2 emissions. Politicians and representatives from the public where interviewed by using the social-science technique of qualitative in-depth interviews. Three different types of attitudes towards natural science were found among politicians. Depending on which attitude a politician holds, risk assessment studies can have an impact on his/her readiness to support environmental policy measures. Regarding lay people, key factors affecting the acceptance of environmental policy measures are knowledge of environmental problems, their impacts on ecosystems or human health as well as direct personal perception of those impacts. Since direct perception is not always possible in everyday life, natural science experiments might be a means for successfully mediating this lacking perception. r 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Risk assessment; Risk communication; Acceptance; Public opinion; Social science; Model-ecosystems

1. Introduction 1.1. Problem and objectives Our industrial society releases compounds to the environment, which influence all living organisms (Brunold et al., 2000). Governments are challenged to take an active role in the management of risks associated with global warming, ozone depletion, air pollution, acid rain, water contamination and waste disposal. But how do politicians decide which environmental policy measures are advisable? There are several dimensions that complicate decision making in environmental risk management (Segerson, 1992). For example, choices in environmental policy have to be made today, but the future effects of these choices are uncertain. At the same time most environmental risks are of composite nature and therefore an overall policy is needed, which coordinates and balances the different possibilities of intervention. Furthermore, it is important to be aware that possible negative impacts of environmental risks are irreversible, meaning that they cannot be undone by subsequent action: ‘‘The possibility of irreversible effects makes current policy decisions particularly important, since recovery from bad decisions is not possible. In *Corresponding author. Tel.: +41 1 739 24 65; fax: +41 1 739 25 88. E-mail address: [email protected] (A. Wallner). 0959-3780/$ - see front matter r 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S0959-3780(03)00042-6

other words, we must live with the consequences of current policy choices without the possibility of future rectification’’ (Segerson, 1992, p. 113). How can these problems in environmental policy formation be solved? Could risk assessment studies—a method used to analyse the adverse effects caused by a substance, activity, or natural phenomena (Cohen, 1997)—help politicians in opinion formation and policy making regarding environmental problems? The focus of this paper lies in the significance of risk assessment studies in the public discussion on environmental problems. On the basis of qualitative in-depth interviews with a small sample of politicians and citizens of Switzerland, we attempted to find typical patterns of the relation of risk assessments to opinion formation and policy making. This study was part of an international research project, which studied the influence of atmospheric CO2 enrichment on our forests with the help of model-ecosystem experiments.1 As social scientists in this research project, we wanted to know whether 1 In the so-called ICAT project (ICAT = Impact of elevated CO2 levels, climate change and air pollutants on tree physiology), natural scientists studied the effect of elevated CO2 in beech-spruce modelecosystems. Those model forests were planted in 16 open-top chambers and were exposed to either ambient or elevated CO2 concentrations and two different N depositions. A multidisciplinary project team investigated the carbon, water and nutrient cycles (for more information on these experiments see Landolt et al., 1997).

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the results of model-ecosystem experiments further politicians’ readiness to formulate new environmental policies, and whether the results of scientific experiments help to increase the public’s acceptance of such new policies. However, before presenting the results of our study, the state of research on the relation between science and politics as well as on environmental knowledge, behaviour and acceptance of environmental policies has to be examined.

2. State of research 2.1. Science and politics Scientific research is of great importance for policy making: scientific knowledge—arguments taken from science or at least references to expert opinions—plays an ever increasing role in the media, public discussion and in political disputes in parliament (Freiburghaus and Zimmermann, 1985). Cotton and Pielke (1992) state how important scientific facts are in order to decide on policy changes: ‘‘Without solid scientific evidence that CO2 emissions are causing significant changes in climate, one cannot make an objective evaluation of the relative cost of each alternative’’ (Cotton and Pielke, 1992, p. 222). But the view that ‘‘science produces objective truth and provides a rational non-political basis for policy making’’ has come under increasing criticism (Blaikie, 1995a, p. 210). Blaikie states: ‘‘Although information from natural scientists may often be claimed as authoritative, it is produced selectively. Therefore, it can never be understood solely from the perspective of the natural sciences. Scientists are but one set of players in the experience and interpretation of the environment. They also negotiate, dispute and propagate their own ideas, with others’’ (Blaikie, 1995b, p. 26). And Knoepfel (1992) argues that science is given too much political responsibility: ‘‘While politicians today often decide on pretty unimportant matters (for example, the introduction of the daylightsaving time and so on) crucial aspects of environmental quality are actually increasingly decided by the scientific community without any precise political mandate’’ (Knoepfel, 1992, p. 175). Freiburghaus and Zimmermann (1985) distinguish four functions of science for politics: (1) the instrumental function—the scientist as ‘‘engineer’’ to provide information on problems and possible solutions; (2) obtaining authorisation—the scientist as ‘‘supporter’’ to legitimise a decision or to inform the public; (3) strategic function—the scientist as ‘‘ally’’ or as ‘‘adversary’’ in the fight for power and influence; (4) enlightenment—the scientist as ‘‘educator’’ to clarify questions and problems and also to reflect on the state and its activities. According to Freiburghaus and

Zimmermann, the transitions between these functions are fluent, e.g. a technical-scientific expertise of an ecological problem can at the same time be used to inform the public about complex interrelations and to justify the idleness of the state in the face of this complexity. According to Cohen (1997), there seems to be a trend towards a greater reliance on environmental risk assessment in policy making. Cohen reports of a survey of state legislators and their staff in the US, exploring their intuitive understanding of environmental risk and risk assessment. The survey revealed strong support for the use of risk assessment of most state lawmakers, but at the same time the survey also showed a belief that legislators have very little understanding of the risk assessment process. However, it must also be recognised that the attitudes of politicians towards science are not homogeneous: ‘‘Participants in policy making have different roles, constituencies, values, interests, perspectives, and abilities. Their attitudes towards research also differ; some value it and some do not. Moreover, among those who value it, some are genuinely open-minded in seeking and using research findings, others attempt to mobilise findings for partisan or legitimising purposes, and still others view research in a tactical, rather than a substantive context’’ (Laurence, 1978 cited in Freiburghaus and Zimmermann, 1985). Another important study regarding the relation between science and politics is the study carried out by The Social Learning Group (2001). By taking a longterm, multinational perspective, the Social Learning Group looked at where conceptions of global environmental risks and management goals come from and how they change. During this study, the Social Learning Group observed a general pattern of linkages of knowledge-intensive functions of risk assessment and the more action-intensive functions of goal and strategy formulation. They observed that before issues such as acid rain or climate change were taken up on the policy agenda, the risks were largely treated as scientific issues. ‘‘As the issues burst into the policy agenda, however, the knowledge-intensive management functions began to influence performance of the more action-intensive functions. In particular, risk assessments stimulated goal statements. Finally as political attention peaked and fell, there was an intensification of two-way linkages between knowledge and action functions’’ (J.ager et al., 2001, p. 170). There is a growing literature on the connection of science and politics regarding environmental issues (e.g. Clark and Majone, 1985; Cohen, 1997; Haas et al., 1993; Knoepfel, 1992; Litfin, 1994; Rowlands, 1995). But surprisingly, in most studies, people interviewed regarding their attitude towards risk assessment studies can solely agree or disagree with fixed statements. Therefore it will be interesting to see, what

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politicians say when asked to formulate their own ideas regarding the question of the role of science in policy making. 2.2. Environmental knowledge, behaviour and acceptance Does new insight into ecological processes and information on the impacts of one’s own action on the environment lead to a change in one’s behaviour? Various empirical studies have shown that there is a discrepancy between environmental knowledge and environmental behaviour (e.g. Diekmann and Preisen. dorfer, 1992; Foppa and Tanner, 1995; Franzen, 1997; Grob, 1991; Jaeger et al., 1993; Jaeggi et al., 1996; Kley and Fietkau, 1979; Kunz, 1998; Urban, 1986). So if not knowledge and awareness, what does determine environmental behaviour? According to Smith (1992), the findings from contingent behaviour studies clearly support a link between risk perceptions and behaviour. Jaeger et al. (1996) evaluated three models to explain people’s readiness to take climate-relevant environmental action. Each model uses a different set of explanatory variables, i.e. model A claims that information transfer from science to the public is the key variable governing action; model B focuses on sociodemographic characteristics, and model C claims that sociocultural variables such as interpersonal rules and social networks govern people’s actions. According to their results, model C is much the strongest of the three, meaning, ‘‘the probability of climate related environmental action is significantly increased if individuals are exposed to interpersonal rules favouring such action’’ (Jaeger et al., 1993, p. 209). According to Diekmann and Preisen. dorfer (1992), environmental knowledge and awareness are transformed into actual behaviour only in so-called ‘‘low-cost’’ situations: people change their actions into environmental behaviour in situations that do not require drastic changes in behaviour, do not cost a lot of time, and cause no great effort. For example, the personal costs of environmental behaviour are smaller in the realms of shopping and sorting garbage than in saving energy and traffic reduction. Furthermore, environmental problems are major examples of social dilemmas (Dawes, 1980). The dilemma situation develops when the individual only sees a very small possibility that his own action can change the situation. In order to solve the problem, the joint effort of a large number of individuals is required. Therefore, environmental quality displays the same characteristics as an economic . collective good (Diekmann and Preisendorfer, 1992; Jaeger et al., 1993). Even though environmental knowledge and environmental awareness in general are not sufficient conditions for the practice of environmentally responsible behaviour in everyday life, they do have an influence on the acceptance of environmental policy measures.

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. Diekmann and Preisendorfer (1992) as well as Franzen (1997) and Kunz (1998) ascertained that persons who support environmental policy measures are generally well informed about environmental issues, whereas this is not the case with opponents of such measures. However, according to the results of a national survey conducted in Switzerland, knowledge about ecological issues is extremely superficial, despite widespread media coverage of issues such as ozone depletion, air pollution . and the greenhouse effect (Diekmann and Preisendorfer, 1992). Only one-third of the Swiss population could spontaneously name CO2 as the main cause of the greenhouse effect. Just slightly higher was the percentage of people who could give the correct answer to a question concerning the ozone problem.2 Furthermore, the subjective assessment of environmental risks by lay people differs clearly from that by experts (Jaeggi et al., 1996): while consequences of forest decline were ranked highest by lay people, followed by stratospheric ozone pollution and garbage problems, the greenhouse effect was ranked lowest, actually half as dangerous as stratospheric ozone pollution. This contradicts the consequences of climate change forecasted by the experts. Kempton (1991) as well as Bostrom et al. (1994) studied people’s conception of global climate change. They found that unknown terms such as ‘‘greenhouse effect’’ are interpreted in preconceived categories, and often people do not recognise the connection between their own actions and environmental problems. Kriesi and Butschi . (1998) studied the impact of press information on the public’s knowledge and attitudes. As an example of press information, two newspaper articles were chosen which dealt with some aspects of CO2-related problems. There were indications that the messages received could be interpreted in unanticipated ways: the information that plants grow faster under conditions of higher concentrations of CO2 decreased the urgency of environmental protection for some persons. This is due to the fact that any new information is processed within the context of one’s own existing beliefs, one’s own mental models (Morgan et al., 1992). 2.3. Research gap: perceptions on risk assessment Regarding the significance of risk assessment studies in the public discussion on environmental problems, a research gap exists: first of all, hardly any empirical studies on the specific topic ‘‘politicians’ attitudes towards risk assessment studies’’ can be found. Furthermore, while abundant research on environmental awareness and environmental behaviour has been done, 2

The question was ‘‘Where do high ozone concentrations pose a threat for humans and the environment: on the ground or in the atmosphere?’’

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only little research exists on the question of how the public’s acceptance of environmental policies can be enhanced. With the present study, we tried to make a first step towards filling this gap by gaining new insights into how the results of risk assessments relate to policy making and opinion formation. In order to obtain this goal, we developed the following research questions: 1. Do results of scientific experiments influence the politicians in their readiness to prepare new environmental policy measures? 2. Which factors influence the public’s acceptance of environmental policy measures?

3. Methods 3.1. Methodology In social sciences two different methodological approaches can be used to study public perceptions on various issues (Lamnek, 1988). The quantitative approach is used to measure precise answer frequencies, to test hypotheses, and to discover correlations between the variables. Researchers using the quantitative approach often work with standardised questionnaires, which are build upon basic knowledge and already existing theoretical concepts on the topic of interest. In contrast to the quantitative approach, the qualitative approach (Atteslander, 1991; Filstead, 1971; Lamnek, 1988) is based on the principle of greatest possible openness and flexibility: any information on the subject—expected or not—is desirable; new insights that emerge during a study are allowed to influence the way an ongoing study is structured. Qualitative methods permit a maximum gain of new insights into a problem; however, they do not allow the evaluation of quantitative frequencies and conduction of statistical testing of hypotheses. In order to acquire deep insights regarding the goals and research questions of this study presented here, we decided to use qualitative methods. 3.2. Data collection Out of the range of possible qualitative interview techniques, the ethnographic interview (Spradley, 1979) was chosen. This interview technique is recommended when the interviewer initially has little understanding of local—and in this case of group-specific—concepts (Agar, 1996; Spradley, 1979). In ethnographic interviews open-ended questions are used, permitting the informants to structure and define their own responses. This is essential for allowing the structure of people’s mental models to emerge and for identifying the set of possible misconceptions (Morgan et al., 1992).

Fig. 1. Sampling strategies in the social sciences (source Hunziker, 1995).

All the interviews conducted for this study consisted of three parts: 1. The interviewer asked questions about knowledge and awareness regarding greenhouse effect and air pollution. 2. The interviewer gave a short presentation of the model-ecosystem experiments of the ICAT project.3 3. The interviewees were asked for reactions to the presentation and to possible environmental policy proposals based on the results of such experiments. 3.3. Sampling The informants were selected according to the ‘‘theoretical sampling strategy’’ (Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Hunziker, 2000). The principle of this strategy is one of ‘‘maximum variety’’ (Morse, 1994), and not statistical representativeness. Therefore, a theoretical sample, also called ‘‘purposeful sample’’ (Patton, 1990), consists of persons with widely differing opinions, which ‘‘represent the margin’’ of the sampling universe (Fig. 1). An a priori sample, based on informal expert interviews and theoretical thoughts was established. A first interview was conducted with a person, which was assumed to represent one of the typical positions quite well. After analysing this interview, a next informant, contrasting the first one as much as possible regarding study-relevant criteria, was chosen. This sampling procedure was repeated until no new positions emerged any more, all assumed positions were covered by at least one interview, and no more new information could be gained from the interviews. In the course of this study, 15 interviews were conducted (Table 1). Five of the interviewees are members of the Swiss parliament; the others are citizens living in the city or the surroundings of Zurich. 3.4. Analysis All interviews were audiotaped and transcribed. Data for this article is drawn from these verbatim transcripts. 3

For an explanation of the ICAT project see footnote 1.

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Table 1 Characterisation of the interviewees No.

Sex

Age

Education

Present occupation

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

F M M M M F M F F M M M M M M

53 38 46 46 59 58 57 41 45 46 64 48 27 36 36

Lawyer Painter, business training Agronomist University degree Printer

Lawyer, member of parliament Manager, member of parliament Chief of government department, member of parliament Political scientist, member of parliament Senior executive officer, member of parliament Housewife Site manager Housewife, art dealer Journalist Teacher and ecological consultant Restauranteur Bank employee Unemployed Unemployed Farmer and truck driver

Foreman Secretary University degree Teacher Restauranteur Bank employee University degree University degree Farmer

The contents of the interviews were investigated according to a method based on the ‘‘Grounded Theory’’ of Glaser and Strauss (1967):

interviews are added (the numbers correspond to the interviewee’s number in Table 1).

1. In a first step (open coding), the full text was screened section by section in order to identify noticeable statements regarding (a) greenhouse effect and air pollution and (b) reactions to the presented modelecosystem experiments and possible environmental policy proposals. Similar statements were assigned to categories, which were defined primarily according to the empirical data as well as due to the research questions. The following interviews were then analysed in the same way, however, based on the already established set of categories, which were, of course, revised, refined and enlarged according to the empirical findings. 2. In a second step (axial coding), categories that showed to be dominant—so-called key-categories— were crosschecked with the aid of the remaining categories in order to detect the interrelationships between them. 3. In a final step (selective coding), the interviews were screened again for finding contributions that further differentiate the key categories and their interrelationships.

4. Results and discussion4

The special software NUDIST (non-numerical unstructured data indexing searching and theorizing) (Richards and Richards, 1994) was used for this analysis. The following results show which opinions regarding public expectations towards science principally exist. In particular, the quantitative weight of the detected opinions remains unknown. In order to emphasise the validity of the results and to illustrate the findings, translated quotations (in italics) from the original

4.1. Politicians’ expectations of science After a short presentation of the model-ecosystem experiments of the ICAT project, the interviewed politicians were asked what they thought of these experiments and if they would rely on the results of risk assessments in political debates on environmental policy. Analysis of these interviews showed that three basic attitudes towards the role of scientific studies in the discussion on environmental problems could be distinguished. Those three basic attitudes can be described as follows: Attitude 1: Studies in natural science provide clear results, which are a prerequisite for a political impulse for change. By informing the public about environmental problems and explaining the sense of environmental policy measures, natural science supports politicians in the implementation of measures. When proposing protection measures politicians might have to propose certain restrictions and inconveniences. It is completely natural to only accept measures whose meaning one understands. And if the meaning is to reduce a problem with our forests, with the atmosphere and with everything that is connected to the CO2 problem, this can be illustrated with such scientific findings. (1) 4

We combine the presentation of the results with the discussion, because interpretation is the chief component of the results of studies conducted with the aid of qualitative research methods.

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Attitude 2: As an early warning system, natural science perceives developments and points them out and thus provides an important contribution to the overall judgement of a problem. However, in discussions on specific protection measures, factors other than scientific results are taken into account. Experiments in natural science can help to deemotionalise the discussion on environmental problems. (y) Those findings are a piece of the whole puzzle in the overall judgement but they play a marginal role in discussions on specific protection measures. (y) A certain effort of observation and documentation is simply necessary to be able to justify protection measures and also to think ahead in the sense of an early warning system. (3) Attitude 3: Natural science practices basic research but plays a marginal role in the political discussion on environmental problems. Basic research is ok; it’s ok that we acquire more knowledge. Certain insights will be gained from such studies and they might be developed even further. (y) But using those results in the discussion on environmental problems does not help us much. (2) If we now look at Knoepfel’s argument of science being given too much political responsibility (Knoepfel, 1992) in the light of our findings, we can say: If all politicians held attitude 3—saying that scientific findings only play a marginal role in policy formation—there would be no danger of science taking over too much political responsibility. This danger would exist if most politicians held attitude 1. If we compare the basic attitudes of politicians towards science found through our in-depths interviews with the general description of the four functions of science by Freiburghaus and Zimmermann (1985), the following can be stated: In attitude 1 all four functions of science are present, while in attitude 2 probably three to four functions exist, and in attitude 3 science is just attributed an instrumental function. According to Cohen (1997), a nationwide survey of US state legislators and their staff revealed a strong support for the use of risk assessment. If in our study most politicians held the first or the second attitude, risk assessment would play an important role in decision making, and therefore our findings would be consistent with the findings of the survey Cohen reports. However, since our study was conducted with in-depth qualitative interviews exclusively, we cannot make any statements about the percentage of politicians holding the different attitudes. Nevertheless, based on our qualitative interviews we can say that those politicians holding the first or second attitude are generally interested in information on risk assessments, but they often do not get sufficient information. The interviewees mentioned that

they would appreciate better, that means more, better understandable, more precise and more easily available information from science than has been the case so far. Whereas articles in scientific journals are the most common way for scientists to publish their findings, politicians do not consult such articles. No matter which way is chosen to inform politicians about scientific studies—be it for example newspaper articles, hearings, direct conversations with individuals—the information has to be understandable. Or as Pielke (1994) puts it: politicians ‘‘need a message, not data’’. This leads to the question as to who should mediate the information of scientific studies and their results. Since this question is also important in correspondence with the public’s attitude towards scientific studies, this question will be discussed later. 4.2. The public’s acceptance of environmental policy measures Analysis of the interviews led to the hypothesis that the public’s acceptance of environmental policy measures is affected by perception, knowledge and degree of constraint by such measures. 4.3. Direct perception One of the key factors affecting the public acceptance of environmental policy measures is perception. Personal direct perception of environmental pollution and its impacts—i.e. to see or feel those impacts—seems to enhance the readiness to support environmental protection measures. That is to say, only those who directly perceive environmental problems and their impacts in this way and recognise those problems and impacts as such understand the importance of environmental policy measures and therefore are more likely going to accept such measures. This can be illustrated with the findings of the interviews. When talking about ozone, people seem to confuse stratospheric ozone depletion with tropospheric ozone pollution. However, they know that ozone pollution as well as the destruction of the ozone layer can have adverse health effects. The interviewees assume headache, watering eyes and breathing problems to be connected with ozone and many feel themselves or a family member to be affected by health problems caused by ozone. Therefore, the issues concerning ozone are perceived as a real threat: Ozone is something one can really feel. I mean, I have the feeling that the symptoms I just named, that is problems with breathing, headache and so on, they are felt relatively fast. (12) Everyday Swiss newspapers publish a short bulletin about the expected concentrations of pollutants for the day as well as a short overview of the pollutants’

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concentration in various areas of Switzerland on the preceding day. According to the interviewees, these figures do not receive much attention by the public. The feeling of being personally affected by high ozone concentrations seems to weigh more, as one informant said: If you feel the impacts personally that is much more intensive than if you read it as a simple figure in the daily press. (13) Those informants who think they can directly perceive the effects of ozone are willing to support air pollution control measures. Even those who do not feel directly affected said in the interviews that if they had health problems and saw a connection between their health condition and ozone, they would more likely support air pollution control measures. The situation is different with the topic of CO2: lay people tend to be unaware of the connection between CO2 and the greenhouse effect. The consequence of this unawareness is that elevated CO2 concentrations are not perceived as a possible threat. Furthermore, people cannot see or feel the impacts of the greenhouse effect directly, and therefore it is not perceived as a real threat. The finding that lay people perceive the greenhouse effect not really as a threat is supported by the study of Jaeggi et al. (1996) on people’s assessment of environmental risks. As long as something is not perceived as a threat, there is no reason why someone should be willing to support measures to reduce a non-existing threat. As Kunz (1998) said, the conception of natural risks is closely related to the experience and the personal observation. Therefore, natural disasters play a decisive role in the decision process for the benefit of concrete protection measures. It can be concluded that if it was possible to mediate this perception to the people, their readiness to support environmental policy measures could be enhanced. 4.4. Knowledge of a problem According to our interviews, knowledge also plays an important role in whether people accept environmental policy measures or not. When people are asked what they know about the greenhouse effect, the answers to such a question can be classified in three categories: 1. The person is well informed about the topic. 2. The person has little or no knowledge about the topic. 3. The person confuses this with other topics. It is this third category of answers, which is most interesting here. The following two examples taken from the interviews illustrate this category: The greenhouse effect is threatening. I can experience this in the sun and I have the feeling that this is

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connected with ozone, with the greenhouse effect because the sun is so much more aggressive than it used to be. (6) We’ve had good examples of the greenhouse effect this summer, with these very strong heat waves. (...) Another very good example is the fact that diseases of the respiratory tract are increasing. (7) It would be wrong to say that these informants do not have knowledge about the greenhouse effect. They have heard about the greenhouse effect but they confuse it with temperature variations, ozone depletion and ozone pollution. These findings correspond with the studies by Kempton (1991) and Bostrom et al. (1994). People giving such answers have heard about the greenhouse effect but their knowledge about it is incomplete. Therefore, they interpret the term ‘‘greenhouse effect’’ in terms of pre-existing categories like ozone depletion, ozone pollution and personally experienced temperature variations. According to Diek. mann and Preisendorfer (1992), Franzen (1997) and Kunz (1998), people who are generally well informed about environmental issues support environmental policy measures. Thus, it is important to clarify such fallacies. 4.5. Degree of constraint Even when people know about environmental problems and their impact and perceive them as a real threat, they do not necessarily support environmental policy measures, as the following quotation from an interview shows: Yes, I would support measures to reduce CO2emissions if they are reasonable and I had the feeling that they would be successful. (...) But I think, there we are dependent on science, which can emphasise something plausibly and also prove it. (12) This reaction is due to the often deeply intrusive character of such measures. The less constraining a measure is, the more likely it is to be accepted (Kriesi and Butschi, . 1998). Measures such as a raise in the price of gasoline or a speed limit of 100 km/h on national highways impinge more directly than measures such as technical improvements of cars. This is because the former are designed to render the use of private cars more expensive or to restrict it to the purely essential, whereas the latter do not restrict the actions of individuals. If a measure is very intrusive, people want to be sure that it and its concomitant are worth it and therefore ask science to prove the effectiveness of protection measures.

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4.6. Mediation If environmental problems and their impacts are not easily perceivable by lay people—as is the case with CO2—this perception has to be mediated. The analysis of the interviews showed that experiments such as the ones with model-ecosystems could be used for the mediation of the impacts of higher CO2 concentrations on forests. Although some of the interviewees were doubtful whether the results obtained through the experiments on the model-ecosystems would be the same as in experiments in real forests, the experiments seem to offer good possibilities for illustrating the impacts of environmental pollution or greenhouse effect to lay people. During the interviews, pictures of leaves of beech trees that had been grown in chambers with different CO2 concentrations were used to explain the impact of higher CO2 levels on plants. Those pictures were highly appreciated by the interviewees since they could directly see the impact of elevated CO2: It is obvious, these pictures show that those leaves are not the way they should be, it looks as if they were sick. (7) If people are not informed about the linkages between the greenhouse effect and CO2 and therefore oppose environmental measures, their knowledge about environmental problems and possible impacts should be enlarged. Information is an essential prerequisite for individuals to assume responsibility (Kunz, 1998). However, mediating information is not an easy task. Information can easily be interpreted in unanticipated ways and lead to unexpected consequences. In the interviews, when told that spruce responded positively in growth to CO2 enrichment one informant said: This is interesting. 15 years ago, when everybody talked about ‘‘forest decline’’ it was said that spruce has been damaged. (...) So this is actually positive if spruce is now developing well under higher concentrations of CO2, right? (15) Information can be interpreted in unanticipated ways and thereby decrease the urgency of environmental protection in the view of some people. Furthermore, it has to be remembered that people conceptualise new information in pre-existing terms. This is what Morgan et al. (1992) meant when saying that any new information is processed within the context of one’s own existing beliefs, one’s own mental models. If there is no preliminary knowledge about a topic, a new message will be incomprehensible, or if people already have erroneous beliefs, the new information might be misconstrued (Morgan et al., 1992, p. 2050). This is supported by Petty and Cacioppo (1986), who argue that attitudes can only be changed through the mediation of knowledge if the addressed people already

have a preliminary understanding of the aspired attitude. If this is not the case, the mediation of knowledge is counterproductive, because the newly gained knowledge animates people to intensify their existing position through the development and strengthening of counter-arguments. Therefore, much attention has to be paid to the way in which information is mediated: ‘‘Communicators need to know the nature and extent of a recipient’s knowledge and beliefs if they are to design messages that will not be dismissed, misinterpreted, or allowed to coexist with misconceptions’’ (Morgan et al., 1992, p. 2050). Or as Rebetez puts it: ‘‘Effective transfer of scientific information can only be achieved if scientists are conscious of certain biases in the public’s conceptions of climate and if they take the public’s expectations into consideration’’ (Rebetez, 1996, p. 496).

5. Conclusion This study focussed on the role of a specific type of risk assessment study in policy making and opinion formation. The study confirms the findings of other studies regarding people’s assessments of environmental risks as well as the close relation of the conception of natural risks and the personal observation and experience of that risk. In addition, the study reveals specific results regarding public opinions on natural science experiments and shows that the use of model-ecosystem experiments in explaining scientific information can present a new possibility to enhance the public’s acceptance of environmental policies. Furthermore, this study is one of the few existing empirical studies on the question of politicians’ attitudes towards risk assessment studies and therefore provides specific results regarding the topic of risk assessment and policy making. And finally, the results reveal the importance of a mental models approach towards risk communication. Thus, the aims of our study, namely to fill some of the most relevant research gaps regarding the significance of risk assessment studies in the public discussion on environmental problems have been reached. In particular, the research questions can be answered as summarised in the following statements, which represent the condensed essence of the findings from our qualitative interviews. 5.1. Risk assessment and policy making The question whether the results of scientific experiments influence politicians in their readiness to prepare new environmental policy measures can be answered by statement 1: It is the decision-maker’s general attitude towards science, which defines his or her readiness to change

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existing or to formulate new environmental policies relying on new scientific findings.

1992; Jaeger et al., 1993), based on our results we can formulate statement 4:

When looking at the relevant literature concerning science and politics, we pointed out that there is a discussion on how much political responsibility science should have. Consequentially, our findings resulted in statement 2:

Better environmental knowledge enhances people’s readiness to accept environmental policy measures.

The politicians’ attitude towards science in general determines how much political responsibility is given to science. Based on our findings we can state that the more functions a decision-maker attributes to science, the more he/she will rely on scientific results in formulating environmental policies. As mentioned before, the statements have a hypothetical character. In particular, we cannot make any comments about the percentage of politicians holding the three detected attitudes at this point. Since the results of our study suggest that the attitudes of decision-makers are crucial to the readiness to formulate environmental policies, a quantification of how many politicians are holding the three detected attitudes should be done by applying quantitative methods to the research question. 5.2. Risk assessment and public acceptance of environmental policies Regarding the public’s acceptance of environmental policies, the results of our study lead to statement 3: Direct perception—i.e. seeing or feeling—environmental problems and their impacts can increase the acceptance of environmental policy measures by the public. Of course it is difficult to perceive the impacts of global climate change directly. Therefore, it is important that scientists try to mediate this perception to the public. From the results of our study it can be concluded that model-ecosystem experiments can support such mediation since different scenarios of the same risk can be demonstrated on a small area. For example, in the experiments considered in our study, the observers were enabled to directly see the influence of different CO2 concentrations on model forests. In this way, the effectiveness of policy measures such as the enforced reduction of CO2 concentrations can be demonstrated to the public. Unfortunately, the use of model-ecosystem experiments in information campaigns might often not be possible due to the enormous costs of such experiments. While various empirical studies have shown a discrepancy between environmental knowledge and . environmental behaviour (Diekmann and Preisendorfer,

The problem here is that people often confuse information about various environmental topics. A solution to solve this problem is to make sure that— when communicating scientific information to lay people (be it politicians or the public)—the information has to be easy-to-understand for non-experts and the wording of the information has to fit the target group. However, if scientists want to be sure that their information will not be dismissed, misinterpreted or coexisting with misconceptions, they have to know the nature and extent of the recipients’ knowledge and beliefs. Recognising the fact that new information is processed within the recipient’s own mental models, means that communicating information has to be carried out very seriously. Thus, careful empirical research is often required that allows taking into account existing mental models. Scientific information regarding environmental risks and possible policies could then be formulated more concisely towards different target groups considering their specific mental models.

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