Abstract
In this chapter we analyse national survey data from the Australian Survey of Social Attitudes to examine the relative importance of climate change vis a vis other environmental issues of concern to Australians. We ask to what extent Australians believe that climate change is occurring, and what they think causes it. We show how a range of social and political background characteristics, and the type of media Australians rely upon for their news and information, is associated with their attitudes toward climate change. We then seek to better understand how the Australian environmental movement has tackled (or failed to tackle) the issue, using our interview data to explore the issue from the perspective of EMO leaders and Greens politicians.
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Profile: Dan Spencer
Profile: Dan Spencer
Formerly of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition
I grew up in Renmark in South Australia , which is on the River Murray. I went to high school in the state capital, Adelaide, where I studied outdoor education and did a lot of bushwalking, which gave me an appreciation of the fragility of the environment. When I went back to the Riverland one time after a few years of drought, I noticed the banks were dried out and the river was about half the height I remembered. I’m not saying it was all to do with climate change , but I’d been learning about climate change and drought at the time, and I’d heard a lot of stories in the news about its impact on farmers. I could relate to that, having grown up in a country town.
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Tranter, B., Lester, L., McGaurr, L. (2017). Who Cares About Climate Change ?. In: Leadership and the Construction of Environmental Concern. Palgrave Studies in Media and Environmental Communication. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56584-6_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56584-6_2
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