Risk Perceptions, General Environmental Beliefs, and

Examines the relationship between risk perceptions and the willingness to address climate change. Ss were 1225 adults residing in all 48 contiguous US states, comprising a 59% response rate to a mailed questionnaire. Issues included risk perception and knowledge related to climate change, support for voluntary and government actions to address the problem, general environmental beliefs, and demographic variables. Findings include: 1) Behavioral intentions regarding climate change are complex and intriguing; 2) separate demographic sources exist for voluntary actions compared with voting intentions; 3) recognition of the causes of global warming is a powerful predictor of behavioral intentions, which is independent from believing that climate change will happen and have negative consequences; and 4) risk perception variables can account for behavior; future studies should therefore place greater emphasis on risk perceptions as independent variables.