{"id":18324,"date":"2025-05-20T20:39:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-20T11:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pacificposts.com\/?p=18324"},"modified":"2025-05-20T20:50:00","modified_gmt":"2025-05-20T11:50:00","slug":"most-people-trust-climate-scientists-less-than-other-scientists-but-not-everywhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pacificposts.com\/?p=18324","title":{"rendered":"Most people trust climate scientists less than other scientists \u2013 but not everywhere"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Climate scientists are overall less trusted than other types of scientists, according to a\u00a0new study<\/a>\u00a0led by the UNSW Institute for Climate Risk & Response (ICRR).<\/p>\n

Dr Omid Ghasemi and colleagues compared responses from a survey of nearly 70,000 people across 68 countries on the trustworthiness of climate scientists with a broad range of other ideological and demographic factors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t exist in a vacuum, and this research allows a new lens to view different factors that may influence how people view climate scientists \u2013 and the forces undermining public confidence in their work,\u201d Dr Ghasemi says.<\/p>\n

The results, rated on a 5-point scale from 1 (not at all), to 5 (very strongly), revealed an overall average trust rating of 3.5 for climate scientists worldwide compared to 3.62 for scientists in general.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, six countries, and China in particular, bucked the trend entirely, indicating significantly higher trust in climate scientists.<\/p>\n

Political polarisation putting ice caps at risk\u00a0<\/p>\n

The research showed people with right-leaning political views tended to trust climate scientists less overall, including in the US, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and much of Europe.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s arguably not a surprise that you see significant increases in the trust gap between climate scientists and other scientists in these countries,\u201d Dr Ghasemi says.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have had decades of coordinated efforts by conservative political actors and fossil fuel interests to politicise climate science and undermine its credibility.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Interesting too, says Dr Ghasemi, are those countries which showed the opposite relationship, or no significant association between ideology and trust in climate scientists.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIn some Eastern European, Southeast Asian, and African countries, right-leaning individuals tended to trust scientists and climate scientists more,\u201d Dr Ghasemi says. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis might suggest that political leadership attitudes, rather than peoples\u2019 political views, better explain these differences in trust.\u201d<\/p>\n

Demographic differences behind doubts\u00a0<\/p>\n

The survey data, collected as part of the collaborative Trust in Science and Science-Related Populism (TISP) project, covered a total 111 variables.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dr Ghasemi\u2019s analysis of the data collected reveals some non-political factors may also be linked to higher trust in climate scientists, such as living in cities, having stronger religious beliefs, valuing science or the scientific method, or being a younger rather than older adult.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, people who support social hierarchies and those who believe common sense is better than scientific expertise are less likely to trust climate scientists.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Interactive maps are available:\u00a0<\/p>\n

The difference in trust between climate scientists and scientists in general<\/a><\/p>\n

Average trust in climate scientists versus scientists in general<\/a><\/p>\n

The relationship between political orientation and trust in climate scientists<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Climate scientists are overall less trusted than other types of scientists, according to a\u00a0new study\u00a0led by the UNSW Institute for Climate Risk & Response (ICRR). Dr Omid Ghasemi and colleagues compared responses from a survey of nearly 70,000 people across 68 countries on the trustworthiness of climate scientists with a broad range of other ideological […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18326,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pacificposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pacificposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pacificposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pacificposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pacificposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18324"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pacificposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18325,"href":"https:\/\/pacificposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18324\/revisions\/18325"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pacificposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pacificposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pacificposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pacificposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}