While going through the post-survey responses, I noticed a theme forming from the participant responses to the questions: “What words come to mind to describe the typical person who thinks that Climate Change is/is NOT a serious problem?”
The participants were given three blank spaces to produce their own adjectives describing Type A, someone who thinks climate change is a serious problem, and Type B, someone who thinks climate change is NOT a serious problem. Below you will see the word clouds I created using the two answer sets; the largest words are the words most repeatedly used by participants, while the smaller words are not used as much.
Type A, describing someone who thinks climate change is a serious problem:
Type B, describing someone who thinks climate change is NOT a serious problem:
As you can see, there are two major themes in the views from the participants. What is most surprising about these answers is that, as I mentioned, participants were given absolute free reign on what words they used to describe Type A and Type B people. There were no word banks on the survey or anything like that; the shear repetitiveness of some answers is startling, and telling about our society today.
By Meghan Herrick, Intern. Consortium for Science Policy and Outcomes
Expert & Citizen Assessment of Science & Technology 