When the leader of the world鈥檚 1.2 billion Catholics issued his call to action on climate change in June, observers wondered whether this would move the needle in the public debate.
A suggests that it has. Some 17 per cent of overall respondents and 35 per cent of Catholic respondents said they were influenced by Francis鈥檚 message that climate change is a crucial moral issue.
The percentage of Catholics who said they were 鈥渧ery worried鈥� about global warming more than doubled over the numbers this spring. And those who denied the scientific consensus that human-caused climate change is happening declined 10 percentage points for Catholics and 6 points for the US population in general.
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Pollsters interviewed the same panel of just over 900 respondents before the release of the pope鈥檚 encyclical 鈥� a major document setting out Catholic doctrine 鈥� in June and also after his widely reported trip to the US in late September.
The authors of the survey, of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, and of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, dub the shift in public opinion 鈥渢he Pope Francis effect鈥�. The effect, they say, has intensified a trend that was already in progress.
The interest of US citizens in climate change decreased sharply in 2009-2010, when people were more worried about their jobs and mortgages. But since 2010, there has been a long, slow increase in concern.
That uptick has risen more sharply since the pope issued his climate encyclical, which emphasised that climate change will affect the world鈥檚 poorest people disproportionately.
鈥淲e were expecting to find fairly small changes. The magnitude of the shift was surprising to me,鈥� says Maibach. 鈥淚n many of the specifics of the way people view climate change 鈥� for instance, seeing it as a moral issue and understanding that climate change is going to hurt people in developing countries and the world鈥檚 poor the most 鈥� we saw really large shifts.鈥�
Trusted authority
Pope Francis is now the most trusted figure in the US on the subject of global warming, according to the survey. Six of every 10 people surveyed look to him for guidance on the subject, well ahead of politicians such as President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and the Republican leadership.
These results are consistent with a , Ann Arbor, and Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, which reported that 60 per cent of people in the US supported the pope鈥檚 call to action on climate.
鈥淎 key principle of communication is that the messenger often matters more than the message itself,鈥� says Leiserowitz, so the fact that the charismatic pope is popular among people has predisposed them to be swayed by his moral reframing of the issue.
鈥淐limate change brings up the most fundamental questions about humanity鈥檚 place on the planet, [and] what is the proper relationship between human beings and their fellow humans,鈥� Leiserowtitz says. 鈥淭he pope has succeeded in initiating a discussion on these issues that just hasn鈥檛 been there before.鈥�
Image credit: Pete Marovich/Corbis
