Overview

This section of the website contains studies, reports, and articles about public perceptions of climate change and how to communicate information on climate change to the public at large and to specific audience groups. It includes a variety of public surveys and polls about climate change and energy and analysis of trends in public opinion. Sections include Surveys/Polls, Academic/Other Research & Analysis, and Articles/Commentaries. For transportation agencies, an understanding of public views about climate change is important in developing policies and programs and communicating about the importance of climate change and energy to the public. Communicating about climate change and energy is both important and challenging for transportation agencies, especially in states where the public is skeptical or holds very divergent views about climate change. Experts suggest that public agencies, such as DOTs, have an important role in helping to educate the public on actions needed to understand and respond to the changing climate in an objective fashion, outside the political arena. Those states that are engaged in climate planning (both greenhouse gas mitigation and climate adaptation) can benefit from the insights and advice on climate/energy communications contained in reports on this section of AASHTO’s climate change website.