Citizens, Nonprofits and Climate Change Policy

Abstract The issue of climate change and its potential effects on natural and human systems is becoming more prevalent on citizen and policymaker agendas. Studies of the factors framing citizen levels of concern about climate change and potential policy reactions to it are mainly framed around traditional causal explanations like socioeconomic status, political ideology, personal vulnerability, and knowledge. The present study, building on Stern et al.’s (1999) Value-Belief-Norm theory, expands this analysis by looking at the impact of nonprofit organization influences on citizen orientations to climate change as a problem. Controlling for traditional variables, this study seeks to isolate the effects of nonprofit organizations as potential attitude and policy framers in this policy realm. Using a national public opinion survey of American citizens, the role of nonprofit organizations in framing levels of concern about, and policy reactions to, climate change are found to be more complex than once thought. It appears that environmental organization membership per se is less important than is citizen trust in environmental organizations.