Building support for carbon emissions mitigation: can we use an ocean acidification frame to promote support?

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2016-06

University of Washington Abstract Building support for carbon emissions mitigation: can we use an ocean acidification frame to promote support? Max Mossler Chair of the supervisory committee: Professor Ryan Kelly School of Marine and Environmental Affairs Increasing public support for carbon emissions mitigation is crucial for solving global issues like climate change and ocean acidification (OA). Yet carbon emissions mitigation policies are typically discussed in the context of climate change and hardly ever in the context of OA. In this paper, we present carbon emissions in five different contexts (climate change, global warming, carbon pollution, air pollution, and ocean acidification) and use an online survey tool—with a politically diverse sample of the US population—to measure support for mitigation policies. Though air pollution mitigation receives the highest amount of policy support overall, OA mitigation receives higher levels of support than carbon pollution, climate change, and global warming from conservatives who have heard of ocean acidification. This finding, coupled with other trends in OA perceptions has interesting potential for future risk communication and carbon emissions mitigation policies; OA may offer a new way to engage conservatives in carbon mitigation policy.