Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Perceptions of naturalness predict US public support for Soil Carbon Storage as a climate solution

  • Published:
Climatic Change Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Soil Carbon Storage has emerged as a feasible strategy for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, raising important questions regarding whether the general public supports the strategy as a means to address climate change. We analyzed data from a national probability survey of 1222 US adults who reported believing in climate change at least “somewhat” to estimate public support for Soil Carbon Storage and how it compares to other leading Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) strategies. Overall, a majority of the sample expressed support for Soil Carbon Storage—regardless of whether the strategy involved the use of biochar (a form of charcoal made from organic matter) or not (55% and 62%, respectively)—placing Soil Carbon Storage ahead of Bioenergy plus Carbon Capture and Storage (32%) and Direct Air Capture (25%), and behind only Afforestation and Reforestation (73%), in terms of public support. In addition, perceiving Soil Carbon Storage as “natural” strongly predicted individual-level support, a pattern that held for every CDR strategy featured on the survey. Results demonstrate broad US public support for Soil Carbon Storage as a climate change mitigation strategy at a time when scientists and policymakers are actively considering the political, not just technical, feasibility of different climate solutions.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

Data and syntax are available at: https://github.com/sks289/US-support-for-soil-carbon-CDRs.git

Notes

  1. We analyze political ideology rather than party affiliation because of our conceptual interest in political worldview rather than political identity and because of ideology’s stronger association with climate change opinions that has been documented in prior research (e.g., Fielding et al. 2012; Cruz 2017). Nevertheless, when party affiliation (Democrat, Republican, Independent/Other; dummy-coded with Republican as the referent group) is substituted for political ideology in our main regression models, the findings involving perceived naturalness and aversion to tampering with nature remain substantively unchanged.

  2. Weighted analyses revealed substantively unchanged treatment effects on both perceived naturalness (F (1,1217) = 6.98, p < .01) and support (F (1,1220) = 9.97, p < .01).

  3. Belief in anthropogenic climate change was measured immediately after respondents qualified for the survey, with the item “Do you think climate change is caused more by human activities, more by natural changes in the environment, or by both equally?” The full set of interaction terms included perceived naturalness by ATN; perceived naturalness by political ideology; perceived naturalness by belief in anthropogenic climate change; and education by political ideology.

  4. For the unadjusted bivariate relationships between key study variables, see the correlation matrix in Supplemental Table S2.

References

  • Amelung W, Bossio D, de Vries W, Kögel-Knabner I, Lehmann J, Amundson R, Bol R, Collins C, Lal R, Leifeld J, Minasny B, Pan G, Paustian K, Rumpel C, Sanderman J, van Groenigen JW, Mooney S, van Wesemael B, Wander M, Chabbi A (2020) Towards implementing a global-scale soil climate mitigation strategy. Nat Commun 11:5427

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Amundson R, Biardeau L (2018) Opinion: soil carbon sequestration is an elusive climate mitigation tool. PNAS 115(46):11652–11656

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bassarak C, Pfister HR, Böhm G (2017) Dispute and morality in the perception of societal risks: extending the psychometric model. J Risk Res 20(3):299–325

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Borick C, Rabe B (2012) Americans cool on geoengineering approaches to addressing climate change. Issues in Governance Studies 46(4):7

    Google Scholar 

  • Bossio DA, Cook-Patton SC, Ellis PW, Fargione J, Sanderman J, Smith P, Wood S, Zomer RJ, von Unger M, Emmer IM, Griscom BW (2020) The role of soil carbon in natural climate solutions. Nat Sustain 3(5):391–398

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brulle RJ, Carmichael J, Jenkins JC (2012) Shifting public opinion on climate change: an empirical assessment of factors influencing concern over climate change in the US, 2002–2010. Clim Chang 114(2):169–188

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Caldeira K, Bala G, Cao L (2013) The science of geoengineering. Annu Rev Earth Planet Sci 41

  • Campbell TH, Kay AC (2014) Solution aversion: on the relation between ideology and motivated disbelief. J Pers Soc Psychol 107(5):809

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Campbell-Arvai V, Hart PS, Raimi KT, Wolske KS (2017) The influence of learning about Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) on support for mitigation policies. Clim Chang 143(3-4):321–336

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Christoff P (2016) The promissory note: COP 21 and the Paris Climate Agreement. Environ Politics 25(5):765–787

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Corner A, Pidgeon N (2014) Geoengineering, climate change scepticism and the ‘moral hazard’argument: an experimental study of UK public perceptions. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences 372(2031):2014006

    Google Scholar 

  • Corner A, Pidgeon N, Parkhill K (2012) Perceptions of geoengineering: public attitudes, stakeholder perspectives, and the challenge of ‘upstream’ engagement. Wiley Interdiscip Rev Clim Chang 3(5):451–466

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Corner A, Parkhill K, Pidgeon N, Vaughan NE (2013) Messing with nature? Exploring public perceptions of geoengineering in the UK. Glob Environ Chang 23(5):938–947

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cox PM, Betts RA, Jones CD, Spall SA, Totterdell IJ (2000) Acceleration of global warming due to carbon-cycle feedbacks in a coupled climate model. Nature 408(6809):184–187

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cruz SM (2017) The relationships of political ideology and party affiliation with environmental concern: a meta-analysis. J Environ Psychol 53:81–91

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Demirbas A, Arin G (2002) An overview of biomass pyrolysis. Energy Sources 24(5):471–482

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Doetterl S, Stevens A, Six J, Merckx R, Van Oost K, Pinto MC, Casanova-Katny A, Muñoz C, Boudin M, Venegas EZ, Boeckx P (2015) Soil Carbon Storage controlled by interactions between geochemistry and climate. Nat Geosci 8(10):780–783

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dryhurst S, Schneider CR, Kerr J, Freeman AL, Recchia G, Van Der Bles AM, Spiegelhalter D, van der Linden S (2020) Risk perceptions of COVID-19 around the world. J Risk Res:1–13

  • Dunlap RE, McCright AM, Yarosh JH (2016) The political divide on climate change: partisan polarization widens in the US. Environ Sci Policy Sustain Dev 58(5):4–23

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Faran TS, Olsson L (2018) Geoengineering: neither economical, nor ethical – a risk – reward nexus analysis of Carbon Dioxide Removal. Int Environ Agreements 18(1):63–77

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Field CB, Mach KJ (2017) Rightsizing carbon dioxide removal. Science 356(6339):706–707

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fielding KS, Head BW, Laffan W, Western M, Hoegh-Guldberg O (2012) Australian politicians’ beliefs about climate change: political partisanship and political ideology. Env Polit 21(5):712–733

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Funk C, Hefferon M (2019) U.S. public views on climate and energy. Pew Research Center

  • Funk C, Kennedy, B (2016). The politics of climate. Pew Research Center

    Google Scholar 

  • Fuss S, Lamb WF, Callaghan MW, Hilaire J, Creutzig F, Amann T, Beringer T, de Oliveira GW, Hartmann J, Khanna T, Luderer G (2018) Negative emissions—part 2: costs, potentials and side effects. Environ Res Lett 13(6):063002

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • García-Tejero IF, Carbonell R, Ordoñez R, Torres FP, Zuazo VHD (2020) Conservation agriculture practices to improve the soil water management and Soil Carbon Storage in Mediterranean rainfed agro-ecosystems. In Soil health restoration and management (pp. 203-230). Springer, Singapore

  • Gillis A, Vandenbergh M, Raimi K, Maki A, Wallston K (2021) Convincing conservatives: private sector action can bolster support for climate change mitigation in the United States. Energy Res Soc Sci 73:101947

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Glenk K, Colombo S (2011) Designing policies to mitigate the agricultural contribution to climate change: an assessment of soil based carbon sequestration and its ancillary effects. Clim Chang 105(1–2):43–66

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goldberg MH, van der Linden S, Ballew MT, Rosenthal SA, Leiserowitz A (2019) The role of anchoring in judgments about expert consensus. J Appl Soc Psychychol 49(3):192–200

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gurwick NP, Kelly C, Elias P (2012) The scientific basis for biochar as a climate change mitigation strategy: does it measure up. Union of Concerned Scientists 1-15

  • Gustin J (2019) These candidates see farming as a climate solution. Here’s what they’re proposing. Inside Climate News. Retrieved online from https://insideclimatenews.org/news/19072019/agriculture-climate-solution-election-2020-biden-warren-sanders-soil-carbon-conservation/

  • Hamilton LC (2011) Education, politics and opinions about climate change evidence for interaction effects. Clim Chang 104(2):231–242

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] (2018) Global warming of 1.5° C: an IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5° C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty.

  • Jobin M, Siegrist M (2020) Support for the deployment of climate engineering: a comparison of ten different technologies. Risk Anal 40(5):1058–1078

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kahan DM, Jenkins-Smith H, Tarantola T, Silva CL, Braman D (2015) Geoengineering and climate change polarization: testing a two-channel model of science communication. Ann Am Acad Pol Soc Sci 658(1):192–222

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kragt ME, Gibson FL, Maseyk F, Wilson KA (2016) Public willingness to pay for carbon farming and its co-benefits. Ecol Econ 126:125–131

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Laird DA (2008) The charcoal vision: a win–win–win scenario for simultaneously producing bioenergy, permanently sequestering carbon, while improving soil and water quality. Agron J 100(1):178–181

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lal R, Follett RF, Kimble JM (2003) Achieving soil carbon sequestration in the United States: a challenge to the policy makers. Soil Sci 168(12):827–845

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lawrence MG, Schäfer S, Muri H, Scott V, Oschlies A, Vaughan NE, Boucher O, Schmidt H, Haywood J, Scheffran J (2018) Evaluating climate geoengineering proposals in the context of the Paris Agreement temperature goals. Nat Commun 9(1):1–19

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lehmann J, Joseph S (Eds.) (2015) Biochar for environmental management: science, technology and implementation. Routledge

  • Leiserowitz A (2007) International public opinion, perception, and understanding of global climate change. Human Development Report 2008:1–40

    Google Scholar 

  • Leiserowitz A, Maibach EW, Rosenthal S, Kotcher J, Bergquist P, Ballew M, Goldberg M, Gustafson A (2019) Climate change in the American mind: April 2019. Yale University and George Mason University. New Haven, CT: Yale Program on Climate Change Communication

  • McCright AM, Dunlap RE (2011) The politicization of climate change and polarization in the American public’s views of global warming, 2001–2010. Sociol Q 52(2):155–194

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meko T (2016) Four ways to suck carbon out of thin air. Wash Post, February 27. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/carboncapture/

  • Minasny B, Malone BP, McBratney AB, Angers D, Arrouays D, Chambers A, Chaplot V, Chen ZS, Cheng K, Das BS, Field DJ (2017) Soil carbon 4 per mille. Geoderma 292:59–86

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Minx JC, Lamb WF, Callaghan MW, Bornmann L, Fuss S (2017) Fast growing research on negative emissions. Environ Res Lett 12(3):035007

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Minx JC, Lamb WF, Callaghan MW, Fuss S, Hilaire J, Creutzig F, Amann T, Beringer T, de Oliveira GW, Hartmann J, Khanna T (2018) Negative emissions—part 1: research landscape and synthesis. Environ Res Lett 13(6):063001

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Miratrix LW, Sekhon JS, Theodoridis AG, Campos LF (2018) Worth weighting? How to think about and use weights in survey experiments. Polit Anal 26(3):275–291

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Motta M, Chapman D, Stecula D, Haglin K (2019) An experimental examination of measurement disparities in public climate change beliefs. Clim Chang 154(1):37–47

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Preston CJ (2013) Ethics and geoengineering: reviewing the moral issues raised by solar radiation management and Carbon Dioxide Removal. Wiley Interdiscip Rev Clim Chang 4(1):23–37

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Raimi KT, Wolske KS, Hart PS, Campbell-Arvai V (2020) The Aversion to Tampering with Nature (ATN) scale: individual differences in (dis) comfort with altering the natural world. Risk Anal 40(3):638–656

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rogelj J, Shindell D, Jiang K, Fifita S, Forster P, Ginzburg V, Handa C, Kheshgi H, Kobayashi S, Kriegler L, Mundaca L (2018) Mitigation pathways compatible with 1.5°C in the context of sustainable development. In: Global warming of 1.5°C. An IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty [In Press]

  • Rozin P, Spranca M, Krieger Z, Neuhaus R, Surillo D, Swerdlin A, Wood K (2004) Preference for natural: instrumental and ideational/moral motivations, and the contrast between foods and medicines. Appetite 43(2):147–154

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rozin P, Fischler C, Shields-Argelès C (2012) European and American perspectives on the meaning of natural. Appetite 59(2):448–455

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schuldt JP, Eiseman DL, Hoffmann MP (2020) Public concern about climate change impacts on food choices: the interplay of knowledge and politics. Agr Hum Val1-9

  • Shrum TR, Markowitz E, Buck H, Gregory R, van der Linden S, Attari SZ, Van Boven L (2020) Behavioural frameworks to understand public perceptions of and risk response to Carbon Dioxide Removal. Interface Focus 10(5):20200002

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sjöberg L (2000) Perceived risk and tampering with nature. J Risk Res 3(4):353–367

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Slovic PE (Ed.) (2000) The perception of risk. Earthscan publications. Risk, society, and policy series

  • Smith P, Davis SJ, Creutzig F, Fuss S, Minx J, Gabrielle B, Kato E, Jackson RB, Cowie A, Kriegler E, Van Vuuren DP (2016) Biophysical and economic limits to negative CO 2 emissions. Nat Clim Chang 6(1):42–50

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Solomon S, Plattner GK, Knutti R, Friedlingstein P (2009) Irreversible climate change due to carbon dioxide emissions. PNAS 106(6):1704–1709

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sykes AJ, Macleod M, Eory V, Rees RM, Payen F, Myrgiotis V, Williams M, Sohi S, Hillier J, Moran D, Manning DA (2020) Characterising the biophysical, economic and social impacts of soil carbon sequestration as a greenhouse gas removal technology. Glob Chang Biol 26(3):1085–1108

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Van Boven L, Sherman, D (2018). Actually, Republicans do believe in climate change. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/28/opinion/sunday/republicans-climate-change.html

  • van der Weerd W, Timmermans DR, Beaujean DJ, Oudhoff J, van Steenbergen JE (2011) Monitoring the level of government trust, risk perception and intention of the general public to adopt protective measures during the influenza A (H1N1) pandemic in the Netherlands. BMC Public Health 11(1):575

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Van Vuuren DP, Stehfest E, Gernaat DE, Van Den Berg M, Bijl DL, De Boer HS, Daioglou V, Doelman JC, Edelenbosch O, Harmsen M, Hof AF (2018) Alternative pathways to the 1.5 C target reduce the need for negative emission technologies. Nat Clim Chang 8(5):391–397

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vermeulen S, Bossio D, Lehmann J, Luu P, Paustian K, Webb C, Augé F, Bacudo I, Baedeker T, Havemann T, Jones C (2019) A global agenda for collective action on soil carbon. Nat Sustain 2(1):2–4

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Visschers VH, Shi J, Siegrist M, Arvai J (2017) Beliefs and values explain international differences in perception of solar radiation management: insights from a cross-country survey. Clim Chang 142(3-4):531–544

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walter D, Böhmer MM, Reiter S, Krause G, Wichmann O (2012) Risk perception and information-seeking behaviour during the 2009/10 influenza A (H1N1) pdm09 pandemic in Germany. Eurosurveillance 17(13):20131

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Winsley P (2007) Biochar and bioenergy production for climate change mitigation. New Zealand Science Review 64(1):5–10

    Google Scholar 

  • Wolske KS, Raimi KT, Campbell-Arvai V, Hart PS (2019) Public support for Carbon Dioxide Removal strategies: the role of tampering with nature perceptions. Clim Chang 152(3-4):345–361

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Woolf D, Amonette JE, Street-Perrott FA, Lehmann J, Joseph S (2010) Sustainable biochar to mitigate global climate change. Nat Commun 1:56

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wright MJ, Teagle DA, Feetham PM (2014) A quantitative evaluation of the public response to climate engineering. Nat Clim Chang 4(2):106–110

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability, The Nature Conservancy, and the Craig and Susan McCaw Foundation for funding this research. We also thank Dr. Kimberly Wolske for sharing materials used in the descriptions of the Carbon Dioxide Removal strategies.

Funding

David R. Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future, Cornell University; The Nature Conservancy; Craig and Susan McCaw Foundation.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Communication, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 14853, USA

    Shannan K. Sweet & Jonathon P. Schuldt

  2. Soil and Crop Science, School of Integrative Plant Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 14853, USA

    Shannan K. Sweet, Johannes Lehmann & Dominic Woolf

  3. Department of Global Development, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 14853, USA

    Johannes Lehmann

  4. The Nature Conservatory, Arlington, VA, USA

    Deborah A. Bossio

Authors
  1. Shannan K. Sweet
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jonathon P. Schuldt
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Johannes Lehmann
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Deborah A. Bossio
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Dominic Woolf
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

S. Sweet and J. P. Schuldt performed the statistical analysis, wrote the initial draft, and contributed equally to the work. All co-authors contributed to the design of the survey and provided comments on subsequent drafts.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jonathon P. Schuldt.

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval

This research was approved by the Institutional Review Board at Cornell University.

Additional information

Publisher’s note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary information

ESM 1

(DOCX 2617 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Sweet, S.K., Schuldt, J.P., Lehmann, J. et al. Perceptions of naturalness predict US public support for Soil Carbon Storage as a climate solution. Climatic Change 166, 22 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-021-03121-0

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-021-03121-0

Keywords

Search

Navigation