Research Hypothesis: People generally have a heightened level of awareness when it comes to the issue of climate change compared to before and already wants the government to take some action
Research Method
It was only recently that the leaders of the world’s national governments took a more meaningful step towards addressing one of the biggest problems in the planet—climate change, in a historic deal that marked their first step, after many decades of stagnation, indifference, and loss of both lives and property . Climate change can be classified as a significant change in the statistical distribution of various weather patterns that can be observed over an extended period of time . The changes are basically observed by means of comparison—i.e. comparing already established weather patterns from decades to millions of years earlier with the ones that have already been generated before .
Now, this refers to the more scientific definition of climate change. In the real world, climate change appears to have a more ominous definition. This is what the proposed research is going to be all about. It aims to check on the public’s overall perception about climate change with the assumption that people, mainly as a result of the recent events that happened as a result of climate change (i.e. typhoons, hurricanes, that are becoming more and more violent), are now more aware about this worldwide issue, than before.
Data Analysis
According to Stern (2006), climate change is an international geopolitical issue that has already created and can have further societal implications. So far, the eyes of the public has already been opened about the fact that it can definitely lead to damage on properties (i.e. economic consequences), loss of lives (i.e. a health and safety risk), and may even affect the future habitability of the planet . Theoretically, the effects of climate change would already be enough to rouse the attention and affection of the world citizens. In order to prove that, I am going to conduct a study that aims to check on a group of randomly selected participants’ perceptions on climate change and willingness to participate in climate-change related mitigation programs (e.g. saving food, water, and energy, supporting sustainability). Because no particular baseline measures were established prior to this research, information that will be used in the comparison will be extracted from previously published literatures. A notable source of information would be Spence et al.’s research about the same topic, published in 2011 . In the said study, they collected information about the same research question coming from 1,822 participants across the United Kingdom in 2010. Their results suggest that “those who report experience of flooding express more concern over climate change, see it as less uncertain and feel more confident that their actions will have an effect on climate change” . Additionally, changes in anti-climate change policies and mitigation strategies will also be reviewed. A particular source of information would be national government documents published related to climate change and again, previously published studies about the topic .
Resource Allocation
For this study, two important resources will be used: time, labor, and financial resources (i.e. money). Time and labor would be coming from the author who has a decent knowledge in statistics and so hiring a statistician would not be necessary. The author also plans on spending a minimum of 72 hours in gathering information about the topic so that proper baselines of comparison will be obtained from previously published studies and other possible sources of information (e.g. government documents). In order to compare the then and now, a survey will have to be conducted as well. This will be the center of the implementation part. Three part-time research assistants will be hired for a total of five days (worth 8 hours of labor per day) who would be willing to work for $30 per hour to help with the implementation of the survey and in the analysis and presentation of the results. Doing the math, the overall labor cost would be around $3,600. The total budget allocated for this study is $5,000. This means that yhe author will still have some $1,400 remaining as disposable budget which can be used for other research-related expenses. Unlike other previously submitted projects that have been seen, the author will be the one in control in this research. He will only be hiring research assistants in order to lighten the workload, although given the opportunity; he would have preferred to do the entire research myself because he knows how to effectively do it. However, the constraints of human capacity simply would not allow him to and since there is a budget for it, he will be more than happy to utilize it.
Limitations
The only limitation to this research would be the time it takes for the information from the samples to be extracted. The target sample population for this study is at least 500 and that is a lot of people to manage and information to gather.
Criteria for Success
Participation rate can be used as a criterion for success; additionally, being able to finish the study based on the submitted schedule or plan is also going to be used to evaluate success.
Ethical Concerns
All information coming from the respondents will be kept private from any third party entities. Other than this, there is no other ethical concern for this study.
References
Davenport, C. (2015). Nations approve landmark climate accord in Paris. The New York Times Company.
Houghton, J., & Callander, B. (1992). Climate change 1992: the supplementary report to the IPCC scientific assessment. Cambridge University Press.
Parmesan, C., & Yohe, G. (2003). A globally coherent fingerprint of climate change impacts across natural systems. Nature, 37-42.
Spence, a., Poortinga, W., Butler, C., & Pidgeon, N. (2011). Perceptions of climate change and willingness to save energy related to flood experience. Nature Climate Change .
Stern, N. (2006). Stern Review: The Economics of Climate Change. HM Treasury.
Walther, G., Post, E., Convey, P., Menzel, A., Parmesan, C., Beebee, T., et al. (2002). Ecological Responses to Recent Climate Change. Nature, 389-395.
