rates second in Japan and Germany after viewers
have watched the film, it performed poorly
in the United States and—even stranger from
a non-U.S. view—is not affected by the film:
About 7 percent of watchers and nonwatchers
chose it.
There is much more to comment and compare
about the studies mentioned, and the participants
of the Potsdam workshop agreed to
unite forces to create such a comparison. For
now it is worth noting that the impact studies
of The Day After Tomorrow have entered a
new, reflexive area of climate change research:
the area of the impacts of impacts. Twentieth
Century Fox Germany has established an initiative
to facilitate emissions trading rights and
reducing COj emissions of services, events,
and traffic (see http://www.climatepartner.de).
One might take it as image work, but it is also
an indication that The Day After Tomorrow
might not be the last of the global warming
movies. Thus, it will be helpful for climate
scientists to continue researching media and
film representations of climate change and the
public's response to them. It is doubtful that
the creators of the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change had Hollywood
on their minds when they drafted Article 6.
which asks for improved communication and
education on the issue of climate change. But
the entertainment industry seems to have done
quite a lot for the public awareness of climate
change, and Anthony Leiserowitz gave us a
very useful look at this new domain of climate
impact research.
Fritz Reusswig
Potsdam Institute
for Climate Impact Research
Germany
1. See hllp://www.bosofficemojo.coin/movics/?page=main
&id=dayaftenomorrow,him.
2. A. Leiserowii7.. "'Before and After The Day After Tomorrow:
A U.S. Study of Climate Risk Perception," Environmenl.
November 2004. 22-37.
3. F. Reusswig. J. Schwarzkopf, and P. Pohlenz, Double
Impact. The Climate Blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow anil
f/,t Impact (in the German Cinema Puhlif. Poisdam Itislitute
for Climate Impact Research (PIK) Report No. 93 (Potsdam.
Germany: PIK. 2004), hitp://www,pik-potsdani.de/publicauons/
pik_reports.
4. M, Aoyagi-Usui."77if Day After Tomorrow. A Study on
the Impact of A Global Warming Movie on the Japanese Public."
National Institute for Environmemal Studies (N'lES) Working
Paper (unpublished), October 2(X)4; T. Lowe et al,. "Does Tomorriiw
Ever Come? Disaster Nanativc and Public Perceptions of
Climate Change," Drafi TVndall Workitig Paper (unpublished).
October 2004; and A. Balmford ei al. "•HolIywiKxi. Climaie
Change, and [he Public." Science. 17 September 2004. 1713.
A
S the article "Before and After The Day
After Tomorrow" was going to press,
I was very pleased to leam that somewhat
similar studies had been conducted in the
United Kingdom. Germany, and Japan. Thanks
to the generous hospitality of Fritz Reusswig
and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact
Research, the primary investigators of all these
studies gathered for a workshop in October
2004 to share our respective findings. This
meeting was quite stimulating and led to the
formation of an intemational research team to
conduct cross-cultural experimental research.
I thank Reusswig for his comments on the
paper and would like to take this opportunity
to address his primary concem. We conducted
three national surveys of the American public—before,
during, and several months after
the movie played in theaters. The article
reported results from the first two waves, in
particular the second, which compared a randomly
selected group of movie watchers and
nonwatchers from a national sample in June
2004—several weeks after the movie debuted.
The first two surveys were not based on a
within-subject (panel) design, so this study
was unable to directly measure whether watching
the film changed an individual's attitudes
toward climate change. Thus Reusswig raises
a legitimate question: Are the significant differences
observed in the U.S. study between
movie watchers and nonwatchers really due to
the impact of the film, or did movie watchers
already have "more pro-climate or proenvironment
attitudes before entering the cinema"?
In other words, perhaps moviegoers went
to the film because they were already more
concerned about global wamiing.
Three streams of convergent evidence suggest
this hypothesis is incorrect. First, our own
and other previous national surveys have found
that climate change is not a highly salient concem
of the American public, yet by the time of
our second survey, 21 million American adults
had seen the movie in the theater. Our respondents
were randomly selected to represent this
group. On its face it seems unlikely that 21
million Americans went to the film because
they were already highly concerned about global
warming. It is more likely that most people
went to see the film because it was a summertime,
blockbuster disaster movie.
Nonetheless, we explicitly tested this hypothesis
in our third and final survey, completed in
Are the significant
differences observed
in the U.S. study
between movie
watchers and
nonwatchers really
due to the impact
of the film, or did
movie watchers
already have "more
pro-climate or
pro-environment
attitudes before
entering the cinema"?
VOLUME 47 NUMBER 3 ENVIRONMENT 43
We have only
scratched the surface
in the effort to
understand the
role of popular
representations of risk.
November 2004. In this survey (not reported in
our article because it had not been conducted
yet) we re-interviewed the same respondents
as in wave two, including movie watchers. We
asked them, "Why did you watch this movie?"
Of all movie watchers, only 17 percent said
they went because they were "interested in
global warming." By contrast, 83 percent
of moviegoers went because they "liked the
trailer" (29 percent), "like disaster movies'"
(21 percent), "like to see all big films" (21
percent), or "another reason" (12 percent). In
contrast, Reusswig's team found that among
German moviegoers, 36 percent said a prior
interest in climate change led them to watch
the film. As he writes, "The German panel
study demonstrates a rather strong selfrecruitment
of . . . more engaged visitors of the
film." Again, by contrast, only 17 percent of
American moviegoers said they went because
of a prior interest in global warming. Thus, the
results on which he bases his conclusion that
"there is a significant self-selection effect" are
probably more indicative of very interesting
cross-cultural differences between German and
American climate change risk perceptions.
Second, as reported in the article, we determined
that movie watchers were demographically
different from the general public—they
tended to be slightly younger, male, Hispanic,
and politically liberal. We therefore used multiple
regression to control for sociodemographic
and political variables, including sex, age,
education, income, race, political party, and
political liberalism. In almost all cases and as
reported in the article, we found that even after
controlling for the.se variables, there remained
significant differences between the attitudes of
watchers and nonwatchers.
Third, as reported in the Environment article,
we directly asked movie watchers whether
the movie made them more worried about
global warming. Forty-nine percent of moviegoers
said the film made them somewhat (36
percent) or much more worried (13 percent),
42 percent said it did not change their level of
worry, and finally, only I percent said it made
them less worried. These three streams of convergent
evidence all suggest that indeed, the
reported differences in perceived risk between
watchers and nonwatchers were due to the
impact of the film.
During the meeting in Potsdam, the principle
investigators of all five studies identified a
number of other intriguing cross-cultural differences
in American, British, German, and
Japanese responses to the movie, which we
intend to investigate further with a multinational
experimental study, using exactly the same
research design and instruments in these and
other cultural contexts. We have only scratched
the surface, however, in the effort to understand
the role of popular representations of risk
(such as movies, books, television, fiction, and
nonfiction) or of cross-national differences in
public risk perception and behavior.
Anthony A. Leiserowitz
Decision Research
Eugene, Oregon
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