Investigation of Socio-Cultural Factors in Shaping Local Perceptions of Climate Chanage: A Case Study in NakornRatchasima, Thailand

There is a worldwide recognition that climate change is the most serious environmental threat to humanity in our time. Although the extreme natural events continue to occur, climate change issues are widely misunderstood by the general public. This study aims to investigate the influence of socio-cultural factors on the public perception of climate change in rural Thailand. A questionnaire survey was conducted covering 253 households in village 4 of Nongbuasala sub district, NakornRatchasima province. Regression analysis indicated that among 24 contextual factors, only four factors, namely: social support by central and local government, climate risks distance to the world population, and socialization agent as ‘reference person’ were found to be negatively correlated with the perceptions of climate change by local respondents (p