Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The work entitled 'No polarization - expected values ​​of climate change impacts among European forest professionals and scientists', conducts a study to see if there are differences between European forest professionals and scientists in a series of issues related to the effects of climate change on European forests. The results show that there are no significant differences between forest professionals and scientists, yet it seems that there are discrepancies between forest professionals regarding the impacts of climate change, which could influence the design and effectiveness of communications about climate change.

I consider the topic of work very interesting, since currently the communication on very important issues, such as climate change, is key to establishing management and adaptation measures to mitigate the negative effects on certain aspects.

The paper is well-written and can be interesting for international reader.

I have only minor points:

The abstract should have an introductory phrase that also refers to the objective of the study. And, in addition, a phrase that refers to the methodology used.

The authors must bear in mind that the abstract has to give the reader a general idea of ​​the study carried out, and in the presented abstract only the results of the work are presented.

L54. It would be interesting to provide a brief description of the "slow" and "fast" thoughts to clarify the terms without having to go to the original reference.

L57-59. Reword, this phrase is not clear.

Figure 2. I would advise putting a and b, for each panel respectively. In addition, the bars of the first panel do not distinguish well; it would be interesting to put more intense colors.

I would recommend to the authors, if they see fit, to add a small paragraph in the discussion to refer to the strengths and weaknesses of the method they present, and how these could be remedied in future surveys.

Also, I believe that the authors should place greater emphasis on the fact that certain discrepancies among forest professionals regarding climate change could be reflected in the area where they work. Obviously the perception of climate change that a person working in Northern Forests has is not the same as a person working in Mediterranean Forests

Author Response

The abstract should have an introductory phrase that also refers to the objective of the study. And, in addition, a phrase that refers to the methodology used.

AU: Thanks, the abstract is now changed in these respects.

The authors must bear in mind that the abstract has to give the reader a general idea of ​​the study carried out, and in the presented abstract only the results of the work are presented.

AU: Thanks, the general idea is more clearly presented now

L54. It would be interesting to provide a brief description of the "slow" and "fast" thoughts to clarify the terms without having to go to the original reference.

AU: Thanks, a few sentences are added

L57-59. Reword, this phrase is not clear.

AU: Sentence has been reworded

Figure 2. I would advise putting a and b, for each panel respectively. In addition, the bars of the first panel do not distinguish well; it would be interesting to put more intense colors.

AU: A new figure is presented.

I would recommend to the authors, if they see fit, to add a small paragraph in the discussion to refer to the strengths and weaknesses of the method they present, and how these could be remedied in future surveys.

Also, I believe that the authors should place greater emphasis on the fact that certain discrepancies among forest professionals regarding climate change could be reflected in the area where they work. Obviously the perception of climate change that a person working in Northern Forests has is not the same as a person working in Mediterranean Forests

AU: Thanks, this is more clearly acknowledged in the revised version

Reviewer 2 Report

Summary: This manuscript addresses the perceptions of forest professionals and scientists from 10 European countries. The authors research if these perceptions are positive or negative in regards to the impact of climate change on forests, forest products, and forest management. The outcome indicates that forest professionals are not polarized in their views of climate change induced impacts, but that some differentiation occurs on a gradient across the continent.

General Comments: On the whole, this manuscript was well thought out and interesting. I think it has merit as a publication in Sustainability, and look forward to hopefully seeing it published. While the manuscript is interesting, I did find it hard to read and follow at times, due to a lack of consistent terms used throughout. Also, I think some of the language and writing can be edited to make the manuscript more straightforward and easily digestible. I’ve added line-by-line comments in an attached document to address some specific questions and concerns, but my revisions are minor and the authors have done good work putting this manuscript together.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

General Comments: On the whole, this manuscript was well thought out and interesting. I think it has merit as a publication in Sustainability, and look forward to hopefully seeing it published. While the manuscript is interesting, I did find it hard to read and follow at times, due to a lack of consistent terms used throughout. Also, I think some of the language and writing can be edited to make the manuscript more straightforward and easily digestible. I’ve added line-by-line comments below to address some specific questions and concerns, but my revisions are minor and the authors have done good work putting this manuscript together.

Line by Line Comments:

Abstract

Missing a clear purpose for this study. The authors describe the results and interesting outcomes, which is good. However, they only state that these results “could be of fundamental importance in the design and efficacy of climate change communications.” This is vague, and doesn’t explain the full implications of their work. Why was this study done? What is the benefit of knowing that northern and southern European countries view climate change impacts differently?

AU: Thanks, the abstract is now changed in these respects.

Introduction

L53-55: These two sentences are confusing to read, based on the combination of citations and latin abbreviations. I recommend editing the sentences to make them clearer for the reader. Something like: “Recent theorizing by Kahneman [11] has highlighted two kinds of thinking: slow and fast. In comparison, other theories [e.g., 12] incorporate heuristics, which may generate polarization in a population.”

AU: Thanks, sentence is now changed.

L57: In my own work, I have not found “heuristic” and “value” to be interchangeable terms. I recommend a careful selection of specific terms to use, and then consistently and intentionally using those terms throughout the manuscript. If L56-57 states that “forest professionals will be driven by values more than scientists are” then I would expect the following sentence in L57 to be the opposite, where “scientists… do not rely on such values.” If the terms aren’t kept consistent, the message gets lost in the writing.

AU: Thanks, we see what you mean. Clearly, value and heuristics are not the same thing. However, affect heuristics is one model exemplifying ‘fast thinking’. Arguably, Kahneman and Tversky’s framework was built on the notion that biases and heuristics were deviations from rational (“slow”) thinking. In this way, a certain kind of heuristic – the affect heuristic – is intrinsically related to values and fast thinking. We have tried to make that message clearer now.

L73-74: Please explain, in detail, how the bottom two panels of Figure 1 differ. Also, why is there no inverse of the bottom left panel, where instead there will be homogeneity of negative values?

AU: Thanks. Indeed, we could have illustrated homogeneity of expected values by a distribution with mainly homogeneously negative values. We chose to illustrate it with a distribution of mainly positive values. Having graphs with positive and negative values, respectively, would be filling up too much space, we believe. To clarify and explain the difference between the bottom two panels, we have reworded the caption: "…(bottom left) a population where positive values are dominant, resulting in homogeneity of expected values without polarization. A population where negative values are dominant would have equally well illustrated a situation with homogeneity of expected values without polarization; (bottom right) a population where strength of expected values is high based on the sum of positive expected values and the absolute value of negative expected values."

L82: Should the second half of this sentence state: “…whereas a nonpolarized population would have inhomogenous individuals.”

AU: We see your point. However, a nonpolarized population does not necessarily contain inhomogenous individuals but could also include homogenous individuals of either negative or positive values.

L86-87: This appears to be a main point of the manuscript, that understanding homogeneity of expected values can help guide communication regarding climate change management and mitigation. As such, I recommend really emphasizing this point, and supporting it with additional literature and supporting arguments. 

AU: Yes, you are right. This will be an important message. However, the implications for communication are only roughly drafted in this paper. More detail is needed in another paper.

L91: I think another ) is needed after “e.g. [13]”

AU: Thanks.

L122: If affect heuristic is to be tested, this term needs to be fully defined in the introduction where it is first introduced (around L54/55).

AU: Thanks, some more information on the affect heuristic is now added.

Materials and Methods

L131-136: Please revise this section to make the participant pool more clear to the reader. The authors state that ~10,000 forestry professionals were invited to participate. But what are the other 172 COST participants? Were these 172 included in the 10,000? Are they from a separate sub-set of forestry professionals? Please add details.

AU: Thanks, we have clarified that the participants of the COST action were mainly scientists. Only the responses from scientists in this group were used in the present study.

L133: The authors state that forest professionals from 10 countries were surveyed. However, the survey in Appendix A states that 11 countries were surveyed. Why the discrepancy? Please explain.

AU: Thanks. Initially it was planned to survey forest professionals in 11 countries, hence this was described in the introductory letter, but the survey was conducted in 10 countries only. The planned survey in France was cancelled.

L138: In addition to economic, social, and political diversity among participants, were gender

and age considered? This would also influence values and opinions towards climate change, and should be mentioned.

AU: Several other questions than those used in the present study were asked. Among them is found a question on gender. All questions for which data was used in the present study are listed in the main text. This study did not test any hypothesis regarding gender and so this part of the data set remains to be used in a separate study.

L141: The methods indicate that >700 forestry professionals were surveyed, but only 67 scientists. This seems like it would skew the data. Why were more scientists not sought out? How many scientists were asked to participate (L131 states 10,000 forest professionals invited, but not the number of scientists invited)?

AU: Please see the clarification regarding L131-136 above.

L143-145: Why were questionnaires distributed in different languages when comparing

forest professionals and scientists? This needs to be explained, because while it can be expected that one is comfortable filling out a questionnaire in their native language, it could skew the results if one of the test populations (e.g. scientists) had to fill out the questionnaire in a non-native language (or for the UK, in their native language) but the other population got to use their native language. Please justify the language choices made.

AU: The questionnaire was distributed in the native language of forest professionals in each country as we found it unreasonable to assume that all forest professionals are enough proficient in the English language to find themselves comfortable in participating in the survey had it been distributed in English. Regarding the scientists, they all participated in an international COST action in which the working language was English.

L145-147: Was there justification for the use of an online survey, and how that might skew the results towards a more tech-savvy population, and possibly exclude non-technical users or a demographic that didn’t feel as comfortable with online technology? Please address in the methodology.

AU: As computers and internet today is used widely in the European forest industry we assumed that the risk of a skewed population of respondents was minor.

L166: Please explain why some terms are subtracted, while others are added.

An explanation has been added.

L175: I believe only 1 symbol is needed for < and >.

The double symbols are used to indicate that the values should be not close to zero and has not been removed.

L182: Remove “e.g.” as it makes sentence hard to read: “…at the same time as one is expecting increasing disturbance from stressors such as storms or insects resulting in reduction of timber production.”

AU: Thanks.

L183-184: I did not do the math, but is it possible to have an inhomogenous individual that has a VH value near 0, but is not exactly 0? If so, what is your threshold for differentiating a homogenous individual from an inhomogenous individual? I suggest providing the range of values (e.g., inhomogenous individuals have VH >-10 and <+10, while homogenous individuals have VH <-10 and >+10) and supporting how these thresholds were determined.

AU: Thesholds for homogenous individuals are defined in the caption of Figure 2.

L186-187: From earlier paragraphs, the authors seemed to suggest that it was possible to have a nonpolarized population that was still made up of individuals with homogenized values, but those values were all positive (lower left panel of Figure 1 and Line 73). If this is the case, then Lines 186-187 need to be revised to indicate that it is in fact possible to have a population without polarization, but that still has homogenous individuals.

AU: Please see clarification in the caption of Figure 1.

L195, 197, 210, 266, 271, 272, 294: VS should be capitalized, without a period.

AU: Yes, done

Results

L227-229: I suggest revising this sentence to make it more clear to the reader; it’s hard to grasp the pertinent information.

AU: Thanks. The sentence has been reworded.

L238: The median is listed, but what is it the median of? Homogeneity? Please explain in text.

AU: An explanation has been added.

L241-247: This sentence is 7 lines long! Please rephrase and break into multiple sentences to make it easier for the  reader to understand.

AU: The sentence has been split up.

L254: Inconsistency with how figures referred to in-text (here listed as “Fig.” while in other locations listed as “Figure”).

AU: The abbreviation has been removed.

Discussion

L337: I think “2” should be “to.”

AU: The number 2 has been removed.

L343: Please add a citation for positive events being “fuzzier and indistinct.”

AU: Added

L381-L385: Long sentence; consider splitting into 2 so it is easier to follow.

AU: Thanks. The sentence has been split up.

Tables/Figures

Figure 1: More detail is needed in the figure caption. What does each of the 4 panels in this figure represent?

AU: A more detailed description has been added.

Figure 2: The caption lists Figures 2A and 2B, but no letters appear with each graph. Please add letters A and B. Also, the caption seems to jump back and forth between components of 2A, and components of 2B. Please be clear about which panel is being discussed. 

AU: Letters have been added to the graph and the structure of the caption has been modified.

Figure 3: An update map is needed here. I’m confused why some European countries are not shown (e.g., Serbia, Bosnia, Albania, ½ of Turkey). If the authors are only showing European Union countries, then Switzerland, the UK, and Norway should be removed. I they’re showing all European countries in the region, then these not shown countries should be included.

AU: All maps have been updated to show all countries covered by the maps.

Reviewer 3 Report

General comments

This survey-based study examined the personal expectations of forestry professionals vs. forestry scientists in different countries throughout Europe on the future impacts of climate change to forests. This topic is timely and should be of great interest to the international forestry community. I highly support this kind of interdisciplinary science. I think this study is well-designed, executed, and communicated. I suggest it be published in Sustainability following minor revisions.

The title is slightly confusing as written. The first sentence of the abstract is much clearer. Consider revising the title.

I have one major concern, which could perhaps be explained by the authors. In Appendix A I did not see any instruction on how to answer the questions. It seems the authors would want the respondents to answer the questions quickly and without consideration to illicit their “fast” thinking response rather than a “slow” thinking response (i.e. system 1 vs. 2 thinking). Did I miss something? Or do the authors think that was implicit in the questionnaire design?

Specific comments

Abstract

Lines 44-45: I suggest either removing this comment from the abstract or explaining it further (i.e. give some examples of some of these opposite effects). At least qualify what “object” means in this context (i.e. a climate relevant forestry topics/products/services).

Also, it might be good to mention somewhere in the abstract that differences between forestry professionals and scientists were tested and few (if any?) differences were found between these groups.

Introduction

I wonder if maybe the tests and their associated descriptions would be easier to read if presented in a table? And/or reference back to Fig. 1  or the same Fig. reproduced with arrows or some other designation to show where these hypotheses fall on the theoretical graphs?

Methods

Lines 151-152: Briefly explain why some questions were not used (or what they were used for) and why questions only pertaining to sudden and gradual events of climate change were chosen.

Lines 271, 266, 210, 195 and elsewhere throughout: is vs. meant to be VS?

Results

No comments.

Discussion

Lines 381-388: It might be worth pointing out that forest professionals are often trained to some degree in scientific thinking (i.e. many have advanced degrees), and so should be able to objectively evaluate the same kind of information as scientists.

Figures & Tables

This is probably a formatting issue for the journal, but there seemed to be a gap between lines of the figure captions, which made it difficult to follow.

I did not find captions for Fig. S1 and S2 anywhere in the main file or supplementary files.

Author Response

General comments

This survey-based study examined the personal expectations of forestry professionals vs. forestry scientists in different countries throughout Europe on the future impacts of climate change to forests. This topic is timely and should be of great interest to the international forestry community. I highly support this kind of interdisciplinary science. I think this study is well-designed, executed, and communicated. I suggest it be published in Sustainability following minor revisions.

The title is slightly confusing as written. The first sentence of the abstract is much clearer. Consider revising the title.

AU: Should we change title? We couldn’t decide. An alternative would be: “European forest professionals and scientists do not exhibit polarized expectations about the values of climate change impacts” It is slightly longer. Do you have any guidance?

I have one major concern, which could perhaps be explained by the authors. In Appendix A I did not see any instruction on how to answer the questions. It seems the authors would want the respondents to answer the questions quickly and without consideration to illicit their “fast” thinking response rather than a “slow” thinking response (i.e. system 1 vs. 2 thinking). Did I miss something? Or do the authors think that was implicit in the questionnaire design?

AU: No, you are right. Perhaps such an instruction should have been added, but we deliberately left it to the respondents to decide. This implies that based on their answers (or patterns of answer) we can only indirectly infer that they relied (or didn’t rely) on fast or slow thinking. However, we can, and have been able to, study value polarization, homogeneity, and strength

Specific comments

Abstract

Lines 44-45: I suggest either removing this comment from the abstract or explaining it further (i.e. give some examples of some of these opposite effects). At least qualify what “object” means in this context (i.e. a climate relevant forestry topics/products/services).

AU: Thanks, sentence is now removed

Also, it might be good to mention somewhere in the abstract that differences between forestry professionals and scientists were tested and few (if any?) differences were found between these groups.

AU: Thanks, done.

Introduction

I wonder if maybe the tests and their associated descriptions would be easier to read if presented in a table? And/or reference back to Fig. 1  or the same Fig. reproduced with arrows or some other designation to show where these hypotheses fall on the theoretical graphs?

AU: Thanks, we have added a reference to Figure 1, top left and Figure 1, top right respectively in the beginning of the introduction. We have also expanded the caption.

Methods

Lines 151-152: Briefly explain why some questions were not used (or what they were used for) and why questions only pertaining to sudden and gradual events of climate change were chosen.

AU: Several other questions than those used in the present study were asked. All questions for which data was used in the present study is listed in the main text.

Lines 271, 266, 210, 195 and elsewhere throughout: is vs. meant to be VS?

AU: Thanks, this is now changed

Results

No comments.

Discussion

Lines 381-388: It might be worth pointing out that forest professionals are often trained to some degree in scientific thinking (i.e. many have advanced degrees), and so should be able to objectively evaluate the same kind of information as scientists.

AU: Thanks, this is now done

Figures & Tables

This is probably a formatting issue for the journal, but there seemed to be a gap between lines of the figure captions, which made it difficult to follow.

I did not find captions for Fig. S1 and S2 anywhere in the main file or supplementary files

AU: Listed in Supplementary Materials