PCLM-D-24-00125

Associations between religiosity and climate change beliefs and behaviours in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC)

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Major-Smith,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS Climate. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

EDITOR: Dear Authors,

the two reviewers have completed their review. One of them has suggested major revisions and I agree with him. The manuscript needs improvements to clarify some aspects of the submitted study.

In particular, I suggest improving the text flow and paying specific attention to the methodological and results sections. The sample used and the data processed in the study must be clarified.

Please respond to the reviewers' suggestions point by point.

Please submit your revised manuscript by 10th November. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at climate@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pclm/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Giuseppina Migliore

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

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Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Does this manuscript meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria? Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe methodologically and ethically rigorous research with conclusions that are appropriately drawn based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available (please refer to the Data Availability Statement at the start of the manuscript PDF file)?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception. The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS Climate does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Though the data used in this paper is valuable, the large sample size, two generations of parents and their children, authors need to be more careful in investigating statistical analysis and examining bias of the data consistency of variables in the questionnaires.

1)The representativeness of data: Authors often used the term "bias," but it seems that they are not aware of the bias from the population - "the public." But actually, data had been collected from Avon in the UK, with a newborn child born around 1991. So, those who did not have a child born around 1991, who were not living in Avon in the UK then, were excluded. But it is easy to assume that people who were excluded ARE the Majority of "the Public."

2)Authors asserted that their data is longitudinal, the data used in the analysis was only two points:2019-2020 and 2022, and there was not analysis of comparing two periods.

3)There is some problems in the consistency of variable: When checking the variables, we could find not climate related actions in the questionnaires in the action parts. What is the definition of the "pro-environmental action," and how do the pro-environmental actions connect to the "Climate change" beliefs? How do each action relate to the mitigating climate change? How did the public understand the connection of ckimate change issues and pro-environmental actions in the questionnaires?

4)Recent developments in this those pro-environmental actions, are discussed in the "practice theory" context, which emphasizes the meaning of the actions, materiality of actions (tools, or interactions of materials). See works of Elizabeth Shove and her collegues. What I wanted to point out is that each action has its own meaning, context, and require unique tools or interactions with materials, and what we have to discuss is that how climate change beliefs plays its role in that context.

I think data management in this paper by the authors are appropriate, but it is more important to think about the meaning of each process, and this paper lacks of those careful examination.

Reviewer #2: The paper combines religiosity and social science studies with environmental issues, offering a multidimensional perspective. This is useful in understanding how cultural and personal factors, such as faith, can influence beliefs and behaviors regarding a global and scientific issue such as climate change. Following are some suggestions:

Some paragraphs are extensive, making it difficult to read and understand the text. I would suggest breaking them down into several sections to improve readability.

The transition between the impact of individual actions and the role of religion (lines 65-69) is rather abrupt. You could introduce a clearer link between these concepts. Saying that in addition to educational, economic and political factors, religion can also play a crucial role in shaping people's beliefs and behaviors toward climate change.”

The aim of the paper is not clearly expressed until line 146. You could introduce it earlier, for example, as early as the first or second section to give the reader a clear idea of where it is going.

The section between lines 77 and 137 mentions both evidence for and against the link between religion and climate awareness but lacks an introductory sentence clarifying that there are contradictory studies.

It is not entirely clear what gap this study intends to fill until the end of the introduction. It emphasizes the gap in the literature first, explaining why it is important to analyze the role of religion in the context of climate change.

The description of the ALSPAC cohort is detailed but does not clearly explain the inclusion/exclusion criteria. In addition, the justification for excluding participants who did not provide data after the child was one year old could be clearer.

The rationale for excluding other religions is unclear (lines 223-231), and it might seem arbitrary. could you explain it better.

The discussions lack a comparison with the results of other similar studies in the literature.

Practical and theoretical implications are missing.

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6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

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For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: Yes: Midori Aoyagi

Reviewer #2: No

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While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

PCLM-D-24-00125R1

Associations between religiosity and climate change beliefs and behaviours in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC)

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Daniel Major-Smith,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS Climate. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

==============================

EDITOR:

Dear Author,

The manuscript needs further improvement before its possible publication. Specifically, the reviewers highlighted that three points need to be considered to improve the manuscript:

1) The gap that this study aims to address needs to be more clearly and thoroughly defined.

2) A structured comparison with the results of similar studies in the literature is missing, which is crucial to place the work in the existing scientific context.

3) The implications derived from the results of the study are not addressed in sufficient depth.

==============================

Please submit your revised manuscript by Jan 23 2025 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at climate@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pclm/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Giuseppina Migliore

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

Journal Requirements:

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

Dear Author,

The manuscript needs further improvement before its possible publication. Specifically, the reviewers highlighted that three points need to be considered to improve the manuscript:

1) The gap that this study aims to address needs to be more clearly and thoroughly defined.

2) A structured comparison with the results of similar studies in the literature is missing, which is crucial to place the work in the existing scientific context.

3) The implications derived from the results of the study are not addressed in sufficient depth.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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2. Does this manuscript meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria? Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe methodologically and ethically rigorous research with conclusions that are appropriately drawn based on the data presented.

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available (please refer to the Data Availability Statement at the start of the manuscript PDF file)?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception. The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS Climate does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #2: Dear Authors,

Thank you for your efforts in revising the paper. However, I believe there is still work to be done to strengthen the manuscript. Specifically, there are three key areas of concern:

1)The gap this study aims to address needs to be more clearly and thoroughly defined.

2)A structured comparison with the results of similar studies in the literature is missing, which is crucial for situating the work within the existing scientific context.

3)The implications derived from the study’s findings have not been addressed in sufficient depth.

I encourage you to focus on these three aspects to further improve the quality of the paper.

Good work!

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #2: No

**********

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

PCLM-D-24-00125R2

Associations between religiosity and climate change beliefs and behaviours in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC)

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Major-Smith,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS Climate. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Mar 07 2025 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at climate@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pclm/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Giuseppina Migliore

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

Editorial Comments on behalf of the Academic Editor:

We are sorry that this has not been escalated earlier in the review process; however, please note that because one of more authors of this study appears to have been involved in collection of the data reported in this study, PLOS Climate requires confirmation that this data collection was reviewed and approved by an institutional review board (ethics committee) before the study began. The ethical documentation must cover all data collection reported in this study. In your revisions, please provide the specific name of the ethics committee/IRB that approved your study, or explain why you did not seek approval in this case. Once you have amended this/these statement(s) in the Methods section of the manuscript, please add the same text to the “Ethics Statement” field of the submission form (via “Edit Submission”). For additional information about PLOS ONE ethical requirements for human subjects research, please refer to http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-human-subjects-research. Please also upload the ethical approval documentation as 'other'. 

Yours Sincerely,

Dr Daniel Parkes (on behalf of the Academic Editor)

Associate Editor

PLOS Climate

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Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

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Reviewers' comments:

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Associations between religiosity and climate change beliefs and behaviours in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC)

PCLM-D-24-00125R3

Dear Dr Major-Smith,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript 'Associations between religiosity and climate change beliefs and behaviours in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC)' has been provisionally accepted for publication in PLOS Climate.

Before your manuscript can be formally accepted you will need to complete some formatting changes, which you will receive in a follow-up email from a member of our team. 

Please note that your manuscript will not be scheduled for publication until you have made the required changes, so a swift response is appreciated.

IMPORTANT: The editorial review process is now complete. PLOS will only permit corrections to spelling, formatting or significant scientific errors from this point onwards. Requests for major changes, or any which affect the scientific understanding of your work, will cause delays to the publication date of your manuscript.

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Thank you again for supporting Open Access publishing; we are looking forward to publishing your work in PLOS Climate.

Best regards,

Giuseppina Migliore

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

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Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

Reviewer Comments (if any, and for reference):