Climate change is real. It happens. NOW. Here. Wherever you are.
Recognizing that climate change is immediate, near and affecting people's way of life is one of the key messages we need to communicate to inspire action.
Despite the efforts of bad faith actors who attempt to spread misinformation and disinformation, the the public overwhelmingly accepts Much more urgently needs to be done to combat climate change. But to significantly limit warming, we must adopt policies that will change the lives of billions of people.
And it has to start with individual action - getting people to care enough about climate change to change their behavior. If enough people realize that climate change will affect them personally and begin to engage on an individual level, we could see a reversal of political tide that ends in the real, large-scale changes needed to limit rising global temperatures.
In the social satire fiction film Don't Look Up, Two astronomers are tasked with announcing to the world that a comet twice the size of the meteor that ends in a dinosaur was imminently going to hit Earth. In a tense exchange, a morning talk show host seeks to downplay the risk:
Kate Dibiasky: I'm sorry...Aren't we clear? We are trying to tell you that the entire planet is about to be destroyed.
Brie Evantee: Well, it's uh, you know, it's something that we do here. We just keep bad news lightly.
The film has been widely praised for its satirical responses to the global climate crisis, including climatologist Peter Kalmus. We wanted to know if there were ways to present information about climate change that inspires people to act, rather than keeping "bad news" at bay.
Get people to act
We recruited more than 3,000 participants in six countries to see what would motivate them more or less to support climate causes. Actions in favor of the environment are often costly: they require financial efforts, time and physical effort. We wanted to know how people weigh these costs against the benefits to the planet and whether we can use psychology to drive the meaningful behavioral changes needed.
We achieved this by creating a physically demanding task that garnered donations to a climate action charity, and comparing it to a non-environmental food cause: ending world hunger. Before carrying out this task, some participants saw different messages and images designed by psychology experts to try to strengthen their motivation to act for the climate. One group of participants didn't see any of these posts to give us a baseline measurement.
Interestingly, participants who saw no pro-environment messages were more likely to make efforts for the food cause than for the climate. This result was relatively consistent across the six countries we worked with: Bulgaria, Greece, Nigeria, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States.
We then tested which messages promoted pro-climate behaviors.
What worked well:
Psychological distance: Climate change was presented as an immediate local threat, and participants reflected on how it affects them personally.
System Rationale: Climate change was presented as a threat to participants' way of life and encouraged pro-environmental behaviors as patriotic.
What didn't work so well:
Scientific Consensus: Participants saw a message and graphic highlighting that 99% of climate scientists agree that climate change is real and caused by humans.
Binding Moral Foundations: Participants read a message invoking national pride, loyalty, and authority to support clean energy and climate action.
It's personal
The findings confirm some things we know to be true about human behavior. It's the same reason people are more connected to news that's local or related to their interests. When it's personal, when it's close, when it touches our usual way of life, it lands.
To better motivate people to act now, our new study suggests that reducing the psychological distance between individuals and the vague, widespread threat of climate change affecting the world at large is one of the most motivating factors we should use.
When rising seas affect another country, the uncomfortable truth is that our brains are wired to take the threat less seriously because it affects another group of people with whom we are not as well connected. However, if it affects people or places we know and love, that makes it personal and closer to home.
People are also motivated to protect their status quo and current way of life. Sometimes this can be a barrier to behavior change. But we have discovered that reversing this psychology can motivate action. As rising waters increase the risk of flooding our property - because events that were once likely to occur once in 100 years become more frequent - protecting our way of life requires us to act rather than do nothing.
When a 100-year flood happens for the third time in as many years and the water flows under the door, it's personal and it's home.
We know that tackling climate change will require systemic change from governments and businesses. But we have to start somewhere, and getting people to be aware of the changes happening around them may just be a small step towards major change. Our homes are all in danger if we don't try.
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