The Response of Different Audiences to Place-based Communication about the Role of Climate Change in Extreme Weather Events

Abstract:

As the science of extreme event attribution grows, there is an increasing need to understand how the public responds to this type of climate change communication. Extreme event attribution has the unprecedented potential to locate the effects of climate change in the here and now, but there is little information about how different facets of the public might respond to these local framings of climate change. Drawing on theories of place attachment and psychological distance, this paper explores how people with different beliefs and values shift their willingness to mitigate and adapt to climate change in response to local or global communication of climate change impacts.

Results will be presented from a recent survey of over 600 Californians who were each presented with one of three experimental conditions: 1) a local framing of the role of climate change in the California drought 2) a global framing of climate change and droughts worldwide, or 3) a control condition of no text. Participants were categorized into groups based on their prior beliefs about climate change according to the Six Americas classification scheme (Leiserowitz et al., 2011). The results from the survey in conjunction with qualitative results from follow-up interviews shed insight into the importance of place in communicating climate change for people in each of the Six Americas. Additional results examine the role of gender and political affiliation in mediating responses to climate change communication.

Despite research that advocates unequivocally for local framing of climate change, this study offers a more nuanced perspective of under which circumstances extreme event attribution might be an effective tool for changing behaviors. These results could be useful for scientists who wish to gain a better understanding of how their event attribution research is perceived or for educators who want to target their message to audiences where it could have the most impact.