What We Think About - When We Try Not To Think About - Global Warming: The New Psychology of Climate Science Communication
What We Think About - When We Try Not To Think About - Global Warming: The New Psychology of Climate Science Communication
Previously Published Material: Energy Research and Social Sciences (2014) DOI: 10.1016/j.erss.2014.03.007
Abstract ID#: 34414
English Abstract:
Climate science has provided ever more reliable data and models over the last 20–30 years, thereby indicating increasingly severe impacts in the coming decades and centuries. Nonetheless, public concern for climate change and the issue’s perceived importance has been declining over the past few decades, thus giving less public support for ambitious climate policies. Conventional climate communication strategies have failed to resolve this “climate paradox.” This presentations reviews research on the psychology of the climate paradox, and rethinks and presents new original strategies for how to resolve it in the coming decades.
Understanding human responses to climate change is now at least as urgent as understanding climate change itself. The time has come for a climate science communication that works with, rather than against, human nature. The new strategies are social, positive, and simple—making climate- friendly behaviors easy and convenient. This presentation gives an evidenced based overview of the social psychological barriers and connected solutions to overcome them.