Ripple effects: Can information about the collective impact of individual actions boost perceived efficacy about climate change?

2021 ◽  
Vol 97 ◽  
pp. 104217
Author(s):  
Matthew J. Hornsey ◽  
Cassandra M. Chapman ◽  
Dexter M. Oelrichs
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Collective Impact ◽  
Perceived Efficacy ◽  
Ripple Effects ◽  
Individual Actions

Moving Toward Collective Impact in Climate Change Literacy: The Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN)

2014 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 307-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamara Shapiro Ledley ◽  
Anne U. Gold ◽  
Frank Niepold ◽  
Mark McCaffrey
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Collective Impact ◽  
Energy Awareness ◽  
Climate Literacy

Eine Kantische Begründung individueller Klimapflichten

2020 ◽  
Vol 97 (4) ◽  
pp. 679-692
Author(s):  
Simon Hollnaicher
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Categorical Imperative ◽  
Climate Impacts ◽  
Imperfect Duties ◽  
Perfect Duties ◽  
Making A Difference ◽  
The Face ◽  
Individual Actions ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Climate Crisis

Abstract According to a well-known problem in climate ethics, individual actions cannot be wrong due to their impact on climate change since the individual act does not make a difference. By referring to the practical interpretation of the categorical imperative, the author argues that certain actions lead to a contradiction in conception in light of the climate crisis. Universalizing these actions would cause foreseeable climate impacts, making it impossible to pursue the original maxim effectively. According to the practical interpretation, such actions are morally wrong. The wrongness of these actions does not depend on making a difference, rather these actions are wrong because they make it impossible for others to act accordingly. Thus, apart from imperfect duties, for which has been argued convincingly elsewhere (Henning 2016; Alberzart 2019), we also have perfect duties to refrain from certain actions in the face of the climate crisis.

Climate Change and Individual Obligations

2021 ◽  
pp. 201-221
Author(s):  
Julia Nefsky
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Expected Utility ◽  
General Feature ◽  
Collective Impact ◽  
Utility Approach

This chapter concerns the nature of our obligations as individuals when it comes to our emissions-producing activities and climate change. The first half of the chapter argues that the popular ‘expected utility’ approach to this question faces a problematic dilemma: either it gives skeptical verdicts, saying that there are no individual emissions-related obligations, or it yields implausibly strong verdicts. The second half of the chapter diagnoses the problem. It argues that the dilemma arises from a very general feature of the view, and thus is shared by other views as well. It then discusses what an account of our individual obligations needs to look like if it is to avoid the dilemma. Finally, the discussion is extended beyond climate change to other collective impact contexts.

scholarly journals Climate Change Helplessness and the (De)moralization of Individual Energy Behavior.

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erika Salomon ◽  
Jesse Preston ◽  
Melanie B. Tannenbaum
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Energy Conservation ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Conservation Behavior ◽  
Energy Behavior ◽  
Individual Actions ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Personal Energy

Although most people understand the threat of climate change, they do little to modify their own energy conservation behavior. One reason for this gap between belief and behavior may be that individual actions seem un-impactful and therefore are not morally relevant. This research investigates how climate change helplessness—belief that one’s actions cannot affect climate change—can undermine the moralization of climate change and personal energy conservation. In Study 1, climate change efficacy predicted both moralization of energy use and energy conservation intentions beyond individual belief in climate change. In Studies 2 and 3, participants read information about climate change that varied in efficacy message, that is, whether individual actions (e.g., using less water, turning down heat) make a difference in the environment. Participants who read that their behavior made no meaningful impact reported weaker moralization and intentions (Study 2), and reported more energy consumption one week later (Study 3). Moreover, effects on intentions and actions were mediated by changes in moralization. We discuss ways to improve climate change messages to foster environmental efficacy and moralization of personal energy use.

Climate Change and Free Riding

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve Vanderheiden
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Free Riding ◽  
Remedial Action ◽  
Fair Share ◽  
Free Riders ◽  
Action Analysis ◽  
Common Resource ◽  
Individual Contributions ◽  
Individual Actions ◽  
The Stability

Does the receipt of benefits from some common resource create an obligation to contribute toward its maintenance? If so, what is the basis of this obligation? I consider whether individual contributions to climate change can be impugned as wrongful free riding upon the stability of the planet's climate system, when persons enjoy its benefits but refuse to bear their share of its maintenance costs. Two main arguments will be advanced: the first urges further modification of H.L.A. Hart’s “principle of fairness” as the basis for demanding that would-be free riders pay their fair share in the context of climate change, while the second claims that remedial action on climate change is better captured through collective action analysis than through harm principles that seek to connect individual actions to bad environmental outcomes.

Ideas, Practices, and Climate Change

2020 ◽  
pp. 177-198
Author(s):  
Anna L. Peterson
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Environmental Problem ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Human Effects ◽  
Individual Actions ◽  
Moral Attitudes

This chapter examines climate change, the most pressing environmental problem of our time. It focuses on the ways practice can help us think about key issues, such as the gap between values and practices, the ways economics and technologies shape moral attitudes and actions, and the problem of moral responsibility and consequences. It also considers the question of what individuals can and should do in response to a problem that is far too big for individual actions to fix. The vastness of climate change demands that both environmental and social ethicists rethink some common assumptions and develop innovative models for understanding and mitigating human effects on the natural world.

Why We Need a New Ethic for Animals

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-21
Author(s):  
David Fraser
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Biomedical Research ◽  
Human Population ◽  
Animal Ethics ◽  
Focus Of Attention ◽  
Meat Production ◽  
Ethical Thought ◽  
Individual Actions ◽  
Communication Towers

Abstract In Western culture, animal ethics has traditionally emphasized acts of deliberate cruelty and, in the twentieth century, institutionalized harms to animals through activities such as meat production and biomedical research. However, with a large human population and technologies that developed mostly during the last century, a new set of harms—unintended and often acting indirectly—now injure and kill vast numbers of animals. Unintended harms arise from human artifacts such as cars, windows and communication towers. Indirect harms occur from disturbances to the balances and processes of nature, for example through pollution, introduction of alien species and climate change. These harms will undoubtedly increase unless they become a focus of attention and mitigation. A new animal ethic is needed to incorporate these harms into ethical thought. It will need to address such issues as responsibility for unintended versus intended harms, and for collective versus individual actions, and it will greatly narrow the gap between animal ethics and environmental ethics.

Climate Change and Society

2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Dietz ◽  
Rachael L. Shwom ◽  
Cameron T. Whitley
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
First Century ◽  
Climate Justice ◽  
Corporate Sector ◽  
Indigenous Identity ◽  
Social Challenges ◽  
Individual Actions ◽  
Policy Systems ◽  
Contemporary Climate ◽  
Nonhuman Species

Climate change is one of the greatest ecological and social challenges of the twenty-first century. Sociologists have made important contributions to our knowledge of the human drivers of contemporary climate change, including better understanding of the effects of social structure and political economy on national greenhouse gas emissions, the interplay of power and politics in the corporate sector and in policy systems, and the factors that influence individual actions by citizens and consumers. Sociology is also poised to make important contributions to the study of climate justice across multiple lines of stratification, including race, class, gender, indigenous identity, sexuality and queerness, and disability, and to articulate the effects of climate change on our relationship to nonhuman species. To realize its potential to contribute to the societal discourse on climate change, sociology must become theoretically integrated, engage with other disciplines, and remain concerned with issues related to environmental and climate inequalities.

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