Response Efficacy in Environmental Discounting: Concern and Action towards Climate Change Threats

Extending preceding environmental discounting studies, we examined the role of response efficacy (in low, control, and high conditions) in participants’ valuation of climate-change concern and action across four psychological distance dimensions (temporal, spatial, social, and probabilistic). Participants gave ratings of concern and action in the context of two hypothetical scenarios which were directly related to two different threats (droughts and floods) posed by unmitigated climate change. Rachlin’s hyperboloid discount functions fit the data well. The previously observed gap between concern and action ratings was not replicated in the main analyses, but was seen in the ratings at the minimum distance values. Response efficacy differentially affected ratings of concern and action at the minimum distance values for the temporal, social, and probabilistic dimensions, but differentially affected discount values (k) only for the probabilistic dimension. Compared to their level of concern with the environmental threat, participants who were led to believe that their actions were not efficacious were less willing to engage in mitigation behaviors than participants who were led to believe that their actions were efficacious. The insights gained through the current research effort may be valuable for policymaking as well as intervention design aiming to increase societal mitigation and adaptation efforts.

Climate change concern among youth: Examining the role of civics and institutional trust across 22 countries

Although scholars have long documented perceptions of climate change and the public’s evolving response to the perceived risk it poses, only more recently have these analyses begun to examine youth and their views of the issue. Given that education has traditionally been considered a long-term strategy to promote sustainability among youth, this article conducts a cross-national and comparative study of students from 22 countries to evaluate factors commonly associated with youth perceptions of climate change as a threat to the world’s future. In doing so, this study finds that promoting institutional trust and civic knowledge may increase student climate change concern to a greater degree than other, more emphasized, curricular and co-curricular environmental school opportunities. These new findings reveal potential pathways for future climate change education research, policy, and practice to help promote greater climate awareness and action among youth.

Correlates of Levels of Willingness to Engage in Climate Change Actions in the United States

While the majority of the American public believe climate change is occurring and are worried, few are engaged in climate change action. In this study, we assessed factors associated with the level of willingness to engage in climate change actions using an online, longitudinal US study of adults. Climate change action outcomes included the level of willingness to post materials online, take political actions, talk with peers about climate change, and donate to or help an organization. Predictors included climate change attitudes, environmental attitudes, political ideology, political party affiliation, and demographic variables. Most (72%) of the 644 respondents only talked about climate change with peers a few times a year or less, though 65% were very or extremely worried about climate change. Many respondents indicated a willingness to do somewhat or a lot more, from 38% willing to talk to peers to 25% for willing to take political actions. In multinomial regression models, the Climate Change Concern scale was strongly and consistently associated with willingness to engage in climate change action. These findings indicate a need to both identify those who are willing to act and finding activities that fit with their interests and availability.

Promoting Concern for Climate Change: A Study of Wildfire Photographs Using Q Methodology

This study employs Q methodology to identify responses to wildfire imagery and climate change concern. Using photographs shared on Twitter during California’s 2018 Camp Fire, findings reveal three different perspectives on what images evoked the most concern among individuals: catastrophic destruction, smokescapes, and human or animal suffering. Results also reveal the images that evoke the least concern, such as scenes of aid and support and officials’ rescue meetings. These results extend literature on the role of visuals in climate change communication and have implications for the selection of images that appeal to the various perspectives of the broader public.

Democracy influences climate change concern

Climate change concern varies widely across countries. In 2019, 80% of Greeks were at least somewhat worried about climate change, compared to 20% of Egyptians. We argue that variation in climate change concern is partially caused by differences in democracy. Civil liberties protect climate communicators from state repression, censorship, and violence. We offer empirical evidence for the causal effect of democracy on climate change concern using data from 611,909 individuals from 118 countries collected between 2007 and 2019. Exploiting variation in civil liberties across countries and time, we find one unit change in the 7-point civil liberty index to influence climate change concern by 2.3 [95% CI: ±1] percentage points. The effect is much stronger in wealthy countries and less educated cohorts. We also present evidence for our causal pathway using qualitative interviews and by modeling the association between democracy, climate protest, media coverage, and climate concern with simultaneous equations.