Most people already think climate change is 'here and now', despite what we've been told
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Friday, April 21, 2023
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Despite signifying an impending crisis, such images make climate change seem abstract – happening a long way off (for most of us), to animals we’ve probably never encountered.
Key Points:
- Despite signifying an impending crisis, such images make climate change seem abstract – happening a long way off (for most of us), to animals we’ve probably never encountered.
- The authors argue the psychological distance of climate change has been overestimated – according to their results, most people view climate change as “psychologically close”.
A review of the evidence
- To investigate how prevalent psychological distance to climate change really is – and whether it might prevent climate action – the researchers systematically reviewed the available evidence.
- In short, the evidence for the idea that psychological distance is preventing us from climate action is very mixed.
- Third, after examining 30 studies, the team found very little evidence that experiments aimed at changing people’s perception of the psychological distance of climate change actually increase their climate action.
How should we communicate about the climate, then?
- Our own Australian Psychological Society recommends reducing psychological distance by making the local impacts of climate change more salient.
- For example, highlighting the increase in the number of extreme heat days in one’s town or region.
- At worst, repeating ideas about psychological distance could lead people to overestimate the extent to which others think climate change is psychologically distant.
We already know it’s here, now let’s act
- If people know that climate change is near and now, why do we need to reinforce that idea?
- Our efforts might be better spent increasing people’s belief in being able to take climate action (“self-efficacy”), and that those actions will be effective (“response-efficacy”).
Climate change hasn’t moved ‘closer’
- There is no doubt climate change is becoming more “real” and more concerning for most of us.
- From 2018 to 2022, the number of Australians “very concerned” about climate change has nearly doubled, from 24% to 42%.
- We know climate change is affecting polar bears, but we also know it is affecting us right now.