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Climate psychology in cartoons: clues for solving the messaging mystery 7

finite pool of worryIllustration courtesy Ian Webster/CREDFor the climate-change message to finally sink in, for the 64 percent of Americans who don’t believe in the problem (according to a recent Pew poll) to start changing their minds, the place to begin might be the local high-school gym.

Have a respected teacher—maybe from the science department—lead a public presentation. She should mention some compelling data, but also tell about her summer trip to Australia’s drought-stricken Southeast and the dust that coated her morning tea.

She would say something like, “We can’t know every detail of what pumping the atmosphere full of greenhouse pollution will do. It’s like driving your car off a cliff—you can’t predict which parts will break, but you know enough to know the results won’t be good.”

There would be plenty of time for questions and planning a group response. Finally, it would help to flood the gym so attendees could sit up to their ankles in water, to really feel what flooding is like.

Such a plan incorporates leading research on how our minds respond to the threat of climate change, which is neatly synthesized in a new guide, “The Psychology of Climate Change Communication.” The 43-page booklet was released Wednesday by the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions (CRED) at Columbia University, which conducts fascinating laboratory and field research at the intersection of psychology, anthropology, and behavioral economics (The New York Times Magazine profiled it last spring).

Aimed at scientists, journalists, educators, political aides, and “the interested public,” the guide begins with the blunt admission that climate communicators are failing. Global warming slipped to the bottom of a list of Americans’ concerns in a January Pew poll. CRED offers reasons why and suggests how to do better.

For example, people work harder to avoid losses than to seek gains, so “save money” might not be the best pitch for convincing people to buy efficient home appliances. A message like “avoid losing money on higher energy bills in the future” does better at appealing to this loss-aversion instinct.

To be clear, CRED’s researchers don’t suggest flooding the gym—that’s my scenario, based on their principles. Those include using:

  • data plus narrative storytelling (the dusty vacation)
  • analogy and metaphor (the car and the cliff)
  • a trusted local messenger
  • a group setting
  • an experiential scenario (the water)

Happily, the guide has cartoons. CRED graciously allowed us to reprint them. Click through the following pages (see navigation at the bottom of each page) for an overview of the guide’s eight chapters, based on the illustrations by Ian Webster.

Jonathan Hiskes is a Grist staff writer. He reports, tweets, eats, asks questions, self-promotes, looks out windows, and wonders if it could be like this.

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  1. amazingdrx Posted 10:23 am
    05 Nov 2009

    The polling is flawed. Calling it global warming is the first mistake.

    Human induced green house gas climate change is a better term.

    A much better polling question on this topic might be:

    Should the US revive manufacturing and jobs by competing in the global race to end reliance on oil, coal, and fossil fuels?

    Or:

    Should the US ignore the problems of reliance on imported energy and the loss of manufacturing jobs and stay on the same course auto, oil and coal industry lobbyists have set out for us?

    Or:

    Should the US continue to lag in the manufacturing of electric cars, wind machines, solar energy devices, smart grid equipment, and energy efficiency devices, and continue to rely on foreign manufacturing?

    Polling is a pretty ridiculous activity in general, but it won't go away. So why not design polls that reframe these issues in a more progressive light? These sorts of questions...Do you believe in global warming, the devil, fairies, aliens, ghosts, death panels, all have about the same usefulness as far as public policy is concerned.

    Proceed from a faulty premise, and get lead down the garden path to an invalid conslusion. Did you see the latest Bachman Boener Newty over reach? "Tell your representatives! Dont take away my healthcare!"

    It's the same with this poll. "Do you believe in global warming?" Converts in the minds of the under informed into "Do you believe it's warmer today than it was yesterday?" Just do the poll in the fall and the result will be easily forseeable.

    And teabag the question into: "Do you believe the communist Obama administration, in league with liberal environmentalists, is trying to destroy our country with the myth of global warming?" Then you can get a riot. Hehehey.

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  2. pcamill Posted 4:32 pm
    06 Nov 2009

    Interesting story, Jonathan. I've been writing about similar topics this week. Several links below:
    --Phil Camill

    1. Why don’t people engage climate change? Overview
    http://www.globalchangeblog.com/2009/11/why-dont-people-seem-to-get-climate-change-overview/

    2. Why don’t people engage climate change? Problem 1: Environmental Literacy
    http://www.globalchangeblog.com/2009/11/why-dont-people-seem-to-get-climate-change-problem-1-environmental-literacy/

    3. Why don’t people engage climate change? Problem 2: Communication
    http://www.globalchangeblog.com/2009/11/why-dont-people-engage-climate-change-problem-2-communication/

    4. Why don’t people engage climate change? Problem 3: Personal perception, values, and behavior
    http://www.globalchangeblog.com/2009/11/why-dont-people-engage-climate-change-problem-3-personal-perception-values-and-behavior/

    5. Why don’t people engage climate change? Problem 4: Political-economic context (coming soon)

    6. Why don’t people engage climate change? Problem 5: The perfect storm of climate change denial (coming soon)

    7. Ways forward (coming soon)

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  3. pratishtha Posted 7:41 pm
    08 Nov 2009

    in the US, as there is too much money to be made providing the vehicles and infrastructure, and the sun is here to stay and photovoltaic technology will become so efficient and cost-effective to make it feasible.
    make homemade solar panel

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  4. HQ Posted 12:24 pm
    10 Nov 2009

    Dear Jonathan,

    Have you seen the new interactive global warming video Free Range Studios video created with the Alliance for Climate Education (ACE)? You should check it out! It integrates Facebook and allows people to be the star in their own video about global warming:

    http://www.acespace.org/crush

    Cheers
    Heidi

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  5. raffi Posted 7:12 pm
    10 Nov 2009

    This is exactly what I've been looking for! I'm interested in environmental psychology like the work of CRED. Can anyone recommend any other groups doing work in this field, job postings or graduate programs? -Thank you

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  6. BrianF Posted 8:55 pm
    10 Nov 2009

    Global warming and climate change are too abstract and seem too far away for most people to be very worried. Most people have trouble grasping the fact that what we do now will decide the state of the climate decades from now, so they think we have plenty of time even though in reality we don't. Also, there is a lot of mistrust of science, and most people don't understand how the scientific method works. They will see contradictory reports about whether wine is good for you and conclude that all science is unreliable, even though we all rely on science and use the fruits of science all the time. Scientists are usually so cautious and try to be so unemotional that they understate the severity of the problem, saying things like "strain on the food supply" when they should say "famine" or "mass starvation". And even people who realize the problem is very serious don't know what to do about it. Only government can make the changes fast enough, but they don't understand how urgent the problem is. I fear we may be doomed.

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  7. latifah123's avatar

    latifah123 Posted 10:54 pm
    10 Nov 2009

    This is exactly what I've been looking for! I'm interested in environmental psychology

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