Interviews

Additional Literature Reviews

Linden, Maibach, Leiserowitz (2015). Improving Public Engagement With Climate Change: Five “Best Practice” Insights From Psychological Science.

• Policymakers would have the most effect if they framed climate change as a personal and more tangible risk.

• People generally view climate change as a “psychologically distant risk”, and that impacts the government’s abilities to support efforts to combat it

• The same psychological boundaries that people face now in terms of climate change are also what created the problem in the first place

• Climate change must be studied primarily analytically over a long period of time, and humans statistically value experiences over analytics when making decisions.

  • Ex: The odds of dying in a terrorist attack are very low, but because the attacks are more memorable, people will devote more into preventing them

  • “In short, information about climate change risks needs to be translated into relatable and concrete personal experiences.” (759)

• People are social beings; the more we hear about an issue from people in our social circle, the more likely we are to act on it.

• “Similarly, field experiments have demonstrated that when people are informed about the average energy consumption of their neighbors, they tend to adjust their own energy use to conform to the group norm (Nolan, Schultz, Cialdini, Goldstein, & Griskevicius, 2008; Schultz, Nolan, Cialdini, Goldstein, & Griskevicius, 2007).” (760)

Gifford, R. (2011). The dragons of inaction: Psychological barriers that limit climate change mitigation and adaptation. American Psychologist, 66, 290–302.

• There is a gap between what people agree is a good course of action and what they actually do.

• People are less likely to act if they feel uninformed; unsure what the best course of action is despite knowing of the problem

• When people are uncertain of what is true or how valid facts are, they are less likely to do anything

  • If the effect of their actions does not severely impact them, people are also less likely to act.

  • Scientists have the problem of presenting climate change truthfully, so it doesn’t contradict with other accounts, while also making it feel immensely personal.

• People know that they individually will not have much of an impact, so since one more person recycling wont change anything, why go out of their way to recycle?

  • “Why should I change if they won’t change?” (294)

• If people already have a car, they don’t want to stop using it because they have already invested in it, despite it maybe making more sense to take public transit.

• Habits are hard to change permanently (especially if it's the social norm)

• Climate change often ranks low on people’s list of priorities, both within world problems and their own life, even though they speak of it’s importance

• People are scared that investing in greener products or other efforts would put them at risk financially, socially, or physically.

 Leiserowitz, A., Maibach, E., Roser-Renouf, C., Rosenthal, S., Cutler, M., & Kotcher, J. (2018). Climate change in the American mind: March 2018. Yale University and George Mason University. New Haven, CT: Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.

• Documents an upward trend in America's concern about global warming

• numbers of americans claim to have personally experienced global warming doubled since 2011

• 70% of Americans agree that global warming exists

  • 7% more than March 2015 (3 years before)

• 58% agree that it is caused by human activities

  • 28% agree its caused by natural events

• Only 90% of scientists agree that it’s happening

• 60% feel interested

• 47% feel disgusted

• 45% feel helpless

• 41% feel hopeful

• 39% think America is currently being affected by global warming

• “About one in three say that they don’t talk about it because it never comes up in conversation (35%) and/or because they already all agree about global warming (33%). Fewer say they don't know enough to talk about it (28%), their family and friends are not interested in it (27%), it is too political (26%), and/or it has never occurred to them to talk about it (25%).”

• Only 6% think that we can successfully reduce global warming. 50% think that we could, but it’s not clear if we will. 22% think we aren’t capable of changing our behavior

• 24% wanted to save the planet for their children and grandchildren, 16% want to prevent destruction of life on earth, 12% want to protect god’s creations

• “Large majorities of Americans think of global warming as an environmental (74%), scientific (68%), agricultural (62%), severe weather (61%), health (60%), political (58%), and/or economic issue (57%). Fewer think it is a moral (41%), social justice (29%), poverty (28%), national security (25%), and/or religious issue (13%).“

• “A majority of Americans are worried about harm from extreme events in their local area including extreme heat (64%), droughts (61%), flooding (60%), and/or water shortages (52%). “

• 1/7 americans believe that 90% of scientists confirm climate change

Human Health and Ocean Pollution - PMC

• Pollution is the largest environmental cause of disease

  • Responsible for 9 million premature deaths per year

  • Causes “enormous economic losses.”

  • Degrades ecosystems

• Most highly concentrated on the coasts of low income countries

• Caused from run off of plastics and chemicals

• Mercury is a big concern in ocean population, caused by coal combustion and small scale mining

• Pollution breaks down into microplastics, which we ingest when we eat fish and other seafood

• When infants and unborn babies are exposed to these chemicals, the chemicals can damage their brains in early stages of development, and increase risk of reduced IQ, autism, ADHD, and learning disorders