Research tells us that shocking and fearful imagery can act as an initial hook to capture your attention. The downside is that this can then lead to feelings of helplessness which can distance people from issues such as climate change[1]. Even worse, these kinds of fearful images can trigger further disengagement potentially leading to denial of climate change[2].
 
So, what should people interested in Climate Change Communication (CCC) do?

Usually, a lack of personal concern about climate change is attributed to the issue being distant in time and mind[3]. However, there is mounting evidence that suggests emotions could present a way of better connecting people with the issue and motivating them to take action. 
 
Psychology has been onto this for some time and there are numerous studies looking at how emotion can affect persuasion. What is becoming clearer in CCC research is that emotion and the way you frame climate change messages can influence behaviour change, advocacy behaviour and support for policy[4].
 
Emotion has been established as an important determinant when it comes to risk communication[5]. Researchers have then attempted to apply this to the communication of climate change. This has lead to investigations trying to understand the role of emotions such as fear and hope in CCC.
 
For example, are fearful messages about the future more effective than hopeful ones? Or is  someone more likely to act if they feel fearful or hopeful?
 
Fear isn't always a bad thing. It can be good at grabbing someone’s attention, but fearful messages need to be coupled with messages that make the individual feel empowered to take action[6]. Hope is another emotion that can predict behaviour, but on its own can downplay the severity of climate change[7] resulting in reduced perception of risk.
 
There is plenty of research looking into the role of emotion in communicating climate change[8]. But what kind of effect can emotion have?
 
Put simply, it can encourage advocacy behaviour[9], support for climate policy[10]‘[11]‘[12] and even budget allocation [5]. These studies have demonstrated empirically that emotions have a role in motivating climate action. But it might not be climate change itself that is motivating this action – it could more personal things that people care about.
 
‘Objects of care’ are things that can link people to climate change who otherwise may not care about climate change itself. Examples of these objects of care can be future generations, animals, environment, nature, the planet and people [5] – they’re all going to be affected by climate change. If climate change threatens one of our objects of care, then it can motivate us to take action.
 
Examples of this can be seen in the recent unprecedented Australian bushfires linked to our changing climate. Articles have emphasised the death of 33 people, more than 1 billion animals, or devastation of more than 11 million hectares of bushland. These articles are all reporting on the climate-driven bushfires but are emphasising impacts on three different objects of care: people, animals and environment.
 
A study of bird watchers found that fear messages were only useful as a motivator when coupled with one of these objects of care [13]. In the case of this study, fearful messages were used with either impact on humans, or impact on birds. What the authors found was that fearful messages increased intentions to act in pro-environmental ways, but only when coupled with impact on birds. The caveat here was that the people surveyed were bird watchers, but this still suggests that objects of care can be significant motivators when it comes to our behaviours.
 
We are only just beginning to uncover what kind of effect these objects of care can have in motivating action on climate change. But it is clear that emotion has a pivotal role to play. Understanding the role of emotion and these different objects of care and the behaviours they can motivate is still an active area of research.
 


[1] O’Neill and Nicholson-Cole (2009), Sci. Commun.
[2] Lorenzoni et al. (2007), Glob. Environ. Chang.
[3] Corner et al. (2015), Wiley. Interdiscip. Rev. Clim. Chang.
[4] Wang et al. (2018), Glob. Environ. Chang.
[5] Roeser (2012), Risk Anal.
[6] Moser (2010), Wiley. Intersicip. Rev. Clim. Chang.
[7] Hornsey and Fielding (2016), Glob. Environ. Chang.
[8] Marlon et al. (2019), Front. Commun.
[9] Nabi et al. (2018), Scien. Commun.
[10] Wang et al. (2018),  Glob. Environ. Chang.
[11] Smith and Leiserowitz (2014), Risk Anal.
[12] Lu and Schuldt (2015), Clim. Change.
[13] Dickinson et al. (2013), J. Environ. Educ.

The power of simply asking the question, “How do you feel about climate change” is the backdrop to this story.

As a professor in the Department of Environmental Conservation at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, part of my appointment involves student advising and mentoring incoming freshmen. In the late fall of 2015, I was invited to present at a “Meet the Faculty” event for first-year students, held in the evening in a dormitory lounge. 

I had asked the students if there were guidelines around what I should talk about. There wasn't, so I asked to focus on climate change. 

A resident student wandered in late and joined the group, just as I was passing out sheets of paper with the question, ‘How do you feel about climate change?“ This simple but powerful exercise is a practice we began on our campus as part of an experiential project, Talking Truth: Finding Your Voice Around the Climate Crisis. This exercise, inspired by 'Is This How You Feel?' is designed to support and build on the understanding of climate disruption. It is a way to connect participants to this weighty global challenge we all face. ​

After a quiet moment to reflect on the question, the students put pen to paper. However, the student who had just arrived immediately handed me back a blank sheet and said he was indifferent to the issue and didn’t want to write anything.

“Really, that’s fascinating. Will you write about that then?”

He shrugged and grudgingly scrawled a few sentences:

Much to my surprise, this same student showed up in my office a couple of months later to inquire about changing his major from Computer Science to Natural Resources Conservation. A couple of weeks later, he did just that.

By then I knew his name:

Muhammad.

The following semester, a local student group kicked into action calling on the University to be more environmentally conscious. They occupied the administrative building, demanding action. Over the course of several days, hundreds of students lined the halls leading to the Chancellor’s office. Outside, hundreds more rallied and waved signs. Television cameras rolled. As I stood listening to our students boldly demand the campus did more, the bullhorn was passed to a familiar person – Muhammed.

My jaw dropped. I nudged my colleague, shouting in her ear over the commotion. “That’s him,” I said. “Who?” she asked. “Blank page…the student who didn’t want to do the ‘How do you feel’ exercise.”

Some of you may have seen this kid on Youtube. His name is Henry Marr.

During one car ride with his Mum Henry got a little overwhelmed about the future of the planet. So much so that he started to weep. During this emotional episode, Henry’s mum did something all parents love to do. She got out her phone and captured the moment for posterity.
 
That video was uploaded to Youtube and has now been viewed over 290,000 times.
 
It’s fair to say that, at that point, Henry was pretty darn overwhelmed. But then with the support of his mum he was able to break the problem down.
 
The thing that really mattered to Henry was that people pick up their trash and look after the planet. So he started a Facebook page that encourages people to do just that.
 
This six year old now regularly shares videos to 40,000 of his followers giving people tips on recycling.
 
This kid is approaching the part of the problem that matters to him and he's doing it in his own way.
 
And he’s having an impact
 
Now it isn’t just adorable little American kids that are kicking butt. Here in Australia a change is happening too.

​Anika Molesworth is a 29 year old farmer. She is on the front line of climate change and see’s the impact it has on the her peers. The part of climate change that matters to Anika is how it impacts the farming industry and farmers, both physically and emotionally. And she's tackling this problem in her own way, through founding not one but two organisations. Both designed to connect farmers to other farmers, to researchers, and to the wider community.

In a recent conversation Anika said:

"As people who live and work in geographically remote locations, it is sometimes hard not to feel alone. Like you are the only one experiencing this. But you’re not, and as farmers we do need to work together and unite our voices when we call for greater climate change action."

Innovative, novel and powerful approaches like this are having a real impact. And it’s not just individuals making a stand, Small communities are coming together and bringing about change from the grassroots. One such community is Tathra, a little town of just over 1600 people on the coast of New South Wales that rallied together and built Australia's first community owned solar farm.
 
The part of the problem that the people of Tathra have control over is what happens in their own community. So they took action and did something about it.

The solar farm, arranged to spell the word 'imagine' is small, only generating enough energy to partially power the towns sewage treatment plant. But it is a start and Tathra is not alone. Small (and large) communities from all over Australia are standing up and taking control over how their town responds to climate change.  
 
By themselves, all these approaches won't change the world, but every time someone breaks down the problem, finds the bit that matters to them and approaches it in their own way, we get a little bit closer to winning the battle.

There is a change happening. And it can all start with three little steps.
 
Don’t be overwhelmed. Be part of the solution.
 
You do you.

Psychologists are deeply interested in how people feel about climate change for a number of reasons.

For those of us who are clinicians and therapists, trained to help people cope with distress, trauma, mental health problems, grief and loss, we have a good understanding of how bad it can feel, and how difficult it can be for people when they are suffering from depression and anxiety, or struggling with grief and loss, or feeling helpless and hopeless. Climate change can bring up all of these feelings. 

Many people may feel seriously concerned, frightened, angry, pessimistic, distressed, or guilty in response to climate change.  Qualitative research finds evidence of some people being deeply affected by feelings of loss, helplessness, and frustration due to their inability to feel they are making a difference in stopping climate change. New terms such as ‘eco-anxiety’ or ‘climate change anxiety’ are sometimes used to describe this. 

For people directly affected by climate change in the form of extreme weather event disasters, the feelings can be very intense.  Depression, PTSD and complicated grief reactions are the most common mental health problems, and many many more people who do not end up with a diagnosis of depression or PTSD, nonetheless end up with heightened distress, grief, stress and strain.

Many of the feelings that arise in response to climate change are caused by climate change’s more gradual impacts on the environment, human systems and infrastructure.  These include things like increased average temperatures, spread of disease, changes in agricultural conditions, associated increases in food insecurity, sea level rise, increased extreme weather, associated increases in displaced people, or greater wear and tear on infrastructure and associated increases in disruptions to transport, energy supply, cost of living etc.  The potential impacts of these gradual changes range from mild stress responses to chronic stress and significant mental health problems.
​
These feelings matter because they reduce people’s wellbeing and quality of life.  This is obvious at the pointy end of the scale if a person is suffering from a profound anxiety or depression. But even at non-clinical levels of worry and distress these feelings can interfere with people’s capacity to get on with their lives in an optimal manner. They can also lead to flow-on effects like strain on relationships, higher levels of stress, increased substance use, family breakdown, reduced social participation, decreased productivity.  And there are even community health impacts, like an increased likelihood of criminal behaviour, violence and aggression as community members experience various stressors related to climate change. So feelings matter because they lead to increased suffering for individuals and communities. ​

Environmental psychologists would give an additional answer as to why it’s important to know how people feel about climate change. Knowing how climate change affects us psychologically is profoundly important for what people do next.  How people think about and react to direct threats like extreme weather, or their anxiety about future threats to the environment, or their distress about vicarious threats to other people in other places, or their existential fears about changes to life as they know it, are important factors in the behaviours that follow. People need to be able to manage these feelings so that they can properly accept the reality of climate change and not avoid it. Coping with the feelings we have about climate change is very important so that:

• we don’t become overwhelmed by these feelings
• we don’t try to avoid the feelings and hence the problem
• we can stay engaged with the problem of climate change
• we can keep functioning well whilst accepting the reality of climate change, both in our everyday lives, as well as on the changes we are making to reduce the threat of climate change.

​

People can, of course, react to the threat of climate change in all sorts of unhelpful ways – they can try to minimise the threat, distract themselves, blame ‘the authorities’ for the disaster, put all their hope in silver bullet solutions, become dependent on others like the government or other countries to solve the problem, or resigned to the disaster. 

Several recent publications have shed light on this human capacity to dodge the problem.  George Marshall’s book ‘Don’t even think about it: Why our brains are wired to avoid climate change’ is one example. Per Stoknes has also written about this in his 2015 publication ‘what we think about when we try not to think about global warming.  

Whilst some of these more avoidant responses might be temporarily soothing for the individual, they are hopeless for solving climate change. 

We know from the research on climate change coping strategies, that there are also several adaptive ways in which people can respond to distressed feelings about climate change.  Taking environmentally responsible action is one potent way to manage and reduce the anxiety and distress about climate change.  People feel empowered and more hopeful and optimistic when they take action, or work with others to address climate change.  Other good climate change coping techniques identified in the psychological research include social support-seeking, becoming more attentive to the issue, accepting climate change as a threat, shifting values to a more “pro-environmental” position, expressive coping (finding ways of expressing one’s feelings about climate change as a way of moving through those feelings), and problem solving. 
​
This is why knowing about how people are feeling about climate change is so important.  We need to know how we feel so that we can help ourselves and others to respond to these feelings adaptively – in ways that minimise the threat of climate change, at the same time as coping with the feelings. 
Now, the all-important next question is ‘how can we actually help ourselves and others to move in the direction of adaptive strategies for coping with climate change?’  This curly question is the subject of the next blog…

A selection of ITHYF letters were shown during the APS annual conference at the Gold Coast in October 2015. A number of psychologists were invited to pen their own letters. View them here.

When it comes to climate change, I’m pretty sure there are really only three types of people. 
Those who believe we’re buggering things up, those who don’t believe we’re buggering things up, and those who don’t know (and maybe don’t give a toss) either way.

Sure there are sub-groups, cliques and factions, but these are the big three. And nowadays it’s clear to me they all have one fundamental thing in common. For all these groups, hearing more science information about climate change makes no practical difference. The acceptors keep accepting, the deniers keep denying, and the ‘meh’ crowd keep on meh-ing.

So why are we still spraying the media waves with public communications full of climate science?

Most answers I‘ve heard boil down to this: “climate change is important”. I agree. I really, really agree. But it seems 'important' not only means critical or urgent, it also means serious, solemn, and science.

If something is ‘important’, does that have to mean we must deliver dry, detailed (science) data about it? Is the most important information about climate change still science information? If your goal is to engage people on climate change, and perhaps goad more – or different – action, the answer is a resounding no.

Borrowing the words of Fred Pearce in his recent New Scientist Opinion piece (11 July), “it’s time for a new act”. And that act is not about science. It’s not more serious and earnest lists of the latest horrible facts. No more spouting apocalyptic warnings about how screwed we are (even if they are backed up by reams of robust and valid research). Fred suggests scientists should back the hell off, and let “artists, lawyers, priest and playwrights” take over.

I thoroughly agree.

Two important things about the message from climate science need acknowledging now more than ever. One, there’s enough of it now to be very confident that things have to be done. Two, using climate science reports and facts is no longer the way to engage people and nudge them to action. Repeating this ‘throw more facts at people’ pattern of communication, and expecting things to become different is pretty much the definition of insanity, and it’s had its day.

All the scientists that have penned letters for this site have a sound understanding of Climate Change. Some have spent years designing models to predict changing climate, others, years investigating the implications for animal life. More still have been exploring a range of other topics concerning the causes and implications of a changing climate. 

As a minimum, they’ve all achieved a PhD in their area of expertise.

The amount of time it takes to achieve this qualification varies depending on the university and specific focus of study, but for Australia, the process is essentially this:

First, you need to complete an undergraduate degree with a focus on some aspect of science.  Biology, maths, physics, medicine etc., whatever strikes your fancy. This degree takes three or four years.  Then, depending on the focus of your research, you may need to complete an Honours or Masters course. This is another year or two of study and research.

Next is a PhD, a further three to five years of unique and original research covering new scientific ground. Already we’re getting up to around 8 years of study and research as a minimum.

Many of the researchers that have contributed to this site have continued on to receive the title of Research Fellow, Associate Professor or Professor, this requires many more years of research.  These scientists continue to investigate new discoveries to increase their own understanding of their field and publish their findings for their colleagues to learn from and build on.

This is their job, it’s their lives.

Consider Professor Andrew Pitman, Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science. He completed his PhD in 1988, back when everyone was listening to their Walkmans and watching Magnum P.I. He’s been studying climate modeling for over a quarter of a century. He has published over 140 scientific papers on the topic and written about 20 book chapters. Professor Pitman has been studying the climate for a large part of his life. He understands climate change and the models that predict this change.

Then there’s Professor Tony McMichael who sadly passed away earlier this year. His area of expertise was the population health impacts of climate change. His publications include over 300 peer-reviewed papers and 160 book chapters. He understands what impacts climate change will have on humanity.

And Professor Lesley Hughes, she has contributed to and reviewed multiple reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). An Ecologist, she has spent years exploring how a changing climate will affect hundreds of different species. She understands just how dire climate change could be for the planets biodiversity.

These researchers are in a better position than anyone to voice concern over climate change.

We owe it to them to listen.



Click here to see Andrew, Tony and Lesley's letters.

Guest Blogger: Dr Sarah Perkins

Dr Sarah Perkins is a researcher based at the University of New South Wales. Part of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, her work focusses on Australian climate extremes. Dr Perkins was one of the first researchers to contribute a letter to ITHYF.