Will the spending cuts lead to a climate of denial? | the green living blog. This is a guest post by Adam Corner, a researcher based at the School of Psychology at Cardiff University. His research focuses on the psychology of communicating climate change, and public attitudes to emerging energy technologies. Climate change is a threat. But what sort of threat? Generally, climate change is described as a threat to our environment and natural resources. With increased stress on already straining global resource systems, the effects of climate change on our natural environment will be measured in reduced crop yields and water shortages. Climate change is sometimes framed as a threat to our economic prosperity. The Stern report famously argued that in order to maintain economic growth in the face of rapid climatic changes, 1% of global GDP should be spent on climate mitigation now in order to prevent much more being spent later.
In the second experiment, the researchers used a similar method but measured people’s willingness to recycle. Common Cause Working Group. A not so common cause? – BLog. I spent most of today at an event on ‘Common Cause’ – a report spearheaded by WWF, supported by a steering group of the great and the good (Oxfam, Friends of the Earth and COIN among others). I’ve blogged about the report briefly before, but wanted to go into a bit more detail here, in part to help get my own thoughts in order following what has been a fascinating but often brain-taxing day.
I’m left torn. On the one hand, it was difficult not to be infected by the optimism and enthusiasm of many of those who attended. And I can’t argue with the goal that emerges as the central tenet of the report – namely, that we develop ways of working that encourage people to favour intrinsic or common interest values over those that are extrinsic or driven by self-interest. Once your attention has been drawn to how pervasive these latter sets of values, or frames, are in modern western culture, it’s difficult not to feel almost assaulted by them, at least for a while. Martin Kirk on Newsletter 66.pdf (Objet application/pdf) Environment Magazine -- July/August 2010. By Tom Crompton and Tim Kasser Whatever the recent successes of different approaches to tackling global environmental challenges, it is clear that these efforts have thus far fallen far short of what is necessary. Surveys suggest that the majority of the public in economically developed nations like the United States and the United Kingdom remains reluctant to embrace significant departures from their current life-styles or to bear higher economic costs.1 As a result, policymakers and businesses both claim that their hands are tied with regard to larger societal changes: Politicians highlight the barriers to ambitious new policy interventions presented by electoral resistance or apathy, and businesses point to the possible loss of profit that would come with adopting certain environmental policies.2 Caption: Environmental campaigners have focused on encouraging citizens' adoption of simple “private-sphere” behaviors such as installing low-energy light bulbs.
New Campaigning Approaches. Identity campaigning 3.6 Beta 4. Identity campaigning » Blog Archive » Solitaire’s skin crawls at. Blog post This blog was originally posted on Identity Campaigning. Solitaire Townsend, Director of Futerra ‘Sustainability Communications’, writes: The notion of changing the audience rather than the message is at the heart of the ‘identity campaigning’ concept led by WWF. Identity campaigning argues that we shouldn’t accept the basic psychology of our audience – but seek to change it.This means re-programming people’s values away from consumption, status and selfish desires and towards collective awareness and a closer relationship with our place in the natural world.
Actually this drives us bonkers, especially because implicit is the message ‘if only everyone else thought and acted like us everything would be okay’.That makes our skin crawl a bit, and we know the majority public audience hates environmental worthies suggesting there’s not only something wrong with their footprint: there’s something wrong with their personality. I'm Change Strategist at WWF-UK. The Natural Change Project - Home 3.6 Beta 4.