Going Fossil Free: A Lesson in Climate Activism and Collective Responsibility

Godoy, Eric S.

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-58214-6_4

“…Therefore, these findings might not generalize to collective or systemic climate actions, also critical to climate mitigation 72 . In future research, scholars should study additional pro-climate behaviors, especially ones that build towards collective solutions to this fundamentally collective problem 73 , such as advocacy 74 or voting 75 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Differential Impact of Climate Interventions along the Political Divide in 60 Countries

Berkebile-Weinberg,

Goldwert,

Doell

et al. 2024

Preprint

1

0

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A major barrier to climate change mitigation is the political polarization of climate change beliefs. In a global experiment conducted in 60 countries (N = 51,224), we assess the differential impact of eleven climate interventions across the ideological divide. At baseline, we find political polarization of climate change beliefs and policy support globally, with people who reported being liberal believing and supporting climate policy more than those who reported being conservative (Cohen’s d = 0.35 and 0.27, respectively). However, we find no evidence for a statistically significant difference between these groups in their engagement in a behavioral tree planting task. This conceptual-behavioral polarization incongruence results from self-identified conservatives acting despite not believing, rather than self-identified liberals not acting on their beliefs. We also find three interventions (emphasizing effective collective actions, writing a letter to a future generation member, and writing a letter from the future self) boost climate beliefs and policy support across the ideological spectrum, and one intervention (emphasizing scientific consensus) stimulates the climate action of people identifying as liberal. None of the interventions tested show evidence for a statistically significant boost in climate action for self-identified conservatives. We discuss implications for practitioners deploying targeted climate interventions.

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“…Another way to ground a duty to engage in climate activism is by appealing to Iris Marion Young's social connection model of political responsibility (Young, 2010). Unlike the no harm principle, this model highlights the role that legal and social norms have in encouraging and enabling harm, and how innocent individual acts help reproduce those norms (Godoy, 2017a(Godoy, , 2017cMcKeown, 2018). This sort of connection to harm grounds a responsibility to engage in political activism with others to change the norms that enable the harm.…”

Section: Groundsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Perhaps the working class can, through the power of numbers, bring about change, particularly in the electricity sector (Huber, 2022a). Alternatively, investors and corporate leaders may have the ability, motivation, and responsibility to drive climate-aligned change through corporate decarbonization, divestment, shareholder activism, and political lobbying (Collins, 2020;Godoy, 2017b;Harper Ho, 2021;Hormio, 2017;Schwenkenbecher, 2018).…”

Section: Role Dutiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Another important set of norms is the international legal system that gives little to no influence to people in climate‐vulnerable countries over political decisions in other countries that decide their climate future. The social connection model thus grounds a duty to engage in climate activism and resist these norms (Godoy, 2017a, 2017c; Sardo, 2020).…”

Section: A Duty To Become a Climate Activist?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The ethics of climate activism

Garcia‐Gibson

¹

2023

WIREs Climate Change

7

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Climate activism, and ethical reflection on it, is expanding in line with increased awareness of global warming's destructive effects. The ethics of climate activism has focused on two main questions. First, is there a duty to engage in climate activism? Answers to this question differ regarding how the duty is grounded, how demanding it is, and whether people in certain social roles have special duties to engage in climate activism. The second question is whether certain forms of climate activism are morally permissible, given certain frequently voiced concerns. Prominently, concerns about climate activism being ineffective, uninclusive, undemocratic, and violent. The review ends by pointing to other issues that the ethics of climate activism is likely to address in the near future. This article is categorized under: Climate, Nature, and Ethics > Ethics and Climate Change

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The differential impact of climate interventions along the political divide in 60 countries

Berkebile-Weinberg,

Goldwert,

Doell

et al. 2024

Nat Commun

10

0

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A major barrier to climate change mitigation is the political polarization of climate change beliefs. In a global experiment conducted in 60 countries (N = 51,224), we assess the differential impact of eleven climate interventions across the ideological divide. At baseline, we find political polarization of climate change beliefs and policy support globally, with people who reported being liberal believing and supporting climate policy more than those who reported being conservative (Cohen’s d = 0.35 and 0.27, respectively). However, we find no evidence for a statistically significant difference between these groups in their engagement in a behavioral tree planting task. This conceptual-behavioral polarization incongruence results from self-identified conservatives acting despite not believing, rather than self-identified liberals not acting on their beliefs. We also find three interventions (emphasizing effective collective actions, writing a letter to a future generation member, and writing a letter from the future self) boost climate beliefs and policy support across the ideological spectrum, and one intervention (emphasizing scientific consensus) stimulates the climate action of people identifying as liberal. None of the interventions tested show evidence for a statistically significant boost in climate action for self-identified conservatives. We discuss implications for practitioners deploying targeted climate interventions.

show abstract

Going Fossil Free: A Lesson in Climate Activism and Collective Responsibility

Cited by 4 publications

References 17 publications

The Differential Impact of Climate Interventions along the Political Divide in 60 Countries

The Differential Impact of Climate Interventions along the Political Divide in 60 Countries

The ethics of climate activism

The differential impact of climate interventions along the political divide in 60 countries

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