Reorienting Climate Change Communication for Effective Mitigation
Top Cited Papers
Open Access
- 7 January 2009
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Science Communication
- Vol. 30 (3), 305-327
- https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547008328969
Abstract
Climate communication approaches expend significant resources promoting attitudinal change, but research suggests that encouraging attitudinal change alone is unlikely to be effective. The link between an individual's attitudes and subsequent behavior is mediated by other influences, such as social norms and the “free-rider” effect. One way to engender mitigative behaviors would be to introduce regulation that forces green behavior, but government fears a resulting loss of precious political capital. Conversely, communication approaches that advocate individual, voluntary action ignore the social and structural impediments to behavior change. The authors argue that there are two crucial, but distinct, roles that communication could play in engaging the public in low carbon lifestyles: first, to facilitate public acceptance of regulation and second, to stimulate grass-roots action through affective and rational engagement with climate change. The authors also argue that using communication to stimulate demand for regulation may reconcile these “top-down” and “bottom-up” approaches.Keywords
This publication has 33 references indexed in Scilit:
- Is There a Crisis of Political Participation?Published by SAGE Publications ,2012
- Re-materialising energy use through transparent monitoring systemsEnergy Policy, 2008
- Typology of sociotechnical transition pathwaysResearch Policy, 2007
- Technological Transitions and System InnovationsPublished by Edward Elgar Publishing ,2005
- Citizenship and the EnvironmentPublished by Oxford University Press (OUP) ,2003
- Overcoming the ‘value‐action gap’ in environmental policy: Tensions between national policy and local experienceLocal Environment, 1999
- Democracy in the risk society? Learning from the new politics of mobility in MunichEnvironmental Politics, 1999
- Helping the earth begins at home The social construction of socio-environmental responsibilitiesGlobal Environmental Change, 1996
- Individual Environmental Responsibility and its Role in Public EnvironmentalismEnvironment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 1993
- Personal and contextual influences on househould energy adaptations.Journal of Applied Psychology, 1985