Beyond abstraction: moving the public on climate action

And “the message has to come clearly from a source that has moral authority,” says Columbia’s Weber. “In Europe, that might be the Green Party, for example. Here, it could be political leadership, or it could be cultural. It could be evangelical churches, reminding their congregants that as Christians, they have a stewardship of the earth. What would Jesus drive? Turns out it’s not an SUV.”

Weber believes that our behaviour towards the environment may well change as a result of messages from a multitude of sources. In addition to following personal motivations, she says, individuals adapt their choices to the rules and norms of society. People are affected by what their neighbours drive, what their family thinks, what a television personality says about global warming, advertising, the attitudes of other communities and groups, and, of course, what laws are passed.

“After awhile, these things add up, and changes happen incrementally,” Weber says. “In the last ten years we have seen tremendous changes in attitude toward climate change. By changing attitudes, I think we will see changes in how people react.”

But that will require overcoming some very basic impulses, she acknowledges.

“People are very unwilling to sacrifice,” she says. They base many decisions on the immediate cost. “It hurts us a lot to give up whatever we think we are due, such as our standard of living,” Weber notes. Or, she says, we decide based on emotion: “If something feels good, like impulse shopping, we do it. Emotions are a strong motivator. And technical risks like climate change don’t trigger those emotions.”

Still, Weber believes that a consistent message about a genuine threat - coupled with social pressure and the right economic carrots and sticks - can eventually change people’s behaviour.

“Society,” says Weber, “is a way of overcoming the two-year-olds in all of us”.

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