The adverse effects of climate change are largely due to an increase in harmful human behaviors, such as, greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, and natural resource extraction. These harmful human behaviors are leading to rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, and biosphere. A National Public Radio (npr) headline reads, “Earth has 11 years to cut emissions to avoid dire climate scenarios.”
With the growing threat of climate change, there is an increased need to communicate climate science in a way that is memorable, effective, and inspiring. There are many different types of communication techniques used for climate change communication, but my research focuses on fear appeals. A fear appeal is a “persuasive communication attempt designed to arouse fear to promote precautionary motivation and self-protective action.”
For years, fear appeals have been used in the public sector to discourage certain negative behaviors. A classic example of fear appeals can be seen in anti- smoking advertisements. Some studies suggest that fear appeals are not an effective way to communicate climate change because they can make an individual feel powerless which leads them to distance themselves from the issue, thus leading to inaction. However, opposing research suggests that fear appeals are an effective way to communicate climate change because they activate a danger control response, in which an individual takes action to respond to a looming threat.
For my research, I conducted 13 semi-structured interviews to explore the climate change messages that millennials are being exposed to, the toll that these messages have on their emotions, and whether these types of emotions inspire individual action.
When respondents were asked how they feel when they think about climate change, they consistently responded with strong, often negative emotions. The most common emotion that people mentioned was that they feel “sad” when they think about climate change accounting for 7 total responses. The next most common emotion, with 5 responses, was that people feel “scared” when they think about climate change. There were 3 individuals who described feeling “hopeful” about climate change which was the only positive emotion that was mentioned throughout the interview process. Additionally, there was 1 individual who reported feeling “no emotions” regarding climate change. The other emotions that were described can be seen in Figure 1.
When participants were prompted to describe the images, social media posts, clips, movies, or documentaries that they most closely associated with climate change they often recalled unpleasant or scary media. There were 3 individuals that said they think about the image of penguins and polar bears that are stranded on melting ice caps in the middle of the Arctic. There were 3 more individuals that described images of natural disasters, including, fires, floods, oil spills, and extreme weather events. There were 5 respondents who recalled climate change-related documentaries, such as, Seaspiracy, Our Planet, and An Inconvenient Truth. Likewise, there was 1 individual who described a futuristic movie about climate change. Lastly, there was 1 individual who explained that he doesn’t think of anything when he thinks about climate change because it is not a subject that he frequently thinks about.
There was little variation among the actions that individuals reported taking as a direct response to climate change. More than 2/3 of participants, or 9 individuals, reported that recycling is the most common individual action that they engage in as a direct response to climate change. Reusing materials was the second most common action that people recalled taking in response to climate change with 5 respondents explaining that they use reusable bags, water bottles, or clothes. There was only one individual who mentioned that he does “nothing” as a direct response to climate change. The other responses that people mentioned can be seen in Figure 2.
My research shows that fear appeals are an effective way to drive an emotional response within an individual and they are an effective way to grab an individual’s attention; however, they are not an effective way to inspire meaningful individual actions. Effective climate change messaging needs to include more than just fear based appeals because on their own, they do not inspire individual action. People need climate change education in order to understand the most effective individual actions that they can take to mitigate the effects of climate change. In the future, effective climate change communication techniques need to include more than just doom and disaster.
Sydney Akers is a senior at the Indiana University O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs studying Environmental Management.
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