How to best address climate change is a matter of great debate—from individual behavior and policy changes to innovative technologies and philanthropy. While reaching a consensus on the best approach has been a challenge, a new journal article featuring a researcher from the Paul H. O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, published in Nature’s Communications Earth & Environment, suggests the public may already share more common ground than expected.
The article, “Americans and policymakers underestimate endorsement for the most popular climate solution narrative, combining personal and political action,” was led by Gregg Sparkman from Boston College, Shahzeen Attari from the O’Neill School, and colleagues at Princeton University. Researchers surveyed a representative sample of Americans as well as local-level policymakers to test which solutions were most widely endorsed by both groups and which approaches they believed were most popular among the public.
“We find that Americans largely support narratives that call for climate action on multiple fronts,” Attari said. “Among 20 different climate solution narratives, the most popular narrative called for both policy changes and lifestyle changes to address the problem. This narrative was also the most popular with local policymakers.”
The study found that support for combining lifestyle and policy changes was associated with a greater willingness to take both personal and political climate action. More than 85% of the public endorsed this approach—yet, when asked to estimate its popularity, most believed only about half of Americans supported it.
“Americans across the political aisle agree we need to combine policy and lifestyle changes to solve climate change,” Sparkman said. “But policymakers and the public are unaware that this and other proactive approaches are popular. Further, policymakers lag behind the public in endorsing proactive solutions. We also find media exposure to these narratives shapes motivation to take lifestyle and political action, underscoring the importance of this discourse in addressing climate change.”
Although combining policy and lifestyle changes is the most widely supported approach, it is rarely reflected in news media coverage. Policymakers not only endorse these solutions less often than the general public, but they also significantly underestimate how much support there is for systemic changes.
“We are all creatures of story—these broad narratives play an important role in manifesting climate action,” Attari said. “We need a vision to make progress. Just like it is very hard to ride a bicycle blindfolded, we need climate solution narratives to help us move forward. Given both the public and policymakers underestimate how popular climate action narratives of policy and lifestyle change are, there is a major opportunity here to correct our perceptions and to realize that there is a widely shared appetite for these changes.”
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