Opinion: Moving People to Action

 Love, Justice and Climate Change

Polls in the U.S. report that most people in the U.S. think climate change is happening and want the government to do more about it. Yet relatively few people act to promote such government action or to build support for policies that would address the climate crisis. Why? Why do many care and few act? Perhaps more importantly, how can more people be moved to take action?

A new study, with a very interesting design, identifies some of the obstacles to people taking action and a makes research-based suggestions about how to move them to act. The short answer is: “Getting people to think more about the future, especially their own and that of people they care about, is the most effective way to motivate climate action.”

The study also identified some things that don’t move people to act. The primary strategy that they report as unsuccessful is getting people to think about their carbon footprint.

An “Intervention Tournament”
In the past, most studies have tested one strategy to see if it helped move people to action. However, the real question is, what strategy or strategies are most effective at stimulating action. To try to answer this question researchers are now using a design called an “intervention tournament.” In this approach researchers test many interventions/strategies all at once, using exactly the same methodology. This allows them to compare the effectiveness of different intervention strategies.

In this recent study, the researchers tested 17 different strategies to “inspire people to fight climate change.” They recruited 7,624 adults living in the U.S. for this online study and assigned each of them to  experience one of the strategies. Then they measured each participant’s responses.

Three Common Psychological Barriers to Taking Climate Action
The researchers had previously identified three common types of “psychological barriers” to taking climate action. For some people, climate change doesn’t seem relevant to them or to people they care about. They don’t expect climate change to affect them in any significant way. For others, climate change effects just seem too far in the future to focus on. Humans have a built-in bias to focus on shorter term effects rather than longer term ones. The authors point out that “Addressing climate change requires immediate action for long-term gain, much like investing money for retirement instead of spending it.”

 The third psychological barrier is that many don’t think their individual actions will make any difference. Climate is a systemic issue and will require collective action, but for many people their possible contributions to collective solutions seem insignificant. One of the goals of interventions in this realm is to “help people realize that their seemingly small actions do matter.”

The researchers designed interventions that addressed these psychological mechanisms. They found that “interventions that targeted two or more mechanisms—such as imagining a future scenario that involved oneself or close others—were most effective. Importantly, [they say] our leading interventions were substantially more effective than prevalent existing strategies (e.g., carbon footprint information).”

The study asked people about their recent involvement in climate action, then engaged them in one of the intervention strategies. After they experienced the intervention, they were asked 1) if they expected to take various actions on climate more or less often and 2) whether they thought it would beneficial if many people engaged in those climate actions. They were also shown an assortment of climate headlines and petitions and asked, 3) how likely they were to share these with their acquaintances or on social media.

Guiding People to Imagine the Future – Scenarios with Others They Care About
“We found that guiding people to imagine the future of climate change, especially scenarios that involved oneself and close others, was the most effective way to motivate action,” said study team member Alyssa Sinclair. Another effective strategy was to have the participant write a letter to a child (that would be read when the child is an adult), about “their aspirations and efforts to ensure that the child would inherit a habitable planet.”

A different recent study, this one global, also found writing a letter to a child to be an effective strategy. That study found that gloom and doom messaging could be counter-productive. What mattered most was getting people thinking about their children (or others in future generations) and what their futures will be.

Protecting What We Love – Leaving a Livable World for Future Generations
I find it interesting that these findings seem consistent with an earlier study I included in a June 2024 post titled “Protecting What We Love“. That study surveyed 60,000 people in 23 different countries. It found widespread support (78%) for climate action. It found that a narrative that included “it’s our responsibility to leave behind a world that’s safe and livable for future generations” was the most effective message for boosting support for climate action in every single country. This message was 12 times more effective than “increasing jobs,” and had twice the impact of “protecting us from pollution or extreme weather.”

Perhaps we can all be more effective with others and good to ourselves by focusing not on fears or dangers, but on the love we each have for our precious planet and for future generations.

Russ Vernon-Jones was principal of Fort River School 1990-2008 and is currently a member of the Steering Committee of Climate Action Now-Western Massachusetts. He blogs regularly on climate justice at www.russvernonjones.org.