Effects of system-sanctioned framing on climate awareness and environmental action in the United States and beyond

Significance

The study investigates the impact of an experimental intervention that frames climate action as patriotic and system-sanctioned on environmental attitudes and behaviors in 63 countries. In the United States, this intervention significantly increased liberal-leftists’ and conservative-rightists’ belief in climate change; support for pro-environmental policies; and willingness to share information about climate change on social media. Tailored messages were also effective in an aggregated analysis involving 63 countries. More granular analyses at the country level revealed that the intervention was successful in some non-U.S. countries (e.g., Brazil, France, Israel), but it backfired in others (Germany, Belgium, Russia). Using system justification theory to design communication strategies may improve climate awareness and action in the general public.

[OCS: There are few things more un-American and un-Patriotic that misleading Americans with false and misleading propaganda based on perverted scientific research that is inherently flawed and easily falsified.]

Abstract

Despite growing scientific alarm about anthropogenic climate change, the world is not on track to solve the crisis. Inaction may be partially explained by skepticism about climate change and resistance to pro-environmental policies from people who are motivated to maintain the status quo (I.e., conservative-rightists). Therefore, practical interventions are needed. In the present research program, we tested an experimental manipulation derived from system justification theory in which pro-environmental initiatives were framed as patriotic and necessary to maintain the American “way of life.”

[OCS: Science is blind, apolitical, and is based on observations and experiments that are open to the inherent skepticism of the scientific method, which demands free and open debate over research that is subject to replication, verification, falsification, and expansion. To demand individual accept speculative findings of computer models as fact is wrong.]

In a large, nationally representative U.S. sample, we found that the system-sanctioned change intervention successfully increased liberal-leftists’ as well as conservative-rightists’ belief in climate change; support for pro-environmental policies; and willingness to share climate information on social media. Similar messages were effective in an aggregated analysis involving 63 countries, although the overall effect sizes were small. More granular exploratory analyses at the country level revealed that while the intervention was moderately successful in some countries (e.g., Brazil, France, Israel), it backfired in others (Germany, Belgium, Russia). Across the three outcome variables, the effects of the intervention were consistent and pronounced in the United States, in support of the hypothesis that system justification motivation can be harnessed on behalf of social change. Potential explanations for divergent country-level effects are discussed. The system-sanctioned change intervention holds considerable promise for policymakers and communicators seeking to increase climate awareness and action.

Selected References

• The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “AR6 synthesis report: Climate change 2023” (AR6 Synthesis Report (SYR), IPCC, Geneva, Switzerland, 2023). https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-cycle/.
• United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Climate plans remain insufficient: More ambitious action needed now (2022). https://unfccc.int/news/climate-plans-remain-insufficient-more-ambitious-action-needed-now. Accessed 4 February 2022.
• S. Clayton et al., Psychological research and global climate change. Nat. Clim. Change 5, 640–646 (2015).
• R. E. Dunlap, A. M. McCright, J. H. Yarosh, The political divide on climate change: Partisan polarization widens in the U.S. Environ. Sci. Policy Sustain. Dev. 58, 4–23 (2016).
• M. J. Hornsey, S. Lewandowsky, A toolkit for understanding and addressing climate scepticism. Nat. Hum. Behav. 6, 1454–1464 (2022).

[more references]

[OCS: There is no more corrupt institution in the world than the United Nations and its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.]

Public Relations Release

Abstract

Full Paper

Introduction

Climate change is a politically polarized issue, with liberals often supporting climate action and conservatives more likely to deny the existence of climate change. This is particularly the case in Anglosphere nations, including the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom [2, 3]. The conservative movement against climate science has damaged climate change mitigation efforts by undermining the perceived strength of the evidence for climate change, as shown by the United States failing to meet obligations under the Kyoto Protocol and its more recent withdrawal from the Paris agreement.

[OCS: While the climate is constantly changing and has done so since the formation of the atmosphere and oceans, the authors’ certitude that this natural phenomenon has been perverted by man and that it must be politically addressed is to ignore the actual science in favor of speculative fiction.]

A recent meta-analysis demonstrated that conservative ideology and right-wing votership are stronger predictors of climate change denial than other demographic correlates such as gender, age, and education. This means that the denial of climate change is potentially driven by stable ideological factors, thus explaining the ineffectiveness of climate change communication strategies that rely on merely conveying the scientific information. Climate change communication strategies must overcome ideological barriers, not information deficits, to motivate action.

[OCS: Regardless of political belief, one should be skeptical, especially when the politically-connected deploy academic elites to push a life-altering pseudo-solution that has no basis in scientific fact.]

One proposed strategy to increase the effectiveness of climate change communication for conservatives has been to employ message frames that align with their apparent preference for the past. Previous research has shown that message frames that use a past-focused frame (for example, by comparing the current state of the environment to how it used to be) rather than a future-focused frame (comparing the current state of the environment to how it will be in the future), eliminates the negative effect of conservatism on pro-environmental attitudes . Our research aims to replicate and extend on literature that positions the temporal framing of environmental issues as a way to bridge the ideological divide between conservatives’ and liberals’ environmental attitudes in several important ways. Firstly, explanations for the effect are limited and were not tested in the original research. Secondly, it is unclear if the temporal framing effect observed on pro-environmental attitudes extends to motivate more meaningful forms of environmentalism, such as increasing pro-environmental action, support for climate policy, or acceptance of climate change. Finally, the effect has yet to be replicated with a multidimensional representation of political ideology. Our program of research aims to address these limitations.

Conservative denial of climate change

Political affiliation is an important predictor of environmental attitudes. When compared to their left-wing or liberal counterparts, those with a right-wing or conservative political orientation are typically more skeptical of climate change science, hold less positive pro-environmental attitudes, and are more opposed to climate change policy. Given this, much focus has been on understanding the mechanisms that drive conservatives’ denial of climate change and climate inaction.

[OCS: Perhaps the reason conservatives are reluctant to accept the political prescriptions offered up for climate change is because the remedies as rooted in bigger government, higher taxes, more authoritarian government intervention, fewer personal freedoms—all of which are antithetical to conservatism and American exceptionalism.]

One likely reason why climate change is politically polarized is that from the 1990s, conservative think tanks responded to the environmentalist movement with a series of messages that sought to undermine action on climate change. These messages attempted to shroud the scientific basis of climate change in doubt, emphasized the harm that mitigating action would cause to the economy or national security, and claimed that on balance, the effects of climate change would be positive (e.g. benefitting agriculture, human quality of life and health).

[OCS: Given the fact that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant and is a necessary component of life, and that increased amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide are beneficial to oxygen-making and food-creating plants, one wonders why it is being demonized. Perhaps it is because controlling carbon dioxide leads to controlling the economy and the population at large.]

Over 90% of books that refute climate change have since been linked to conservative think tanks, and climate change counter-movement organizations appear to draw the majority of their financial support from conservative foundations. Oreskes and Conway suggest that conservative opposition to international agreements on climate change is also driven by the perception that such action threatens the free market economic system.

[OCS: Whereas the majority of pro-climate change studies originate and are funded by self-serving, overtly-biased governmental institutions and their non-governmental organizations.]

Promoting (or demotivating) conservative engagement with climate change

Currently, some evidence suggests conservatives are sensitive to subtle changes in the framing of climate change. For example, denial is higher among conservatives when the issue is referred to as ‘global warming’ rather than ‘climate change,’ while liberals are concerned about the issue regardless of wording. Liberals and conservatives also differ on dimensions such as personality, values, and moral foundations, which have been leveraged in communication campaigns to increase conservative support for climate action.

[OCS: When “warming did not occur, they changed the name so that everything is covered under climate change. Note the propensity of liberals to rename something that has negative connotations based on observations over time. Thus the many names of communism: Socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Progressivism, Stalinism, Maoism, Trotskyism, Democratic Socialism, Revolutionary Socialism, Collectivism, Statism, Utopian Socialism, Marxist-Leninism, and Proletarianism.]

[Original Study DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2405973121]