Scaring, guilting and/or shaming individuals is commonly perceived to be the most effective way to motivate them to engage in climate action here on Twitter. But as I explain here, such approaches backfire more often than they succeed.
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Because most people self-silence on climate change, we usually think of people as falling into two categories ... a small group of people like me who are worried, and everyone else who is not.
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"They need to be worried," we think, so we dump even more fear-based information (most of it relating to things that are far away in time or space or relevance). Then we wonder why this increases psychological distance & doesn't encourage long-term action.
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According to polling data, tho, the picture looks like this. Most are already worried - yes, even in the US where 70% of everyone, 83% of mothers, and 86% of young people are worried. But 50% feel hopeless, helpless, and "don't know where to start." So we do nothing.
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What we most lack is "efficacy" - the simple belief that if I/we do something, I/we can make a difference. And how does efficacy grow? By understanding both the personal (not distant or remote) risk of climate impacts and the role each of us can play in catalyzing climate action.
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If you'd like to watch a recent talk where I discuss these concepts in more detail, please see -> video.uva.nl/media/UvA+lect
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Here's another thread I've written on this topic, starting with a study that showed that recommending lifestyle changes *decreased* people's support for climate action (!)
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I've spoken before about the generally unhelpful nature of purity tests and the role BP played in popularizing the concept of personal carbon footprint and by association, personal guilt ... but the results of this study made even me say WOW. journals.ametsoc.org/wcas/article/d
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And a thread about the unproductive nature of guilt, shame, and judging in conversations here on Twitter and elsewhere:
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The other day, I decided to conduct an experiment. I set a timer for 3 hours and counted how many times I was publicly shamed here on twitter during that time. The answer? 12. And since then I've counted dozens of examples of others being shamed, as well. (thread)
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Replying to
Sometimes you have to reach bottom before any change in behavior occurs, and interventions are ugly affairs that do require all those actions that you perceive as ineffective. All I see is that hope has done nothing through the decades except hold back action. Sorry, I disagree.
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Everyone is welcome to their own opinions but not their own facts. Please review the thread you're replying to - the whole thing - as well as this thread below & all associated resources. Thank you.
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I've spoken before about the generally unhelpful nature of purity tests and the role BP played in popularizing the concept of personal carbon footprint and by association, personal guilt ... but the results of this study made even me say WOW. journals.ametsoc.org/wcas/article/d
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Replying to
I need a German publisher to purchase the rights! A Dutch publisher did that and it was just released a few weeks ago in the Netherlands ->
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