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https://theconversation.com/climate-complacency-study-finds-even-the-most-informed-people-would-rather-take-the-easy-option-217879>
"It is often argued that all we need to do is raise awareness of a “global
emergency” and rising eco-anxiety means individuals will “do the right thing”.
Our new study indicates this just is not the case.
We asked a balanced panel of 381 people about their opinions, beliefs, and
awareness of climate change. Participants used a survey to identify which
things they would be most willing to change to reduce carbon emissions.
These options varied from small tweaks such as switching to more efficient
lightbulbs – an easy change but one that doesn’t hugely reduce emissions – to
behavioural changes such as switching to a plant-based diet, which would reduce
emissions considerably but requires a much bigger lifestyle change.
We might expect that people who are well aware of the severity of the climate
crisis and who already demonstrate high eco-anxiety would opt for larger, more
impactful behavioural changes. We might expect that high awareness and
emotional engagement would lead to a clear willingness to make larger changes.
But that was not the case. Instead, we found that regardless of an individual’s
stated environmental opinion and beliefs most opted for the easiest, but least
impactful options. This goes against the oft-expressed view that all we need to
do is explain just how bad the situation is and people will change.
We also found that demographic characteristics – culture, age, and
socioeconomic background – had little bearing on how far individuals would go
to change their behaviour to reduce their carbon emissions. Across all
demographics the preferences were to take the easiest, least impactful options
and strongly reject the more difficult and more sustainable options.
There were nuances: those with higher household incomes were more reluctant to
reduce their overseas air travel, whereas those from lower income households
considered this less of a priority. However, this may be due to the high cost
of flights rather than a particular willingness to change that behaviour."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
