The spatial difference of multi-layer climate change information flow and network construction: A comparison of “dual carbon” scenarios

Does the climate change communication power behave consistently before and after the “dual carbon” target is put forward? Spatial-temporal differences based on Weibo

Climate change is negatively affecting livelihoods dependent on rain fed agriculture in Kenya. Adaptation through adoption of appropriate agricultural technologies is necessary. Communication plays a critical role in dissemination of climate change information and adaptation. The study applied social network analysis (SNA) using NodeXL computer programme to generate socio-grams that showed patterns of information flow from which important network and individual characteristic of the opinion leaders were described. This study shows that SNA is applicable in climate change communication to identify opinion leaders by mapping out information flow patterns and using measures of centrality.Int. J. Agril. Res. Innov. & Tech. 6 (1): 1-7, June, 2016

Over the past five years, I have blogged about climate change with weekly updates, touching on scientific and political issues mostly in Bolivia but also including topics from global research. This paper is a personal account of this experience and is intended to illustrate the process of climate change communication in one of the poorest countries in South America by means of a specialized blog. It gives account of the motivation for creating the “Klimablog”, describes its basic characteristics, leads through its development and highlights its main achievements over the past years. It is a personal account, and thus purely testimonial, without intention to contribute to theoretical discussions on the role of the internet in climate change communication. How it all started—Living in La Paz and working on Sustainable Mountain Development meant that climate change was a daily presence. Information in Spanish, however, was very limited. So I began reading scientific papers published in international journals with the intention of translating and publishing the contents for a Spanish-speaking audience. The idea was to reach fellow scientists, decision makers, and a generally interested public. As expressed in the first blog post, the Klimablog was created as “a space in the internet dedicated to all things climate change in Bolivia. The blog facilitates access to reliable and up-to-date scientific information and also to information and commentary about climate change policy at international and national levels”. The blog posts follow a standardized format of two to three pages in length, two or three illustrations (photos or graphics), with a two-paragraph introduction and numerous links to other websites. There are also listed primary sources of information, providing transparency and the chance to further pursue any given topic. All articles remain online and may be accessed via a search function, thus building an archive on climate change information. The Klimablog over the years has grown from a few thousand to presently 90,000 visits per month, and it is now a major reference on climate change related issues in Bolivia.

Environmental educators face a formidable challenge when they approach climate change due to the complexity of the science and of the political and cultural contexts in which people live. There is a clear consensus among climate scientists that climate change is already occurring as a result of human activities, but high levels of climate change awareness and growing levels of concern have not translated into meaningful action. Communicating Climate Change provides environmental educators with an understanding of how their audiences engage with climate change information as well as with concrete, empirically tested communication tools they can use to enhance their climate change program. Starting with the basics of climate science and climate change public opinion, Armstrong, Krasny, and Schuldt synthesize research from environmental psychology and climate change communication, weaving in examples of environmental education applications throughout this practical book. Each chapter covers a separate topic, from how environmental psychology explains the complex ways in which people interact with climate change information to communication strategies with a focus on framing, metaphors, and messengers. This broad set of topics will aid educators in formulating program language for their classrooms at all levels. Communicating Climate Change uses fictional vignettes of climate change education programs and true stories from climate change educators working in the field to illustrate the possibilities of applying research to practice. Armstrong et al, ably demonstrate that environmental education is an important player in fostering positive climate change dialogue and subsequent climate change action.

Media Global Warming: Environmental Communication in Mass Media The study of environmental and climate change communication is a relatively young but dynamically developing research field. Global warming, environmental pollution and the devastation of nature are critical and current topics reflected in the broadly understood media, including literature, music, film, video games and mass media, i.e. in communication collectively referred to as environmental communication. The theoretical analysis of this type of communication is the primary goal of this book. Many publications – not only in literature reviews and meta-analyses – include the postulate of increasing the internationalization of research, greater geographical diversification of the analyzed media messages, and especially – balancing the currently existing advantage of research in Englishlanguage media. Journalistic and research activity in environmental and climate change communication originates from the United States. Hence, American centrism is visible in the literature on the subject, including in this text. In Polish literature, no study so far has presented environmental and climate change communication as a research subject. The intention of writing Media Climate Warming (Medialne ocieplenie klimatu) was to fill this gap, at least partially. This book is structured into three comprehensive parts, each serving as a guide to different aspects of environmental and climate change communication. The first part delves into the history of reporting on environmental issues in the mass media, the second part addresses theoretical issues of environmental communication, and the third part focuses on research on climate change communication. The introductory chapter describes the four cornerstones of environmental journalism. Selected events have been chosen that not only left their mark on the media of their time but are also most frequently cited, even today: the campaign for Central Park in New York, led by William Cullen Bryant in the “New York Evening Post”, John Muir’s articles in “The Century Magazine” about Yosemite National Park, campaign of the editorial staff of the “St. Louis Post-Dispatch” for air quality in St. Louis, and a series of articles in “The New Yorker” and a book on the harmfulness of pesticides, written by Rachel Carson.In this chapter, to the extent possible, an attempt was made to include source materials that had not been previously published in Polish-language publications. The second part attempts to operationalize the concept of environmental communication. It presents the social context and development of research on environmental communication, an analysis of the definition of this phenomenon, theoretical paradigms, approaches and methodologies used in research on this type of communication and the subject matter of these analyses. The third chapter is devoted to research on climate change communication, which is currently the most dynamically developing part of environmental communication analyses. It presents the state of research in this field, various media studies – in the broad sense of the term, perspectives on climate change and the main topics that climate change communication researchers deal with: research and establishing media frames, scientific communication and presentations of scientific consensus, disinformation and catastrophe narrative. Historical findings and conclusions from current research and the latest theoretical proposals are cited in all these parts. Media Climate Warming shows how heterogeneous, rich and diverse environmental communication is. Environmental communication, particularly climate change communication, will become increasingly ubiquitous due to the ongoing global warming and the increasing awareness that people are also part of the environment and feel the effects of its changes. Both researchers and media creators see the need to use a paradigm that emphasizes ethical and moral issues in communicating the natural environment. Approaches that take ecology into account are used in economics, management, and pedagogy. Effective communication is needed in all of these areas. However, to learn about it, decipher it, and influence its improvement, extensive research is necessary, which would go beyond the circle of English-language analyses. Media Climate Warming can provide a theoretical basis for further studies on the practical application of environmental communication. The author continues to research environmental communication in Polish-language media, and the findings will be published.

Given its location between the Mediterranean Sea and the desert, it seems Israel would be aware of the potential risks of climate change, especially given its lack of natural fossil resources, among other factors. Its location might have led to a greater emphasis on adaptation than mitigation and for climate change communication to flow from all relevant agents, utilized by the ingenuity of this hi-tech nation toward adaptation solutions. However, tracking the development of climate change policy and action leads to the conclusion that climate change is not at the top of Israel’s agenda, due to factors ranging from defense to the neoliberal economy. This article presents some background history of climate change activism and policy development in Israel. It considers the relevant Israeli context that was the bedrock of climate change policy and activity. It also reviews the communicative activity of the relevant agents, including the government, parliament, scientists, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), the media, and the public at large, and examines climate change on the public’s agenda as it was presented by the media and reflected in public opinion polls, especially around global climate change events initiated by the United Nations (UN) from Bali (2007) to Paris (2015). Climate change communication in Israel is primarily practiced within the environmental communication field and less so in the science communication field. Communication about climate change is fairly benign compared to the war and terror that are part of everyday life in Israel. Only in the 1970s did environmental communication emerge in various media channels and was placed on the public’s agenda, while climate change communication specifically began to gain salience slowly only in the first decade of the 21st century. Mass media coverage of climate change in Israel is generally quite low compared to other developed countries in the West, with new media channels partially used by interested nongovernmental organizations and individual activists. From time to time, media events organized by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and world summits on climate change that involve mainly local political interests serve to increase coverage and raise public interest. As in other countries, coverage is usually local rather than global, even though climate change is a global problem. How effective is climate change communication in Israel? Research has only partially answered this question. It seems that the legacy of low media coverage contributes to the low salience of climate change on the governmental and public agendas. Moreover, the atmosphere of uncertain risks and outcomes for Israel has not created a climate of urgency for policymakers.

With the thriving development of internet industry and continuous increase of consumer demand in outbound tourism in China, opinion leaders in virtual community have significant effects on consumers’ decision making process. Hence, identifying the opinion leader in virtual travel community (VTC) is significantly important for virtual community of outbound tourism. This study proposes the opinion leader recognition model based on social network analysis (SNA), and identifies leader value presented by construal influence, content influence, and activity to measure and evaluate the effect of opinion leader on consumers’ cognition. Based on the empirical data, this study examines the soundness of SNA in VTC dimensionally and comprehensively, and establishes the opinion leader recognition, which can be used in future research to explore the assessment mechanism of opinion leader’ effect on consumers.

There is a strong view among climate change researchers and communicators that the persuasive tactic of arousing fear in order to promote precautionary motivation and behavior is neither effective nor appropriate in the context of climate change communication and engagement. Yet the modest research evidence that exists with respect to the use of fear appeals in communicating climate change does not offer adequate empirical evidence—either for or against the efficacy of fear appeals in this context—nor would such evidence adequately address the issue of the appropriateness of fear appeals in climate change communication. Extensive research literatures addressing preparedness, prevention, and behavior change in the areas of public health, marketing, and risk communication generally nonetheless provide consistent empirical support for the qualified effectiveness of fear appeals in persuasive social influence communications and campaigns. It is also noteworthy that the language of climate change communication is typically that of “communication and engagement,” with little explicit reference to targeted social influence or behavior change, although this is clearly implied. Hence underlying and intertwined issues here are those of cogent arguments versus largely absent evidence, and effectiveness as distinct from appropriateness. These matters are enmeshed within the broader contours of the contested political, social, and environmental, issues status of climate change, which jostle for attention in a 24/7 media landscape of disturbing and frightening communications concerning the reality, nature, progression, and implications of global climate change. All of this is clearly a challenge for evaluation research attempting to examine the nature and effectiveness of fear appeals in the context of climate change communication, and for determining the appropriateness of designed fear appeals in climate change communications intended to both engage and influence individuals, communities, and “publics” with respect to the ongoing threat and risks of climate change. There is an urgent need to clearly and effectively communicate the full nature and implications of climate change, in the face of this profound risk and rapidly unfolding reality. All such communications are, inherently, frightening warning messages, quite apart from any intentional fear appeals. How then should we put these arguments, evidence, and challenges “on the table” in our considerations and recommendations for enhancing climate change communication—and addressing the daunting and existential implications of climate change?

Spectre of the Past, Vision of the Future – Ritual, Reflexivity and the Hope for Renewal in Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s Climate Change Communication Film "Home"

Access to climate change information can play a critical role in helping rural women adapt to climate change. Our research investigates the communication channels used for climate education among female dry-season farmers in the Kuliyaa community of northern Ghana. Particularly, we address access to climate change information among smallholder female farmers. We adopted a community-based participatory approach to guide the study. To achieve our research objectives of investigating climate change communication channels among smallholder female farmers, specific methods of in-depth interviews and focus group discussions were used to gather knowledge from smallholder female farmers. The research findings provide a well-rounded exploration of the unique climate change communication challenges female farmers face and the innovative approaches they have adopted to share climate change information. Specifically, the findings show that women have adopted innovative oral communication channels to disseminate and transfer climate knowledge among themselves. We also found that there is limited access to radio in the Kuliyaa community making them resort to group meetings to share knowledge and ideas empowering them economically in other livelihoods. The study discovered the community utilises gender inclusivity in decision-making. We recommend that the government and other relevant organisations to develop and implement a strategic policy on climate information dissemination with a focus on supporting farmers in rural communities of Ghana to mitigate climate change effects. Technologies can also be developed to aid in disseminating relevant information to farmers in rural areas as the available oral communication is less effective in disseminating useful information on climate change.

Pennsylvania State University, USADespite overwhelming consensus among scientists about thereality of anthropogenic climate change (Bray, 2010; Oreskes,2004), there remains significant reluctance on the part ofcitizens and politicians to take the action needed to addressit. This resistance has been repeatedly identified in socialresearch (Leiserowitz & Maibach, 2010; Leviston, Leitch,Greenhill, Leonard, & Walker, 2011; Lorenzoni & Pidgeon,2006; McCright & Dunlap, 2011; Reser, Bradley, Glendon,Ellul, & Callaghan, 2012) and is mirrored by the lack of prog-ress made by salient political summits (Rogelj et al., 2010).Perhaps as a response to this, scholarly journals and articlesthat are focused on climate change are growing. Naturalscientists tell us that we know what needs to be done to avertdangerous climate change (IPCC, 2014), and economists tellus that delaying action in the short term will lead to muchgreater costs in the long term (Stern, 2007). Understandingpublic responses to climate change and developing solutionsto catalyse action is a critical challenge for the social sciences,and we propose that the development and elaboration of asocial psychology of climate change would be a cornerstoneof such an approach.We do not make the claim that social psychology has all theanswers but rather that the theories, models and researchmethods of social psychology can provide a powerful arsenalto complement the approaches of other disciplines. Re-searchers have already begun to apply social psychologicaltheory and methods to the issue of climate change, and wehighlight in the following sections examples of the insightsthat have flowed from this. We cannot assume, though, thatour theories and findings will automatically generalise to theclimate change context. As Moser (2010) has noted, thereare unique dimensions to climate change that make it distinctfrom other environmental, risk and health issues: The causesof climate change are invisible to humans, the impacts are dis-tal and it is complex and riddled with uncertainties. Modernurban humans are to some extent insulated from their physicalenvironment, and the lags between the climate and social sys-tems make it difficult for people to understand their role ininfluencing climate.These factors suggest the importance of developing a socialpsychology of climate change, empirically testing, integratingand refining existing theories and models to develop newframeworks. The notion that psychology can play a role inunderstanding and addressing climate change is not a newone. The American Psychological Association’s Task Forceon the interface between psychology and global climatechange comprehensively detailed the ways in which psycho-logical research can help to understand people’s perceptionsof the risks of climate change, the contribution of human be-haviour to climate change, the psychosocial impacts of climatechange, the ways in which people can adapt and cope withclimate change and the psychological barriers that could limitclimate change action (Swim et al., 2009, 2011).It is also not a new idea that social psychology can play animportant role in understanding and addressing environmentalproblems and solutions (Clayton & Brook, 2005). Social psy-chology, specifically, has a long tradition oftheory andresearchthat is relevant to addressing key climate change questions.Attitudes, social cognition, persuasion and attitude change, so-cial influence, and intragroup and intergroup behaviour, forinstance, are fundamental foci for social psychology and havedirect relevance for understanding the human and social dimen-sionsofclimatechange.Thetimeisripetounderstandtherangeof research that has been developing in social psychology onattitudes, beliefs and actions, to build upon these insights, andintegrate them with knowledge from other sciences to developmodels and theories indigenous to the climate change context.In the following section, we provide a brief overview of re-cent social psychological research that addresses three broadthemes relevant to understanding and responding to climatechange. These themes are as follows: (i) social psychologicalinfluences on climate change attitudes and beliefs; (ii) facilita-tors and barriers to climate change action; and (iii) changingclimate change attitudes and behaviour. Although there issome overlap in these themes, as an organising principle theyintuitively map on to key questions that arise in relation to cli-mate change. Our aim is to highlight recent examples of socialpsychological research that provide interesting and importantinsights in relation to these themes. Swim, Markowitz, andBloodhart (2012) have noted that much of the social psycho-logical research on climate change has emerged since 2006;we focus in on the most recent of this research that has beenpublished since 2010. We also outline how the studies in thespecial issue relate to these themes. We recognise that theseare not the only areas where social psychological researchand theory can make important contributions but they never-theless relate to key questions that need to be addressed. Weconclude the introduction by proposing considerations thatsocial psychologists could take into account in their futureresearch on climate change.European Journal of Social Psychology, Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 44, 413–420 (2014)

This study examined factors associated with willingness to engage in communication behaviors related to climate change advocacy. Data were collected as part of an online, longitudinal US study beginning in March 2020. Outcomes included willingness to post materials online, contact state legislators, and talk with peers about climate change. Covariates included climate change-related social norms, avoidance of climate change information, and perceptions of the future impact of climate change. A minority of the 586 respondents (23%) reported regular conversations about climate change, while approximately half of the respondents reported willingness to discuss climate change with peers (58%), post materials online (47%), and contact state legislators (46%). Strong predictors of willingness to engage in each climate change communications behaviors included climate change social norms, not avoiding climate change information, and believing that climate change will have a negative impact on the future. Findings indicate the importance of designing programs to foster increased climate change communications in order to promote community-level climate change advocacy norms.

‘Climate Change Perception and Changing Agents in Africa & South Asia’ presents first-hand experiences of climate change perception. Now more than ever understanding public perceptions of climate change is fundamental in creating effective climate policies, especially within countries that are particularly vulnerable to climate change. Striving to present a comprehensive study of climate perception in Africa and South Asia, this volume presents seven in-depth case studies from Cameroon, the Eastern Himalayas, Kenya, Nepal, and Zimbabwe. In order to combat climate change, effective communication is essential in order to educate, persuade, warn and mobilize the masses. Therefore, climate change communication is shaped not only by our different experiences and beliefs but also by the underlying cultural and politic values of a country. Within this volume, climate change communication is examined from Cameroonian, Kenyan and Zimbabwean perspectives. From the role of stakeholders to practical field experiences, the individual case studies present an interesting and informative portrait of climate change communication. It is often the poorest and most vulnerable people who are most affected by the impacts of climate change. Therefore, community-based adaptation is an approach that is aimed at empowering communities in the process of planning for and coping with climate change. In this book, this progressive and innovative approach is examined from a grass-roots perspective that looks to both the Eastern Himalayas and Zimbabwe. Readers are presented with case-studies that investigate the importance of indigenous knowledge, community-based research and the role of social workers in climate change mitigation. This high-quality resource puts forward a well-informed and accessible discussion of climate change perception that will be of interest to both students and scholars, alike.

Climate Change and the Health of the Public

Being intrinsically associated with death-related themes (e.g. decay, destruction, lack of control, chaos), communicating climate change risks may elicit thoughts in an audience about their own mortality – potentially invoking terror management responses. This study examined individual differences in death-thought accessibility (DTA) amongst Australian university students (N = 241) after exposure to information about climate change impacts, to predict climate change risk perceptions. It was posited that information about the impacts of climate change would lead to worldview defence (a terror management strategy) via increasing death-related thoughts. Although climate change salience did not invoke DTA, there was evidence that choosing not to complete word-fragments in a death-related manner reflected a high death-defensive response, rather than low-DTA. Compared with a control condition, climate change salience participants’ risk perceptions shifted liberally. The function of death-related thoughts depended on the individual’s climate change beliefs. Climate-deniers with high-DTA in the climate change salience condition showed greater risk perceptions compared to those with high-DTA in the control condition. Risk perceptions did not change as a function of DTA amongst climate-acceptors. A general implication was that climate change communications, may not produce counterproductive terror management outcomes as has been previously hypothesized. Rather they may motivate more realistic attitudes, such as perceiving climate change as high-risk, even amongst climate-deniers. From a policy perspective, to maximise acceptance, climate change information may benefit from being presented within frameworks that support individuals’ important personal worldviews.