Blog Post 8: Climate Change - Attitudes vs Behavior

Climate Change: Attitudes vs Behavior

After reading the article “On Climate Change, a Disconnect Between Attitudes and Behaviors”, I realized that the article highlighted important points that we went over together in class. In fact, the key takeaway from Jacobs’ (2018)“On Climate Change, a Disconnect Between Attitudes and Behaviors” is that people who believe in climate change are not participating in pro-environmental behavior, while people who are climate change skeptics do participate in pro-environmental behavior. What could be the reasons for this? Why does population behavior seem to go against what would be “normal”? Jacobs (2018) provides a possible answer, yet it is essential to cross-reference Jacobs’ opinion with that of environmental experts. This blog post will analyze Jacobs’ opinion on behaviors and attitudes, relating it to Thomas Christine (2013)and Brown’s et al (2010)views on public adaptation of pro-environmental behavior.

Jacobs’ “On Climate Change, a Disconnect Between Attitudes and Behaviors” (2018) conveys the results of a study conducted by Michael Hall, of the University of Michigan, which sheds light to a rather unexpected occurrence: climate change skeptics behave in a more environmentally friendly way than climate change believers. Why is this? Hall, through Jacobs (2018) argues that climate change skeptics “opposed policy solutions … [but] were most likely to report engaging in individual level, pro-environmental behavior” (2018:2). In contrast, people who believe in climate change “were most supportive of government climate policies, but least likely to report individual-level actions” (2018:3). Jacobs (2018:4) describes this behavior with a simple quote, “Sorry, I didn’t have time to recycle – I was too busy watching a documentary about the crumbling Antarctic ice shelf”. In other words, Jacobs (2018) relies on the condition of moral licensing as the culprit. Because believers in climate change support Greenpeace and other climate change advocating organizations, they feel like they’ve “Earned points” (2018:10), hence ignoring reusable bags and one-time use plastics. 

These behaviors observed by Hall and conveyed through Jacobs can be related to Thomas’ (2013) views about identity and its role in pushing people to or away from pro-environmental behavior. One of Thomas’ (2013) key arguments is that identity has a major role in shaping an individual’s opinion towards pro-environmental behavior. Essentially, if it is rooted into someone’s identity that there is no need to recycle, for example, then telling that individual to recycle will only push them away from actually recycling (Thomas and Sharp, 2013). It can be deduced that someone’s identity is shaped by their surrounding experiences and environment. As a result, donating to Greenpeace and other non-profit climate change advocate organizations will contribute in shaping someone’s identity. It is then not only understandable that people who publicly support climate change do not participate in pro-environmental behavior, but that if you push them into pro-environmental behavior, they will lash out and retreat into a comfortable environment, with other individuals like them (Thomas and Sharp, 2013).

Although Thomas’ findings support Jacobs’ interpretation of an individual’s pro-environmental behavior, it is still hard to believe that climate change deniers are essentially more
“sustainable” than climate change believers. In fact, Brown et al (2010), on debating about the implementation of Electric Vehicles in the future, seem to entirely contradict Thomas’ and Jacobs’ point. Although Brown et al (2010) focus more on the standards and regulations necessary for introducing the Electric Vehicle, they also focus on consumer behavior. In fact, Brown et al (2010) argue that environmental consciousness is arguably one of the leading drivers for the implementation of the Electric Vehicle to be possible.

Following Jacobs, Thomas, and Brown’s interpretation of human behavior towards pro-environmental behavior, it becomes obvious that pro-environmental behavior is not a simple topic that has a quick-fix. Simply believing in climate change isn’t enough to establish pro-environmental behavior (Jacobs, 2018). There are various reasons that can influence human behavior, such as identity, that play a key role in establishing pro-environmental behavior.

Bibliography

Brown, S. & Pyke, D.. & Steenhof, P. (2010) Electric vehicles: The role and importance of standards in an emerging market. 

Jacobs, T. (2018) On Climate Change, a Disconnect Between Attitudes and Behavior. [online] Available from: https://psmag.com/environment/mission-compostable (Accessed 26 November 2018).

Thomas, C. & Sharp, V. (2013) Understanding the Normalisation of Recycling Behaviour and its Implications for Other Pro-environmental Behaviours: a review of social norms and recycling. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 79 : 11–20.