This article by Anna Fahey summarizes how talking about climate impacts on “socially distant groups” (and probably vulnerable species like polar bears) is likely to amplify polarization about the issue. This statement is complimented by the following elaboration:
"Climate change campaigns in the United States that focus on the risks to people in foreign countries or even other regions of the U.S. are likely to inadvertently increase polarization among Americans rather than build consensus and support for policy action".
The writer offers some insights by a recent study which argues that "when information about the risks of climate change are localized, connected closely to values such as public health, and communicated in terms of co-benefits to the community, these campaign efforts are likely to be more successful at transcending ideological differences and building support for action.”
I think this piece is relevant to all discussions that pertain to climate change. Indeed, climate change is so poorly communicated and politically driven that peoples' perceptions constantly shift along political and ideological lines. This is dangerous, I think, as it does not offer citizens a chance to digest the information and to think about the issues and risks themselves and produce their own logical conclusions.
Communication in the climate change arena needs to be ameliorated. There are some positive examples within the British Columbia context of communicating the local impacts of climate change, but more needs to happen. In an era of social media, we could use YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other tools to build a dialogue about what kind of action we can take right now to help us understand and adapt to climate change. No doubt, this is already happening, but it gets diluted with political sentiment.
Planners have a role here, but so do politicians, climate scientists and our leaders.
No comments:
Post a Comment