Emphasizing the need for energy independence and environmental stewardship could help to change people’s minds about the climate crisis, a new study says.
Emphasizing the need for energy independence and environmental stewardship could help to change people’s minds about the climate crisis, a new study says.
Climate change deniers focus on what they can see and have experienced personally, so solutions need to be framed in a way which makes sense to local communities.
But for this to work the political-media ecosystem also needs to shift to support climate action, and their corporate backers held accountable for the damage they have wrought, according to the research.
The study, published in Ethnos Journal of Anthropology, was carried out by Dr. Susannah Crockford from the University of Exeter.
Dr. Crockford spent time in rural areas in three states in the southern US—Arizona, Louisiana, and Missouri. She found denial, a political-media ecosystem funded by fossil fuel companies, and the influence of conservative white evangelicalism.
Those who Dr. Crockford spoke to did care about erosion and storms and fire and flood and their homes and their livelihoods and their communities. They were aware of climate changes and impacts from extreme weather events.
