Should we change the term we use for “climate change”? Evidence from a national U.S. terminology experiment

IF 4.8 2区 环境科学与生态学 Q1 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES Climatic Change Pub Date : 2024-08-12 DOI:10.1007/s10584-024-03786-3
Wändi Bruine de Bruin, Laurel Kruke, Gale M. Sinatra, Norbert Schwarz
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Abstract

The terms “global warming,” “climate crisis,” “climate emergency,” and “climate justice” each draw attention to different aspects of climate change. Psychological theories of attitude formation suggest that people’s attitudes can be influenced by such variations in terminology. In a national experiment, we randomly assigned a national sample of 5,137 U.S. residents to “climate change,” “global warming,” “climate crisis,” “climate emergency,” or “climate justice” and examined their responses. Overall, “climate change” and “global warming” were rated as most familiar and most concerning, and “climate justice” the least, with ratings for “climate crisis” and “climate emergency” falling in between. Moreover, we find no evidence for “climate crisis” or “climate emergency” eliciting more perceived urgency than “climate change” or “global warming.” Rated willingness to support climate-friendly policies and eat less red meat were less affected by presented terms, but they were lowest for “climate justice.” Although effects of terms on rated familiarity, concern, and perceived urgency varied by political leaning, “climate justice” generally received the lowest ratings on these variables among Democrats, Republicans, and Independent/others. Auxiliary analyses found that when terms were unfamiliar, participants were generally less likely to express concern, urgency, policy support, or willingness to eat less red meat. We therefore recommend sticking with familiar terms, conclude that changing terminology is likely not the key solution for promoting climate action, and suggest alternative communication strategies.

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我们是否应该改变 "气候变化 "一词?来自美国全国术语实验的证据
全球变暖"、"气候危机"、"气候紧急状况 "和 "气候正义 "等术语分别引起了人们对气候变化不同方面的关注。态度形成的心理学理论表明,人们的态度会受到这些术语变化的影响。在一项全国性实验中,我们将 5,137 名美国居民随机分配到 "气候变化"、"全球变暖"、"气候危机"、"气候紧急状况 "或 "气候正义 "的全国样本中,并考察了他们的反应。总体而言,"气候变化 "和 "全球变暖 "被认为是最熟悉和最令人担忧的,而 "气候正义 "则被认为是最不熟悉和最令人担忧的,对 "气候危机 "和 "气候紧急情况 "的评价介于两者之间。此外,我们没有发现任何证据表明 "气候危机 "或 "气候紧急情况 "比 "气候变化 "或 "全球变暖 "更能引起人们的紧迫感。支持气候友好型政策和少吃红肉的评分意愿受提出的术语影响较小,但 "气候正义 "的评分意愿最低。虽然不同政治倾向的受访者对术语的熟悉程度、关注程度和紧迫感的影响不同,但 "气候正义 "在民主党人、共和党人和独立人士/其他人士中的评分普遍最低。辅助分析发现,当术语不熟悉时,参与者一般不太可能表达关注、紧迫性、政策支持或减少食用红肉的意愿。因此,我们建议坚持使用熟悉的术语,并得出结论:改变术语很可能不是促进气候行动的关键解决方案,我们还提出了其他传播策略。
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来源期刊
Climatic Change
Climatic Change 环境科学-环境科学
CiteScore
10.20
自引率
4.20%
发文量
180
审稿时长
7.5 months
期刊介绍: Climatic Change is dedicated to the totality of the problem of climatic variability and change - its descriptions, causes, implications and interactions among these. The purpose of the journal is to provide a means of exchange among those working in different disciplines on problems related to climatic variations. This means that authors have an opportunity to communicate the essence of their studies to people in other climate-related disciplines and to interested non-disciplinarians, as well as to report on research in which the originality is in the combinations of (not necessarily original) work from several disciplines. The journal also includes vigorous editorial and book review sections.
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