Changing the Conversation about Climate Change: A Theoretical Framework for Place-Based Climate Change Engagement

Climate change ignorance: an unacceptable legacy

“…Interventions need to be applied at multiple levels: at the macrosystem, targeting country-wide school curricula and national tertiary training of prospective teachers, and at exosystem levels, ensuring trustworthy communications and forums take place in accord with the contextual needs of respective communities (Schweizer et al 2013), making certain that remote and rural communities are not forgotten. That way influences are more likely to filter through to children via their microsystem connections.…”

Bourdieu, environmental NGOs, and Australian climate politics

“…Schweizer et al (2013), for example, suggest that place-based climate-change engagement may be particularly effective in mobilizing public concern, especially if those places are iconic or have symbolic value. Yet, this focus also points to the tendency these organizations have to emphasize the importance of preservation and conservation rather than grapple with the difficult and dynamic questions associated with environmental change.…”

“…As noted, audience segmentation strategies are increasingly emphasized in literature on climate communication but have not been central to the work of environmental NGOs (see Corner andRandall 2011, Whelan 2012). More specifically, various accounts have pointed to the potentially vastly different mobilizing effects of similar climate representational strategies in different settings (Hayes and Knox-Hayes 2014), while others note the importance of ensuring that representational strategies resonate with the values and beliefs of individuals in specific cultural contexts (Schweizer et al 2013). Narratives of climate change in Australia could be more effective in mobilizing and sustaining public concern if they were more tailored to specific audiences, less abstracted, and potentially located in prevailing conceptions of community values.…”

From Voxel Vistas: Place-Making in Minecraft

“…Place-making is strongly connected with emotions, and Brown and Perkins (1992, as cited in Schweizer, Davis, & Thompson, 2013) discuss how environments and people tend to change in tandem, as place attachments "are nurtured through continuing series of events that reaffirm humans' relations with their environment" (p. 45). Transience itself can accelerate the process of place attachment (Relph, 1976, p. 30), and similarly, migration facilitates place-making through environmental attunement, especially migrations away from overly built environments (Ward & van Vuuren, 2013).…”