Like artificial trees? The effect of framing by natural analogy on public perceptions of geoengineering

Abstract

The linguistic frames used to describe new areas of science and technology can have a powerful effect on the way that those technologies are perceived by the general public. As geoengineering continues to attract scholarly and policy interest, a number of frames have emerged in the scientific, political and media discourse. In the current paper, we provide an empirical test of one of the most prevalent framing devices: describing geoengineering technologies by analogy to natural processes. In an online experiment with members of the UK public, participants who read a description of geoengineering technologies as analogous to natural processes were more likely to support geoengineering as a response to climate change. In addition, participants' views about the relationship between geoengineering and nature strongly predicted support for geoengineering. Our findings suggest that communicators should be cautious when using natural analogies to communicate about geoengineering with the general public, as frame choice is likely to influence public attitudes and potentially convey undue positivity.

The Role of Affect in Attitude Formation toward New Technologies: The Case of Stratospheric Aerosol Injection

“…The direction of the total effect of values is in line with the literature—altruism reduces acceptability (−0.06) and egoism increases acceptability (0.04). Also previously, altruistic values were shown to increase risk perception and decrease acceptability and egoistic values were shown either to have no effect or to increase benefit perception and acceptability …”

“…demonstrated that altruistic and egoistic values and environmental attitudes influence the support of climate policy. Egoistic values also influence the support of climate engineering . De Groot et al .…”

Not in My Backyard: CCS Sites and Public Perception of CCS

“…An additional avenue for future research would be to evaluate potential strategies to increase the acceptance of CCS, such as compensating local residents for specific risks or ensuring and communicating potential local benefits of concrete CCS projects . Moreover, future research could also explicitly focus on bio‐energy with CCS, as it has been shown for climate engineering that describing technologies with natural analogues increases acceptance …”

Public views about editing genes in wildlife for conservation

“…Beliefs about naturalness can make technologies, technological products, and environmental interventions more or less acceptable to people (Rozin et al 2004;Gaskell et al 2010;Corner & Pidgeon 2015). Beliefs about unnaturalness are often linked with unfavorable attitudes toward synthetic biology, genetically modified (GM) foods, and genetic engineering more broadly (Shaw 2002;Gaskell et al 2010;Pauwels 2013).…”

“…; Gaskell et al. ; Corner & Pidgeon ). Beliefs about unnaturalness are often linked with unfavorable attitudes toward synthetic biology, genetically modified (GM) foods, and genetic engineering more broadly (Shaw ; Gaskell et al.…”