Making sense of climate engineering: a focus group study of lay publics in four countries

Wibeck, Victoria; Hansson, Anders; Anshelm, Jonas; Asayama, Shinichiro; Dilling, Lisa; Feetham, Pamela M.; Hauser, Rachel; Ishii, Atsushi; Sugiyama, Masahiro

doi:10.1007/s10584-017-2067-0

Cited by 70 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 37 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Perhaps more importantly, respondents did not mention geoengineering strategies in their assessments of actions the government could take to slow or stop global warming (open‐ended responses), and when directly asked about geoengineering (closed‐ended responses) they rated it as unfamiliar, extremely difficult, and less effective than other actions. These findings help contextualize the public antipathy toward geoengineering found in focus groups in the United States and other countries (e.g., Wibeck et al., ). By implication, this also suggests that people do not perceive anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions as intentional, or as geoengineering, despite the fact that they effectively constitute uncontrolled geoengineering on a massive scale.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 71%

Efficacy Foundations for Risk Communication: How People Think About Reducing the Risks of Climate Change

2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Believing action to reduce the risks of climate change is both possible (self-efficacy) and effective (response efficacy) is essential to motivate and sustain risk mitigation efforts, according to current risk communication theory. Although the public recognizes the dangers of climate change, and is deluged with lists of possible mitigative actions, little is known about public efficacy beliefs in the context of climate change. Prior efficacy studies rely on conflicting constructs and measures of efficacy, and links between efficacy and risk management actions are muddled. As a result, much remains to learn about how laypersons think about the ease and effectiveness of potential mitigative actions. To bring clarity and inform risk communication and management efforts, we investigate how people think about efficacy in the context of climate change risk management by analyzing unprompted and prompted beliefs from two national surveys (N = 405, N = 1,820). In general, respondents distinguish little between effective and ineffective climate strategies. While many respondents appreciate that reducing fossil fuel use is an effective risk mitigation strategy, overall assessments reflect persistent misconceptions about climate change causes, and uncertainties about the effectiveness of risk mitigation strategies. Our findings suggest targeting climate change risk communication and management strategies to (1) address gaps in people's existing mental models of climate action, (2) leverage existing public understanding of both potentially effective mitigation strategies and the collective action dilemma at the heart of climate change action, and (3) take into account ideologically driven reactions to behavior change and government action framed as climate action.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 71%

Efficacy Foundations for Risk Communication: How People Think About Reducing the Risks of Climate Change

2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…A common critique of geoengineering is that unlike mitigation it merely treats the symptoms of climate change rather than reducing the cause (i.e., high concentrations of atmospheric GHGs) (Anshelm and Hansson, 2014;ETC Group Heinrich Böll Foundation, 2017;Wibeck et al, 2017). However, GGR draws GHGs out of the atmosphere after they are emitted, thus raising the question of whether it treats the symptoms or the cause.…”

Section: Social Ethical and Political Concerns Treating The Symptoms?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Blurred Lines: The Ethics and Policy of Greenhouse Gas Removal at Scale

Cox

Pidgeon

Spence

et al. 2018

Front. Environ. Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The topic of Greenhouse Gas Removal (GGR) for climate geoengineering is becoming increasingly salient following the IPCC's 5th Assessment Report and the Paris Agreement. GGR is thought of as a separate category to mitigation techniques such as low-carbon supply or demand reduction, yet multiple social, ethical and acceptability concerns cut across categories. We propose moving beyond classifying climate strategies as a set of discrete categories (which may implicitly homogenize diverse technologies), toward a prioritization of questions of scale of both technology and decision-making in the examination of social and ethical risks. This is not just a theoretical issue: important questions for policy, governance and finance are raised, for instance over the future inclusion of GGR in carbon markets. We argue that the conclusions drawn about how best to categorize, govern and incentivize any strategy will depend on the framing used, because different framings could lead to very different policy recommendations being drawn. Because of this, a robust approach to developing, governing and financing GGR should pay attention first to urgent concerns regarding democracy, justice and acceptability.

show abstract

“…Some of these inequalities in participation (and indeed outcomes) might be countered by engaging directly with communities and groups not normally regarded as having relevant ideas or perspectives, thereby shedding light on “civic epistemologies” of geoengineering (Jasanoff, ). Carr and Yung (), for example, have sought to explore public perceptions of geoengineering in a range of non‐Western contexts (including sub‐Saharan Africa and the South Pacific), while others have engaged with citizens in diverse settings in the global North, including in Finnish Lapland (Buck, ), Haida Gwaii (Gannon & Hulme, ), Japan (Asayama et al., ), New Zealand, Sweden and the USA (Wibeck et al., ). Geographers have much to contribute to these emerging strands of enquiry, drawing not just on the tools of ecofeminist critique, political ecology and environmental justice, but also on unique disciplinary approaches to the concept of place itself.…”

Section: New Geographies Of Geoengineering: Inequality the Productiomentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Several of those geoengineering experiments which have taken place have attracted a great degree of public interest and controversy (see, for example, Stilgoe, 2015), andwith more experiments plannedthis is likely to intensify. While some studies across nation states have shown that public perceptions of geoengineering can be similar (Carr & Yung, 2018;Wibeck et al, 2017), a growing body of research is illuminating the importance of situated knowledge (Hulme, 2008), contextual framings (Bellamy et al, 2012), deliberative spaces (Bellamy et al, 2017), particular places (Buck, 2018a) and local meanings (Gannon & Hulme, 2018) in shaping perceptions of the various technologies. Geographical context is also crucial, moreover, to the form and substance of emerging guidelines and incentives for responsible geoengineering research and development in different contexts (Bellamy, 2018;Buck, 2018b).…”

Section: Introduction: Geoengineering and Geographical Thoughtmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geoengineering and geographers: Rewriting the Earth in what image?

Bellamy

Palmer

2018

Area

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Large‐scale intervention in the Earth's climate system features centrally both in definitions of, and proposed responses to, the Anthropocene. In its deliberate guise – as climate geoengineering – such intervention is highly contentious, threatening to profoundly reshape the geography and politics of environmental governance frameworks, not to mention the nature of the environments towards which those frameworks are oriented. Yet, even as experiments with geoengineering technologies are growing in number, geographers continue to engage seldom with scientific, political or indeed public debates about them. In this paper we contend that geographical ideas about space, scale, power and geopolitics must urgently be brought to bear on ongoing efforts to experiment with geoengineering, and to deliberate its future role in responses to climate change. We develop this argument in two parts. First, we suggest that ongoing debates about the acceptability of geoengineering experimentation would benefit from recognising incumbent spatial and scalar categorisations (e.g., small scale vs. large scale, indoors vs. outdoors) not as fixed ontological anchors, but as relational and provisional constructs, open to being rethought in new, potentially productive ways. Second, we call for geographers to document and contest inequalities and injustices, both in debates about what geoengineering is or might become, and in the outcomes generated by efforts to undertake geoengineering in practice. Here there are opportunities for geographers to reshape the frames of reference used by others to comprehend the implications of the Anthropocene itself, drawing on traditional disciplinary strengths in ecofeminism, political ecology and environmental justice, as well as the production of space and critical geopolitics. Such endeavours, we contend, will form a vital complement to existing geographical engagements with the concept of the Anthropocene, reaffirming the value of the discipline's distinctive – and explicitly normative – voice within ongoing policy and public deliberations.

show abstract

Making sense of climate engineering: a focus group study of lay publics in four countries

Cited by 70 publications

References 37 publications

Efficacy Foundations for Risk Communication: How People Think About Reducing the Risks of Climate Change

Efficacy Foundations for Risk Communication: How People Think About Reducing the Risks of Climate Change

Blurred Lines: The Ethics and Policy of Greenhouse Gas Removal at Scale

Geoengineering and geographers: Rewriting the Earth in what image?

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About