The future that may (or may not) come: How framing changes responses to uncertainty in climate change communications

Climate change, uncertainty, and consequent risks: opportunities for forest management adaptation in britain

“…Additionally, our findings benefited from reducing the anchoring effect when comparing results for forestry actions between one and three emissions scenarios. Our findings of no expiry dates for the majority of forestry actions across the three emissions scenarios relates to similar results in a climate change adaptation study by Morton et al (2011), which found that higher uncertainty caused a reduction in the public's willingness to react when expressed with negative frames of climate change.…”

“…Decision makers managing natural ecosystems, such as forests, will have to decide which suitable climate change adaptation measures they want to apply (Lindner et al 2010). The factors that influence their decisions in applying adaptation measures are, for example, climate change risk perceptions (Etkin & Ho 2007)(see chapter 2), beliefs about climate change (Blennow & Persson 2009), and the framing of climate change as a problem (Dewulf 2013;Morton et al 2011). But, knowledge is still missing about how decision makers change their understandings or frames about climate change with new information.…”

“…Nevertheless, knowledge is lacking whether frames can direct or delay adaptation actions (Dewulf 2013). Previous studies mainly investigated what frames decision makers have about a decision problem (Dewulf et al 2005) and about climate change (Morton et al 2011), but empirical knowledge is still missing on whether new information will change the frames decision makers hold for a particular climate change problem.…”

Explaining topic prevalence in answers to open-ended survey questions about climate change

“…Hulme 1 suggests six distinct frames: scientific uncertainty, national security, polar bears, money, catastrophe and justice/equity. Analysis of blogs shows how visions of negative impacts compete with more positive perspectives in the climate change debate 14,15 .…”

Using the transtheoretical model of behavioural change to understand the processes through which climate change films might encourage mitigation action

“…This is a common theme in climate discourses (Hulme, 2008), and Tickell (2002, p.737) suggests that we may need a "useful catastrophe or two" to "illuminate the issues". However, research by Spence and Pidgeon (2010) and Morton et al (2011) suggests that positive framing of climate change mitigation, rather than focussing on what will be lost if we do not act, promotes more positive attitudes towards action. Fear can undermine belief that it is possible for individuals to 'make a difference ' (O'Neill and Nicholson-Cole, 2009;Vasi and Macy, 2003) and may prompt undesirable defensive responses (Moser, 2007;Witte and Allen, 2000).…”