Abstract
Introduction
Following the 2015 Paris Agreement, 1.5°C became seen as the tipping point between manageable warming and complete catastrophe. Yet even a 1.5°C warming above preindustrial levels will bring risks to human health, agricultural systems, security, and livelihoods. It will increase the severity and frequency of natural disasters, including droughts, extreme storms, wildfires, and heat waves, and threaten the survival of entire ecosystems (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2018).
Warnings climate change's existential risks have spread fear, yet there remains a significant discrepancy between the proportion of young adults worried about climate change and the proportion that have engaged with solutions. Many people feel abstract intellectual concern, but not enough gut-level concern to make sacrifices (Hornsey & Fielding, 2019). Although more than half of teens fear climate change, only about one in four have taken an action to fight climate change by participating in a walk-out, attending a rally, or contacting a public official (Kaplan & Guskin, 2019).
In this article, we focus on the failure of non-skeptics to translate their concern into meaningful action. We describe how messages promoting fear and sadness fail to motivate engagement, and instead, trigger mental distress, especially in young populations. We then turn to a discussion of the importance of being realistic about our ability to solve climate change and how every fraction of warming mitigation is critical. We conclude by offering strategies to promote effective climate communication and create emotions that motivate people to act.
The Dangers of Excessive Fear and Hope
Paralysis from Scare Tactics and Depressive Messaging
The media often emphasize attention-grabbing headlines of devastation spawned by climate change, including human suffering, species extinctions, ecosystem degradation, and mass destruction from natural disasters. Constant streams of tragic consequences are designed to incite action by provoking fear. But scare tactics often have the opposite effect of the intended—instead of galvanizing action, they instill a sense of hopelessness; they can lead to apocalypse fatigue, which is selective ignorance resulting from an overload of dooming news (Hornsey & Fielding, 2019). In fact, one study found that anxiety about the climate was linked to disengagement with the climate movement (Stanley et al., 2021). While we can't dwarf the tragedies climate change will bring, portraying an apocalypse will only create terror and paralysis. It won't convince climate deniers to change their habits, and it may disincentivize believers from taking action.
Fear can be a motivator for change if the changes are easy to make and the stories are not too threatening (Becker, 2017). Yet climate change is not an easy fix; its consequences are of a scale and severity that threaten every aspect of life, including our own survival. This reality is terrifying, so it's easier to deny the true extent of climate change rather than grapple with the truth (O'Neill & Nicholson-Cole, 2009). Ignorance is a protective heuristic—an easy psychological defense. Naturally, people resort to it when the alternative is dealing with a problem of seemingly insurmountable proportions. Framing a problem as unsurmountable leads people to believe that nothing they do will help, which can incite feelings of gloom and depression. While it's true that scare tactics may decrease climate denial, they must be paired with clear action items and examples of positive environmental changes to prevent despair (Becker, 2017).
Depressive messaging, such as graphic articles or photos highlighting human or animal suffering, is also taxing on individuals' mental health. One correlational study found that eco-depression (feeling “depressed” and “miserable” about climate change) fails to instigate action and also harms individuals' well-being by increasing feelings of depression, anxiety, and stress (Stanley et al., 2021). Depression is a deactivating emotion, so it is unlikely to motivate people to engage in climate activism. While climate communications must not overlook the devastation climate change can cause, they should avoid overly grim messages that can trigger eco-depression.
The Mental Health Impact of Climate Anxiety
Fear and gloom-based messages not only lead to a paralysis of action, but also result in mental health effects stemming from pessimistic outlooks about humanity's ability to mitigate climate change. Young adults especially are increasingly cynical about humanity's response to environmental issues: 84 percent of young adults are at least moderately worried and 59 percent are very or extremely worried about climate change, according to a survey of 10,000 people ages 16 to 25 in 10 countries (Hickman et al., 2021; Strife, 2012). More than 50 percent have experienced climate-related distress, reporting feelings of sadness, anxiety, powerlessness, helplessness, guilt, and anger resulting from the toil of climate change on their psychological well-being and daily functioning. These psychological problems are often accompanied by a perceived sense of neglect by adults to safeguard the Earth for future generations, and betrayal by their governments, who they believe have failed to adequately respond (Hickman et al., 2021).
Additionally, the daunting scale of climate change often results in feelings of powerlessness (Hickman et al., 2021). Even though young adults may care about the climate, they fear that their actions are meaningless, so they don't act. Those who do attempt to enact change are often met with resistance: 60 percent of the young adults sampled in the aforementioned survey reported that their efforts have been ignored or dismissed. The respondents also discussed pessimistic thoughts, including their fears about the future, concerns that younger generations won't have the same opportunities as their parents, wariness about having children, and distress caused by worrying about the things they value being destroyed, humanity being doomed, and security being compromised (Hickman et al., 2021). A Landmark Solutions Survey of 27 countries found that younger people are 66 percent more fatalistic about humanity's ability to mitigate climate change than older adults: one-fifth of the respondents under 35 believe that it's “too late” (Ipsos, 2021). Another study found that while worry predicted stronger support of national climate and energy policies, fear did not, and fear sometimes even decreased engagement with climate change solutions (Smith & Leiserowitz, 2013).
To truly motivate positive engagement, conversations of climate change should support youth activism by highlighting their voices and acknowledging the severe psychological toll of climate anxiety. The media should shift from blasting apocalyptic messages and toward emphasizing the power that people do have; it should encourage a greater sense of responsiveness and instill productive hope.
The Necessity and Danger of Hope
Hope is both a necessary and dangerous emotion when it comes to climate change. Conversations discussing climate change solutions must include constructive hope rather than hope resembling delusion. Constructive hope centers around the belief that human efforts, such as the increased adoption of clean energy technologies, can generate positive change. Such hope is crucial to encouraging investments in innovations as well as policies and practices that can decrease greenhouse gas emissions, for it gives individuals a sense of personal efficacy—the sense that their actions make a difference. On the other hand, false hope rests on the assumption that God or nature will solve climate change, and that human intervention is ineffective and unnecessary. This mindset results in complacency, as people come to see climate change as an issue outside of their control that will be mitigated by higher level forces; in other words: human action is pointless. They rationalize inaction by trusting that “everything will be alright.”
Being Realistic about Climate Change and Mitigation Efforts
The most optimistic models suggest that we can still limit warming to 1.5°C, assuming that emissions peak by 2025 and have been decreasing by 15 percent per year starting in 2020, until reaching net zero (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2018). This scenario would only be possible if countries around the world take swift action, transitioning to green technologies, and completely revolutionizing entire economies. Such rapid mobilization is idealistic, and sadly, impossible. It assumes entire populations prioritize climate change and make personal sacrifices that don't produce immediate rewards. Yet with governments characterized by gridlock, tied up by bureaucracy and pulled in different directions by vested interests, it is unrealistic to assume an ideal scenario (Roberts, 2020). But 1.5°C is not an all-or-nothing threshold. Each fractional increase of a degree of warming will bring worse and worse impacts: 2°C will be much worse than 1.5° and 2.5° will be much worse than 2°C (Hassol & Mann, 2022; Roberts, 2020). Consequences will increase exponentially, so every fraction of a degree of warming we can mitigate is critical. We must emphasize that every little step to reduce warming is important in order to encourage young people to act.
Another problem is that most people view climate change as an abstract, distant issue with risks far off into the future (Shepherd et al., 2013; van der Linden et al., 2015) Everyday issues like household expenses, health problems, and workplace hassles take priority, as they are tangible and require immediate attention. There's a psychological tendency to discount the impact of future events: as temporary distance increases, the perceived risks decrease (Van der Linden et al., 2015). But already, climate change has affected every place on Earth, with effects ranging from increased natural disasters, sea level rise, and habitat destruction, to mass displacement and weather pattern changes (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2018). Climate change is not a problem for distant generations. Moreover, warming is occurring much more quickly than before. Earth's average temperatures have increased at least 1.1°C since 1880, with most of the warming occurring after 1975 (National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 2020). Current discussions of climate change primarily revolve around distant future consequences (i.e., those in 50 to 150 years), which lead people to discount the value of mitigated risks achieved through immediate action that comes with present-day costs (Van der Linden et al., 2015). We must acknowledge that we already are descending down a dangerous trajectory and that associated risks will come within our lifetimes. We can't avoid this reality any longer.
Yes, climate change will get worse. But that doesn't mean we can't avoid the worst case scenarios. By 2100, warming will be 1.4°C to 4.4°C above preindustrial times—a range that represents magnitudes of differences in death rates, intensity of weather disasters, and levels of ecosystem destruction. What part of that range we fall in depends on our efforts to cut emissions and transition to clean energy sources. Any amount of warming mitigation, and this should be relayed in messaging. Thus, to truly inspire change, we must shift from spreading fatalistic messages and delusional optimism and toward promoting realistic conversations about climate change.
Changing the Climate Narrative
Clearly, the way we currently communicate about climate change is ineffective. Strategies based upon excessive hope or excessive doomism can hinder action and even harm individuals' mental health. However, there are emotions and modes of persuasion that incentivize action without triggering distress.
Emotions Conducive to Climate Action
It is important to promote emotions conducive to action—namely, anger, fear and anxiety, shame, and constructive hope—while quelling negative ones that trigger mental distress.
Anger
Anger can be a motivating force, as it rouses feelings of power and righteousness. It can drive the fierce passion necessary to solve the climate crisis if it is directed toward promoting social change. According to relative deprivation theory, people who perceive their group as deprived compared to others (for example, perceiving climate change as a generational, social, and geographical injustice) will likely feel angry about these injustices, and be stimulated to create social change (Miller et al., 2009). Stanley et al. (2021) found that eco-anger (anger about the climate crisis) was the only emotion correlated with personal behavior to address the issue: when people experience injustice or unfairness, they feel angry and participate in collective action. Moreover, eco-anger is a particularly adaptive emotion because it motivates action without harming people's mental health. It replaces emotions that trigger distress and is correlated with lower anxiety, depression, and stress levels than eco-depression (Stanley et al., 2021). In other words, purposeful anger can not only stimulate people to act, but can also restrain eco-anxiety from triggering mental health consequences.
Thus, encouraging anger in young people is a key strategy to galvanize climate action. To maximize the effects of climate messaging, communicators should rely on anger-based messaging. One method for galvanizing anger is creating messaging which claims that peers are angry about the climate crisis. Sabherwal et al. (2021) tested this concept in an online experiment of 1,500 adults in the United States by showing participants a message claiming that a growing number of Americans are angry about climate inaction, believe in human-caused climate change, or support climate action. 73 percent of participants who saw the anger message reported support for taking action, compared to 56 percent of participants who saw the other messages. Thus, messages that suggest collective action stimulated by anger can incentivize others to also act.
Fear and Anxiety
There is conflicting evidence about whether fear and anxiety-based messaging are effective in encouraging people to engage in climate solutions. Hornsey et al. (2015) found that participants exposed to a high-threat message reported feeling greater collective control over the climate crisis. Hornsey and Fielding (2019) suggest that as long as fear-based messages are combined with concrete pathways for action, they can encourage urgency to take those actions. This is explained by the principle of motivated control: somewhat paradoxically, people have greater perceptions of control when they perceive threats than when they do not (Hornsey et al., 2015). According to this principle, perceiving a threat leads to increased perception of control, which eases the risks associated with that threat. However, this evidence is not consistent: other studies found that eco-anxiety predicts disengagement with the pro-climate movement (Stanley et al., 2021). Furthermore, as mentioned, fear messages can lead to denial and despair, which are both unconducive to action (Hornsey & Fielding, 2019).
Therefore, fear-based messaging could encourage action in young people as long as it is paired with elements of hope and specific action steps. For example, messages could tell young people that climate change will lead to health consequences (e.g., those stemming from increased heat waves) and combine this with a recommendation to write a letter to their representative urging national climate policy or local mitigation efforts (e.g., cooling efforts in urban centers). However, studies provide conflicting evidence about the influence of fear, so further research is recommended.
Shame
Tapping into shame is also linked to prosocial behavior (voluntary behavior intended to benefit others), including climate action. Thus, negative feelings of shame can motivate actions that repair social identity and generate a positive self-view. These actions can include helping and caring for others, as well as collective actions that support the climate movement, such as attending a protest (de Hooge et al., 2008).
Since shame is linked to prosocial behavior and collective action, instigating this emotion is a way to motivate people to engage with climate solutions. Often, ignorance prevents people from grasping the consequences of personal behaviors such as driving a gas-powered car or using single-use plastics. Media communications must make people aware of the negative consequences of everyday habits through presenting statistics and clear cause-and-effect information. Understanding the repercussions of personal actions can generate shame that can lead individuals to make more prosocial choices. Furthermore, communicators can create shame to make people feel like a transgression (such as driving a gas-guzzling car) tarnishes their personal image, social identity, or moral identity (Shepherd et al., 2013). The individual may then be motivated to halt the transgression and engage in an altruistic action to repair their image. For example, if a person feels shame about frequently driving a fossil fuel-emitting vehicle, they may choose public transportation or purchase an electric vehicle to decrease that feeling of shame. Although shame is a negative emotion, it can also compel essential action.
Constructive Hope
Constructive hope is a key emotion in motivating climate action. First, it is important to clarify the difference between constructive hope and false hope. While constructive hope is associated with the belief that one has the ability to overcome obstacles and includes constructive problem solving, false hope is a coping mechanism that includes thinking a situation will improve on its own accord (Marlon et al., 2019). False hope has negative effects on climate engagement, but constructive hope has the opposite effect: This type of hope can lead to positive reappraisal of environmental problems, trust in sources outside oneself, and trust in one's ability to influence environmental problems (Ojala, 2011). There is a lot of uncertainty inherent in solving climate change, and hope can motivate people to act even when the outcome is unclear.
To incentivize constructive hope, communicators should increase awareness of the impacts of climate change. They should highlight steps currently in progress, emphasizing that it is possible to enact change, and there must be a rapid mobilization and escalation of efforts (Hornsey & Fielding, 2019). In particular, the media should feature positive actions, such as prosocial environmental behaviors and policy developments, and define steps individuals can take to contribute to climate solutions. Encouraging the public to join an already existing fight against climate change can instill a sense of group solidarity, motivating people to engage with a movement, for instance, by donating to an organization fighting climate change or supporting policies to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions (van der Linden et al., 2015). While hope is necessary to avoid climate fatalism, we must also be realistic. We can't diminish the problem's severity, yet we must emphasize the power of human action to minimize the consequences we will experience.
Modes of Persuasion
Several strategies can be used to generate emotions that motivate young people to engage in climate solutions. The following section highlights modes of persuasion that can appeal to these emotions.
Utilizing In-Group Messaging
First, to maximize the ability of climate communications to promote action, climate communicators should utilize in-group messaging. According to social identity theory, people are much more likely to accept a message if it comes from a person with whom they share a social group or identity. This is because people implicitly trust their in-group members and view out-group members with suspicion. This trust of the messenger makes people more likely to feel comfortable and consequently to trust the message itself (Hornsey & Fielding, 2019). For example, Hornsey and Fielding (2019) found that people had more favorable attitudes toward a carbon tax policy when it was endorsed by members of their political group than when it was endorsed by members of the opposite political group.
To motivate climate action in young people, communicators could utilize a messenger who is also a young person and belongs to a similar group (e.g., one who attends the same university). Young people especially are prone to imitating the actions of their peers in order to fit in, so they are more likely to engage with climate activism if they know their peers support it.
Activating Social Norms
To maximize the impact of their message, climate communicators should also highlight social norms and ensure that climate-friendly behaviors are seen as positive. Social norms are the informal rules about how to behave, and humans seek to conform to these rules. Therefore it is crucial to normalize climate activism as something that is accepted or even encouraged (Hornsey & Fielding, 2019). For example, one study found that the more a person hears their family and friends talk about climate change risks, the more that person is likely to accept the risks as real and intend to act (van der Linden et al., 2015). Another study found that social influences from parents and peers (such as pressure to be more sustainable in their everyday actions) were especially important in determining whether young people engage in climate action, such as recycling or buying environmentally friendly products (Ojala, 2011). According to socialization theory, parents transfer their values to their children, so there is a positive correlation between parents' and children's values, attitudes, and behaviors (Grønhøj & Thøgersen, 2009). Therefore, tapping into social norms, which are influenced by the perceived behaviors of young people's family and peers, is key in motivating young people to engage in climate activism.
Climate communicators can tap into social norms in several ways. First, messages should emphasize that the audience's peers support the action in question. For example, one study found that hotel guests were more likely to reuse their towels when they read a sign that told them that most other guests had done so (Goldstein et al., 2008). In a similar vein, climate change messages could emphasize that most people support climate mitigation behaviors such as decreasing energy consumption. Second, if only a minority of people are engaging in positive behavior, the communicator should emphasize that the group approves of the behavior and that support of that behavior is increasing (Hornsey & Fielding, 2019). To illustrate, a message claiming that most young people disapprove of single-use plastics could encourage a young person to use more reusables.
Make Climate Change Relevant to Individuals
Many people do not take action on climate change because they view climate change as an abstract problem with risks that will take place sometime far in the future. They may also view climate change as impersonal, only affecting other people and places (Van der Linden et al., 2015). This psychological distance can cause other issues, such as financial and familial concerns, to take precedence over climate change, and thus, discourage climate action.
To address this challenge, climate messages should emphasize that climate change affects their audience personally, for instance, by discussing how climate change will impact their own hometowns and communities. The messages should raise awareness of the climate change effects we're already seeing, stressing that the consequences of climate change are already here and will only worsen with inaction (Leiserowitz, 2006). These messages can instill a sense of urgency in people and trigger fear and worry; when coupled with suggestions for actions, these emotions can encourage people to engage with climate change solutions.
Emphasize Group Efficacy
Finally, highlighting group efficacy is a critical strategy to promote climate change action. Group efficacy is the belief that group-related problems can be solved through collective effort. According to resource mobilization theory, to create collective action, group members must believe that the group has the resources to solve a problem and can effectively work together. However, it is important to control the presence of fear in climate communication, as it can decrease the motivational force of group efficacy if it becomes overwhelming (Miller et al., 2009).
Emphasizing group efficacy is a key area of opportunity to motivate action in young people. Since believing that their group has the ability to make change is a prerequisite for collective group action, climate communicators should emphasize that young people have the ability to create environmental change. This message can create constructive hope and incite action.
Conclusion
Today, a majority of young people believe that climate change exists, but a much smaller portion actively participates in pro-climate behavior, such as taking public transportation, decreasing waste, and advocating for change. This gap between belief and action raises the question: What emotions prevent young people from acting on climate change, and how can climate communicators and policy makers motivate action? Both false hope and excessive doomism instill paralysis and decrease individuals' likelihood of engaging with climate solutions, so climate communicators should avoid triggering these emotions. Instead, communicators should appeal to anger, shame, constructive hope, and fear and combine these appeals with actionable steps. In addition, communicators can employ several strategies to appeal to young people's desire to conform, including emphasizing in-group messaging, social norms, relevance, and group efficacy. These strategies can encourage climate activism without triggering mental distress.
Climate change is a challenge of overwhelming severity and complexity. It is easy to see why it creates overwhelming negative emotions in individuals. But with the right strategies, communicators can ensure that they appeal to their audience in a way that both catalyzes change and takes care of their mental health.
Footnotes
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Sarah Brockhouse, Sustainability Programs Manager for UCLA Health, for providing feedback on this article and Nurit Katz, Chief Sustainability Officer, UCLA, for her support.
Authors' Contributions
Anna Novoselov and Karlie Hayes collaborated on the conceptualization, research, writing, and editing of this article.