climate crisis: is our current narrative hindering progress?
what’s in it for you?
Learn what the moon landing and climate change have in commonUnderstand the motivational psychology behind framingBecome aware of the impact of inflationary climate crisis narratives8-10 minute read
20 July 1969
The world is glued to their TV screens and radios hearing Neil Armstrong utter the following historic words as his feet touch the surface of the moon:
"One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."
We can only imagine what Armstrong must have felt at that moment but the excitement for this once in a lifetime event was surely felt by hundreds of millions of people around the globe [1]. To this day, the impact of the Apollo 11 mission remains an inspiration for many and continuously finds its way into our language; be it in Google's subsidiary “X, The Moonshot Factory” [2] or as the battle cry “To the moon!” perhaps often ironically but nonetheless commonly used by investors [3]. In any case, the connotation of a highly ambitious yet invigoratingly ground-breaking project remains.
19 June 2023
You wake up after a mediocre night of sleep, turn off the alarm to be greeted by a three-digit number of unread emails glooming in your lock-screen notifications, and push yourself out of bed just to realize that you forgot to restock your favourite coffee beans as the Monday Blues hits you with full force.
Nonetheless, you freshen up, pack your upcycled backpack, remember your New Year’s climate resolution not to drive to work anymore but always cycle whilst also realizing that it’s raining cats and dogs outside. Yet, against all odds, you heroically put on your raincoat space suit, tighten your waterproof moon boots, and grab your umbrella rain shield, ready to embark on a 40-minute voyage to the office base. And as you step out of the door and your feet touch that first puddle on the pavement, you mumble the utterly unhistoric words:
“Plenty small steps for me, no progress whatsoever for mankind.”
Note from the author: if this fictitious Monday morning scenario feels a bit too painfully relatable, you are definitely not alone and there is (professional) support out there!
to the… zero?
One thing seems pretty apparent: individual everyday climate action does not feel like a moonshot.
Obviously, comparing the outstanding mental and physical accomplishment of Armstrong and the whole NASA team to an anecdotal 21st century Monday morning with some minor first world inconveniences, is an odd juxtaposition. However, on a societal level, the space race and climate change do share some interesting commonalities:
Yet, such positive parallels do not seem to appear at the forefront of media or policy climate change coverage. The closest example I could reference is the “Race to Zero” campaign (see Fig 1.), launched by The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2020, which one could interpret as an homage to the space race with net zero emissions as the respective moon landing goal [4].
Fig 1. Overview of “Race to Zero” membership figures.
the psychological difference
However, there is no denying of some striking differences when comparing the two “races” as global phenomena. To my mind, the following three aspects are especially noteworthy with regards to the different psychological impact their narratives might have on our motivation:
Gain vs. loss framing
A common way of distinguishing sources of what drives us is the positive and negative motivation framing, or simply put: carrot and stick. While the moon landing was a positive and reward/gain-focused story of “reaching for the stars”, climate change messaging generally emphasizes a negative loss-focused “avoiding a catastrophe” narrative.This could be to the detriment of encouraging pro-environmental behaviour in the general public, as several meta-analyses suggest that gain-framed messaging tends to increase engagement, persuasiveness, and motivation compared to loss-framed appeals [5, 6]. Furthermore, negative message framing in corresponding news outlets can also carry a more profound emotional, mental health, and cultural attitude impact which we will touch on again further down in this article [7].
Chose to explore rather than forced to avoid
A second important difference of the Space Race and the Race to Zero is the lens of intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is generally described by an inherent interest, curiosity, values, or personal sense of accomplishment when engaging in any activity. One could clearly find such elements in the Apollo 11 mission (once again, the extrinsic motivation within the Cold War setting of the time certainly played a large role as well but goes beyond the scope of this article). Climate change on the other hand typically showcases extrinsic motivation by highlighting the negative external consequences of increasing environmental disasters that we must avoid or at least reduce as much as possible. Unfortunately, scientific evidence suggests that intrinsic motivation is generally more persistent and consistent as well as being more beneficial for overall performance and task completion [8].Effective goal-setting
Lock and Latham’s 1990 publication on goal-setting and task performance has revolutionized our understanding of motivation [9]. While their research has been extended in numerous works over the last years, some of their main criteria prevail: for a goal to be motivating it needs to be specific, measurable, and challenging, yet achievable. While stepping on the moon visibly ticks those criteria, the climate change target of limiting global warming to 1.5°C (or 2°C) is a lot more conceptual and abstract. Whilst seemingly specific and measurable, global average temperatures are fluctuating across time and regions which carries a certain time lag for reliable measurements and creates a much more blurry goalpost. Lastly, the global warming target of 1.5°C is certainly challenging but you can form your own opinion on its achievability by reading our recent article here.
When communication on the topic of climate change is overemphasizing this (1.) negatively (2.) extrinsically motivated framing of an (3.) abstract climate goal, our motivation will most likely suffer, hindering societal progress. Especially, when coupled with a responsibility appeal to the individual, e.g., through a personal carbon footprint, whilst lacking empowering self-efficacy approaches and a collective identity support. Recent phenomena related to mental health and a general view on humanity, such as climate depression (or eco-anxiety) [10] and ecological antinatalism [11], give a first glance on the larger societal impact. Research and data on these topics is still very scarce though so we want to revisit this topic in a future article.
climate crisis and doomsday depression
With failing milestones and increasing urgency for climate action, the general language on the topic of global warming is understandably becoming more escalated as well. The phrases “climate emergency” or “climate crisis” shape many media headlines. Earlier this year, Antonio Guterres utilized the wording “Doomsday Clock”, based on the work of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, as a call to action at the UN General Assembly. One could undoubtedly see this as a much-needed next outcry for even more immediate climate action from the scientific community through the international loudspeaker of the United Nations.
There might however be a problem with this inflationary fatalistic choice of words on the topic of climate change: denial, numbness, or surrender to the message at hand. With 1 in 3 US citizens stating that they actively avoid news in general and on climate in specific, this problem starts to become more and more graspable [12].
Let’s say the Doomsday Clock call to action makes you “get to work” by doing your homework on climate action. Ironically, two of the big organizations mentioned earlier in the introduction of the moon landing are likely to accompany the start of your research and shape your perception of climate change: Google and NASA. Typing “climate c…” into the famous search engine may give you an autofill option of “climate crisis” fairly close to the top. Chances are, you might then also be redirected to NASA’s extensive body of work on the topic (see Fig. 2).
Fig 2. Exemplary Google search result for “climate crisis”.
Note: results are based on cookies, search history, location, etc., and will hence vary significantly.
We want to highlight that the independent space agency provides outstanding research and databases that we also use for our articles. And while a lot of their messaging elegantly combines urgency with a hopeful outlook, encountering the excerpt of Fig 2. out of context could leave one discouraged to say the least. We do not really need to look deep into psychological theories to understand why any situation described as already happening, irreversible in our lifetime, and destined to further worsen does not exactly inspire self-efficacy and proactive climate action in the reader.
But this then begs the questions: What could a different climate storyline look like without being insincere or green washing the scientific evidence of global warming and its life altering consequences? In the next article of this series we want to address that question and propose what an empowering positive climate change narrative based on psychological research could look like.
our two cents
Commonly used climate narratives tend to focus on a negatively framed, extrinsically motivated, and individually non-achievable goal-setting. Psychological research and first empirical phenomena such as climate depression indicate that this framing could be detrimental for successfully motivating large-scale societal climate action. -
[1] National Air and Space Museum. “Apollo 11: The Moon Landing,” n.d. https://airandspace.si.edu/explore/stories/apollo-11-moon-landing#:~:text=Neil%20Armstrong%20exited%20the%20spacecraft,one%20giant%20leap%20for%20mankind.%22.
[2] X, The Moonshot Factory. “X, the Moonshot Factory,” n.d. https://x.company/.
[3] Journal. “‘To The Moon.’” WSJ, June 17, 2021. https://www.wsj.com/articles/to-the-moon-podcast-series-gamestop-the-journal-11622369108.
[4] Owen-Burge, Charlotte. “Race to Zero Builds Momentum - Climate Champions.” Climate Champions, August 17, 2021. https://climatechampions.unfccc.int/the-race-to-zero-is-on/.
[5] O’Keefe, Daniel J., and Jakob D. Jensen. “Do Loss-Framed Persuasive Messages Engender Greater Message Processing Than Do Gain-Framed Messages? A Meta-Analytic Review.” Communication Studies 59, no. 1 (February 21, 2008): 51–67. https://doi.org/10.1080/10510970701849388.
[6] Higgins, E. Tory. “Promotion and Prevention: Regulatory Focus as A Motivational Principle.” In Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 1–46. Elsevier BV, 1998. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0065-2601(08)60381-0.
[7] Nabi, Robin L., Nathan Walter, Neekaan Oshidary, Camille G. Endacott, Jessica Love-Nichols, Z. J. Lew, and Alex Aune. “Can Emotions Capture the Elusive Gain-Loss Framing Effect? A Meta-Analysis.” Communication Research 47, no. 8 (December 1, 2020): 1107–30. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650219861256.
[8] Deci, Edward L. “Effects of Externally Mediated Rewards on Intrinsic Motivation.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 18, no. 1 (April 1, 1971): 105–15. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0030644.
[9] Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (1990). A theory of goal setting & task performance.
[10] Budziszewska, Magdalena, and Weronika Kałwak. “Climate Depression. Critical Analysis of the Concept.” Psychiatria Polska 56, no. 1 (February 27, 2022): 171–82. https://doi.org/10.12740/pp/127900.
[11] Granger, Annie. “What Is Anti-Natalism? The Ethical and Ecological Motivations.” Utopia, May 12, 2023. https://utopia.org/guide/what-is-anti-natalism-the-ethical-and-ecological-motivations/.
[12] Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. “How We Follow Climate Change,” n.d. https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/how-we-follow-climate-change-climate-news-use-and-attitudes-eight-countries.
