This piece was co-written with Asher Minns
University researchers in the UK feel disempowered about climate action despite wanting to do more for climate action, shows new research led by Briony Latter of the Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations (CAST) and the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.
Our interpretation of these results may suggest that the accepted wisdom of the agency to act on climate change – the ability to take some actions however small – might not hold very true if University researchers with a professional and social network of people working in or around climate change and sustainability feel disempowered. According to the study, one factor to this disempowerment is that researchers aren’t connecting with their peers about what they’re doing to address climate change. A comparison with general publics would be an interesting addition – is disempowerment any different for University researchers as the general public?
Many researchers neither agreed or disagreed that climate change is a priority for other researchers (43.4%), that other researchers do not know how to address climate change (44.6%) or are reluctant to address it in their professional roles. We do know that people generally underestimate other people. Work with Shalom Schwartz’s Universal Values by Common Cause across many professional communities and countries, and personal experience when training researchers in the science of climate change communication, we know that participants commonly rank other people as motivated by ‘selfish’ values of self-direction, achievement, and power. Participants themselves rank themselves as holding universal and benevolent values, not at all selfish.
Read full blog here. This blog was written and published for the Tyndall Centre.
Renee Karunungan 