Hard to find some good news out there today. But here’s a bit:
People are immune to climate hopey gloomResearchers tried to figure out whether to make their climate propaganda more scary or more uplifting but found instead that they might as well show 500 people “the history of smartphones”. (That was the control video). Nothing works anymore.
It was a complete wash. No new activists were made.
However, despite these emotional responses, neither [doom nor hope] video was associated with significant differences in climate change risk perceptions, likelihood of behavior change, or likelihood of climate activism. These null results suggest that the impacts of a single hope or fear appeal can be overstated…
After watching the online movies, nobody thought climate change was scarier, nobody want to change anything they did, and no one wanted to be climate activist either, unless they were already one to start with. After 30 years of propaganda, people have heard it all. Pounding them them with more isn’t going to work.
It didn’t matter which movie they saw.
Neither doom, hope nor placebo did a thing.
The multi-billion dollar industry of climate propaganda was hoping to tweak [...]
