6th Global Conference
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Monday 2nd July - Thursday 5th
July 2007
Mansfield College, Oxford
Session 5: Climate Change, Psychology and Adversarial Attitudes
Chair: Susan Dawson
Compensation, Climate Change, and Duties Between States
Joanna Burch
Brown
University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
No abstract is presently available
The Role of Psychology in our Response to Global Warming
Jo
Thakker
Clinical Psychologist, University of Waikato, New Zealand
Evidence suggests
that global warming is not simply a reality, but also a more pressing
problem than was previously assumed. It seems clear that human activity
is causing global warming and that this warming is destabilising the
environment. As a psychologist, a question that I am compelled to ask
is: What will it take for individuals to change their behaviour? Arguably,
an effective response to the problem of global warming will necessitate
that as a species, we radically change our behaviour. For example, we
need to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, we need to plant trees (and
reduce deforestation), and we need to increase our use of environmentally
friendly means of generating electricity. Of course, this is old news,
but what is new (or
perhaps simply more authoritative) news is that we actually have to make
these changes or risk extinction.
If governments are to effectively tackle
global warming they must work with what we know about human nature. What
we know now, suggests that individuals are unlikely to change their behaviour
unless there is a real, impending and proximal problem. However, if we
wait until such time as climate change begins to affect people in this
way, it may be too late. Therefore the onus is on governments around
the world to educate people and to implement strategies that will impact
on individual behaviour. Moreover, social scientists need to work together
and with government bodies to develop behaviour change strategies that
have a sound scientific basis.
Basic psychological theories offer insights
into the many factors that shape human behaviour. Behaviourists highlight
the importance of various types of rewards and punishments, social psychologists
emphasise the importance of interpersonal and societal variables, and
evolutionary psychologists refer to the impact of evolutionary pressures
(not that these approaches are mutually exclusive). This paper will examine
the potential role of psychology in assisting with the management of
global warming, especially in light of current knowledge of the best
ways to instigate behavioural change.
Science vs. Society? Adversarial Attitudes in the
Understanding of GM
Linda
Hadfield
Greengauge Consultancy,
Thurleigh, Bedford, United Kingdom
The aim of this paper is to investigate
the ways in which statements made by members of the lay public about
controversial technologies reflect underlying assumptions on the validity
and trustworthiness of various sources of knowledge.
Building on previous
work, it takes as its starting point a study of the email responses to
the ‘GM Nation’ online debate, a public consultation
exercise on genetic modification, which was carried out by the UK government
in 2003.
The paper focuses on an analysis of respondents’ perceptions
of the most significant actors involved in the issue, based on the frequency
with which they are mentioned by respondents. Where external authorities
are cited by respondents, the paper asks what implicit judgements are
being made about the trustworthiness of those sources, and why it is
that authorities whose word is automatically taken as correct by some
respondents are questioned by others, while the statements of some authorities
are automatically regarded as suspect in some cases.
It questions the
hypothesis that the public regards genetic modification as a science-driven
technology, and suggests that both the role of science and the public’s
perceptions of it are more ambivalent than this suggests.
The paper has
implications for the understanding of public attitudes not only to genetic
modification, but also to broader issues of science and technology.
