Bridging climate science with humanities
Andrea Veggerby Lind's research on climate communication opens the door for a valuable understanding of how human psychology and identity affect the perception of climate change and thus our ability to act.
A complex interplay between facts and emotions
Do identity and political attitudes affect our perception of climate change and our incentive to act?
According to PhD Andrea Veggerby Lind, the answer is a resounding YES! In her PhD thesis 'Beyond Climate Scepticism', Andrea explores how political affiliation and identity affect the way we see climate change and how we act on the information we already have.
Her research sheds light on the complex interplay between an individual's emotions, identity and social factors in relation to attitudes and behavior change. She points out that even scientifically proven data, such as data in the IPCC report (Assessment Report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), does not alone change people's perception of the climate. Facts and emotions are inextricably linked; we don't necessarily act rationally when assessing new climate information, she says:
- We quickly link new information to our pre-existing attitudes and political stance.
Climate communication is complex. It's about understanding how groups of people receive, react and act on messages differently. By uncovering how people interpret the same climate information differently, a bridge can be built between climate science, climate communication and changing human behavior.
From a helicopter perspective, climate communication is also about how we as humans need to understand climate change as a bigger whole, a whole that affects our society on many levels. Andrea states:
- We humans need to understand how climate change connects to the domains of economics, migration, public health and food security. It's not just about natural phenomena, it's also a societal and human problem.
Where do we want to go
The important conversation about what we want the future to look like is missing from the debate, according to Andrea Veggerby Lind:
- When we talk about green transition, we always talk about getting away from something, away from the use of fossil fuels. We forget to formulate what we want instead, what does the future look like that we want to build our society on.
She believes that the green transition is still a fluffy concept with many perceptions and opinions, not least in the Danish Parliament. What the concept entails exactly needs to be clarified. We need to be better at being explicit about our goals and how we achieve them:
- We must challenge the usual criteria for how we measure progress, for example: more people getting a good education, fewer people suffering from depression, more people having a good place to live and being able to eat healthy food; it's about something other than just saying we have achieved more growth, so everything else must also be better [...] The criteria should be that people are thriving within the planetary boundaries".
Andrea Veggerby Lind wants to continue to contribute with practice-oriented and analytical research within the green transition, specifically with a deeper investigation of the post-growth paradigm and how society can be organized within the planetary boundaries.
You can get in touch with Andrea Veggerby Lind at andreavlind@gmail.com.
This interview with Andrea Veggerby Lind (by Helene Niclasen Jeune) is the first in the series of green researcher portraits.
This portrait series highlights the researcher’s role and contribution to the environmental humanities. It opens up for a humanistic view of the transformations, opportunities and challenges that arise as we move towards a more sustainable society.