Here’s why we should frame being green as red, white, and blue

The way we communicate the existential threat of climate change is crucial to spurring action. Which approach to take, however, is often less clear. Do we try to decrease people's sense of distance from climate change? Should we describe it as catastrophic or apocalyptic, or will that backfire and increase apathy? These are questions that academics, journalists, and policymakers grapple with on a daily basis.

While you might have been privy to such debates already, there's one angle you may not have come across yet. In a new study published in PNAS, a New York University team explores the effects of invoking patriotism on belief in climate change, and unveil findings which suggest that both liberals and conservatives alike might be moved to climate action through appeals to familiar ways of life.

In this study, 59,440 participants from 63 countries around the world were presented with a definition of climate change ("the phenomenon describing the fact that the world's average temperature has been increasing over the past 150 years and will likely be increasing more in the future"), before reading a short passage.

Some participants were placed into a control condition, reading an unrelated passage from Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. Others were placed into an experimental condition, where they read a passage framing climate change as threatening their country's unique 'way of life' ("the food you eat, the sports you enjoy, the customs you observe"), accompanied by photos of cities, natural resources, people, and flags. The passage ended by declaring that the threat of climate change requires patriotic, pro-environmental action in order to "protect and preserve" the participant's country.

Participants then completed several measures, reporting how much they agreed with statements related to belief in climate change (e.g. "human activities are causing climate change") and their support for pro-environmental policies (e.g. taxing carbon-intensive foods). Finally, they were informed about the environmental impact of reducing their meat and dairy consumption, and indicated whether or not they would go on to share that information on social media.

In the U.S., conservative participants were more likely to start from a basis of low belief in climate change. Yet political orientation did not make a difference when it came to the effectiveness of the intervention: across all political beliefs, those in the intervention condition reported an 18% increase in their belief in climate change.

Similarly, conservative participants in the U.S. were less likely to initially support pro-environmental policy. Again, though, participants in the intervention condition were 12% more supportive of these policies than those in the control. Though there was no relationship between initial willingness to share environmental information and political orientation, those who read the intervention passage were 13% more likely to express willingness to do so than those in the control.

Across the 63 countries, the intervention increased belief in climate change by around 7%, support for pro-environmental policies by around 3%, and willingness to share pro-environmental content by 14%. This seems to suggest, again, that patriotic framing works well on both liberals and conservatives — though the team does point out that the intervention was only consistently successful on both ideologies in the U.S.

Elsewhere, it had a particular impact on increasing belief in climate change in conservatives in the Netherlands and Israel and leftists in Chile, and on support for pro-environmental policy in Brazil, Israel and France. Future research could explore the specific sociocultural contexts of these countries to better hone interventions, taking into consideration political landscapes, existing policy, and prevailing attitudes.

The results are, perhaps, surprising; appeals to patriotism may not be the first thing that springs to mind when trying to engage those on the left. The team has a suggestion as to why this incongruous effect may be taking place, though. They argue that, in the U.S. at least, participants are generally more distrustful about climate change, regardless of their orientation, giving them more room to improve their levels of climate awareness and action. American politicians, too, "regularly promote misconceptions about the supposed incompatibility" of economics and environment, potentially making combined pro-environmental and patriotic ideas more appealing.

Whatever the reason, the results may provide another channel through which to push pro-environmental policies — bringing liberals and conservatives along on this very necessary journey.

Read the paper in full:
Mason, K. A., Madalina Vlasceanu, & Jost, J. T. (2024). Effects of system-sanctioned framing on climate awareness and environmental action in the United States and beyond. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121(38). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2405973121

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