RESEARCH ARTICLE
Making Progress Through Disagreement: Meeting
Residents Where They Are on Climate Change
Hayley Elszasz
PhD Candidate, 弗吉尼亚大学, Department of Politics
关键词: climate communications, framing, 宣传, nongovernmental organizations,
community-based organizations
开放访问
杂志
抽象的
While Americans do not agree about climate change, what to do to overcome this
disagreement is a topic of debate. Climate communications researchers warn that messaging
must overcome the challenges of communicating scientific information to lay audiences, 这
uncertainty of scientific predictions, and the massive scale of climate change to be effective at
mobilizing a population. Such work focuses on “top-down” communication of what the
scientific reality of climate change requires of citizens: how to get them in line with
what needs to happen to prevent catastrophic change. 在本文中, I document how
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and community-based climate organizations (CBOs)
make progress on climate action by dialoguing with their constituents and building on
preexisting community connections. 我认为, instead of focusing on achieving climate
共识, these organizations rely on narratives around the local experience of
environmental disruption to mobilize communities.
介绍
Climate change is one of the most pressing issues of our time. 像这样, an array of organiza-
tions has been founded in the past decades to address different aspects of the issue for different
constituencies and scales. This multifaceted ecosystem includes organizations operating from
the levels of neighborhood, town, 地区, state and country, up to groups like the United
国家 (和) that set international climate guidelines and goals.
Despite the importance of the issue, the public’s concern about climate change appears lack-
luster when consulting aggregate survey data. According to studies conducted by the Yale Pro-
gram on Climate Communication, 仅有的 63% of Americans reported themselves to be “worried
about global warming,” and only 43% believed that “global warming will harm them person-
ally” (Yale Program on Climate Communication, 2020). 相比之下, I argue that national-level
statistics on climate concern belie the still significant role the ecosystem of diverse climate
organizations plays in meeting residents where they are on climate and communicating climate
科学, 政策, and mitigation and adaptation strategies to audiences. These local climate orga-
nizations offer multifaceted opportunities for citizen engagement, using different language to
frame the focus of action. Rather than using “climate change” to mobilize citizens, they highlight
climate change–related events with more local resonance, including flooding, sea level rise,
extreme heat, canopy coverage, conservation, housing scarcity, and instances of climate injus-
泰斯. Engaged residents and activists work in their neighborhoods, 城市, 地区, and states to
引文: Elszasz, H. (2023). 制作
Progress Through Disagreement:
Meeting Residents Where They Are on
Climate Change. Journal of Climate
弹力 & 气候正义,
1, 134–140. https://doi.org/10.1162
/crcj_a_00004
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1162/crcj_a_00004
通讯作者:
Hayley Elszasz
he4ns@virginia.edu
版权: © 2023
麻省理工学院.
在知识共享下发布
归因 4.0 国际的
(抄送 4.0) 执照.
麻省理工学院出版社
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Making Progress Through Disagreement
translate between communities and policymakers. Not all actors involved in the climate change
fight speak the same language or use the same frames of reference or strategies; 然而, it is this
diversity of approaches that, 我认为, offers the most hope in being able to engage the diverse
populations that make up the American social landscape.
在本文中, I build a theory of how climate organizations act as translators to communicate
the benefits of climate action. Instead of focusing on any particular outcome of their work, I doc-
ument how climate activists and organizations do their work and conceive of their role. 统计数据
about the level of climate engagement among Americans suggest, if anything, that we need more
avenues for people to get involved at their level in ways that make the most sense to them.
THEORY: COMMUNICATING CLIMATE CHANGE
Social movements and actors like NGOs and CBOs engage in framing issues to attract atten-
tion to certain causes, often in ways that seek to mobilize more “everyday” forms of action. 在
the words of Merry and Levitt (2017), NGOs “vernacularize” globalized problems via “trans-
lation within context” (PP. 213–215). They bridge the “universalism” of the globalized dis-
course around an issue and the “relativism” of local experiences, 价值观, and beliefs. Merry
and Levitt find that while NGOs deploy “human rights” language strategically with donors and
international organizations to advance their cause, in their local work they tend to focus on
more specific issues such as violence against women (p. 233). 这样, NGOs situated in
particular settings play an important role in reframing and redeploying global problems—like
human rights or climate change—to gain support from local audiences, 资助者, 和别的
stakeholder groups.
One proposed way to improve action on climate change, which echoes what Merry and
Levitt document, is to emphasize narratives about local experiences of environmental change
(Adger et al., 2011; Hulme, 2010; Swyngedouw, 2010). A key, but to date underexplored, theme
in this emerging body of work is the central role for local-level activists and organizers to act as
translators of climate change. The majority of the existing literature on environmental issue
framing misses the iterative interactions among organizations, 公民, and policymakers,
instead focusing on unidirectional frames originating from one particular type of actor (经常,
the scientist or the state). Using text analysis of organizational press releases, Wetts (2020) finds
that technocratic, elite-oriented framings about climate change predominate across all types of
organizations in the American context. 相比之下, I use interpretive methods and find that
NGOs and CBOs in my case study area often engage with the politics of climate change delib-
erately by acknowledging the unjust distribution of burdens associated with climate change,
pushing for climate justice for their unique constituencies, and lobbying local government offi-
cials for stronger legislation and equity measures that push against the status quo. This kind of
situated climate change engagement is often overlooked in studies of climate communication
because it is not articulated in a globalized language of “climate change,” but instead relies on
locally inflected narratives about human resilience, intersectional challenges, or individualized
experiences of changing weather patterns. The ability to ground the dilemmas and uncertainties
associated with climate impacts in local realities, 我认为, is what makes local climate organiza-
tions powerful intermediaries and key actors in shaping climate action.
Climate Mobilization in the Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area (Bay Area) of California in the United States exemplifies many of
the challenges facing urban regions more broadly. 这里, manifold environmental pressures
wrought by climate change (sea level rise, wildfires, drought, extreme heat, and flooding)
气候适应力和气候正义杂志
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Making Progress Through Disagreement
intersect with and amplify other social and political challenges like economic inequality, 房子-
ing access, 运输, immigration, and racial injustice. In these ways, the Bay Area con-
stitutes a key site for inquiring into how climate activists and organizations operate within a
complex political, 经济的, and ecological geography of competing and connected issues.
California has a reputation as a progressive state and leader in climate action. As one of
the areas of the country facing severe early impacts of climate change, California is meeting
the challenge with political and financial investment. 例如, the state sent its own
22-member delegation to Glasgow for the 2021 UN Climate Summit (known as COP26)
(Madrigal, 2021). 在 2022, California’s governor proposed a budget of $37 billion to spend on diverse climate change–related measures over the next 6 years—including investments in health care, 运输, 住房, 和教育 (Roth, 2022). 然而, to view California as already in agreement about committing to strong climate action misses ongoing debates and negotiations between actors situated in various geographic, 社会的, and economic settings and advocating for different constituents priorities. Using the following methods, I uncover some of the impor- tant work that substate organizations are doing to push equitable climate action forward. METHODS My primary method is individual interviews with climate activists, organization leaders, and local government officials. I have conducted 30 individual interviews—ranging from half an hour to 2 hours in length—with individuals working in 20 different climate-related organiza- tions in the Bay Area. The majority of the interviews were with staff at climate change or environment-related organizations.1 Fewer of my interviews were with staff at organizations that focus on a number of community quality-of-life issues,2 including environmental ones, and local government officials. The smallest organization I engaged had two staff, while larger ones like the Greenlining Institute employ 30. Among these organizations, there is variation in the scale at which they work and their intended constituencies, which are not always narrowly geographically based, but can be focused on particular demographic populations as well (such as Black or brown residents, the Spanish-speaking community, ETC。) 所以, my conceptu- alization of a local climate change organization includes organizations that highlight environ- mental concerns in their work and focus their attention on a defined, subnational community. My interviews were semistructured. Although there were some questions that I asked all interviewees,3 I let the interviews flow conversationally. After each interview, I transcribed 1 Including Climate Resilient Communities, Acterra, the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, Factory Farming Awareness Coalition, Plastic Free Future, Carbon Free Silicon Valley, and the Menlo Park Climate Team. 2 Including Palo Alto Forward and the Greenlining Institute. 3 My basic interview schedule included: Can you tell me a bit about yourself and how you got involved in this work? 1. 2. What are the most important issues in your community? 3. What role does your organization play in your community? What role would you like it to play? 4. What strategies have you found successful for getting others involved in this work? 5. What other organizations/institutions do you like to collaborate with? What organizations/institutions are difficult to work with? 6. What about your setting in the Bay Area makes your work harder or easier? 7. What are the biggest challenges associated with your work? 8. 9. Who else should I speak to? Is there anything important about your work that I haven’t asked you yet? Follow-up questions flow naturally from the conversation and differ from interview to interview. 气候适应力和气候正义杂志 136 从http下载的://direct.mit.edu/crcj/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/crcj_a_00004/2157224/crcj_a_00004.pdf by guest on 07 九月 2023 Making Progress Through Disagreement Table 1. Frame Examples: Feeling and Experience Frame Type Feeling and experience Examples from Local Activists “So when you give studies that say, ‘Oh, CO2 levels go up 400, 你知道, 400, 你知道, four megatons, 400 million megatons per year,’ someone who has a job, who is just worried about, 你知道, two jobs with kids are going to be like, ‘What the hell does that mean? I don’t know. I can’t fathom that.’ But the people can fathom that it’s getting hotter. People can fathom that gas is expensive and people can definitely feel when there’s wildfires…”4 “I don’t know a polar bear. I’ve never seen an ice cap, but like, I know my neighbors. I know my community.”5 the conversation (as long as the interviewee consented to being recorded, which all but one did). 然后, I conducted open coding using Dedoose to track major themes and narratives; the interviews that I highlight here showcase prevalent motifs that resulted from the coding process. Activists Translating Local Experience While climate change is a global phenomenon, it is experienced locally by communities under specific political, 经济的, 社会的, and ecological conditions. Climate change is not only a scientific reality, but a social one as well. Reactions to environmental disruption are grounded in and activated by cultural beliefs, risk perception and tolerance, and social attri- butions of value (Hulme, 2009). Organizations and social movements that do climate work play an essential role in grounding scientific facts with narratives that resonate with commu- nities and foster understanding (见表 1). Smaller organizations that focus on a defined constituency are able to tailor their messaging to speak to local audiences. Violet Wulf-Saena, the founder and leader of Climate Resilient Communities (CRC) in East Palo Alto explains, We don’t go in [to the community] and say, OK, what is climate change?… It depends on the community that we’re engaging. So it may start off with the most important issues like water. We talk about droughts. 然后, when we talk about droughts, then we can get to climate change and how it’s more frequent. Wulf-Saena sees her objective as helping the community “connect the dots” between changing precipitation patterns and climate change ( V. Wulf-Saena, personal communication, 八月 3, 2021).6 Organizations like CRC see their work pay off when their constituents dem- onstrate increased fluency around climate change. According to Wulf-Saena, “A lot of people don’t understand the term climate change… that was another big issue that I had to create a lot of programming around.” When people start engaging with CRC programming or speaking with Wulf-Saena, they may not be very conversant around climate change, but they do under- stand their own experiences with changing weather patterns. Instead of expecting automatic support for climate mitigation efforts—or blaming resi- dents for their lack of prior understanding and support—local climate organizations are 4 Antonio Lopez Interview, 八月 27, 2021. 5 Molly Tafoya Interview, 十月 15, 2021. 6 “Connecting the dots” is a role that many of the climate organizers I spoke with take on. It is a common objective that I heard from other interviewees in Menlo Park and Palo Alto as well. 气候适应力和气候正义杂志 137 从http下载的://direct.mit.edu/crcj/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/crcj_a_00004/2157224/crcj_a_00004.pdf by guest on 07 九月 2023 Making Progress Through Disagreement tolerant of the different languages, expectations, and prior beliefs of community members. 实际上, local climate organizations use the community’s questions as the starting point for action. “There are a number of aspects of climate change that are concerning to residents or that residents want clarified,” one Menlo Park climate activist told me. She continued to explain how they use resident questions as a launching point for designing their projects and communications. 例如, her organization focuses on the health benefits of home electrification to get their health-conscious audience on board. The Menlo Park Climate Team focuses on reaching constituents in their city who they know come to the climate change fight with a range of beliefs and levels of experience. While some audiences are receptive to scientific information about climate change—and can wrap their heads intel- lectually and psychologically around the necessity to cut emissions by a certain percentage to prevent a certain amount of heating—“that’s only one audience” (Menlo Park Climate Activist, personal communication, 十一月 30, 2021). The same activist also noted that her organization’s communication strategies are not a fit for the entire region. Belle Haven is a community within Menlo Park that borders the San Fran- cisco Bay and has a different demographic profile (lower income and more Spanish-speaking) than other parts of the city. Belle Haven has recently developed its own Climate Team to address their unique challenges and vulnerabilities to climate change. In describing the differ- ent strategies of the two separate groups, the Menlo Park activist noted, “the way that we’re tackling [climate communications] from the get-go, 你知道, for electrifying buildings, 说, and the electric vehicle transition—that doesn’t resonate in the other parts of town” (Menlo Park Climate Activist, personal communication, 十一月 30, 2021). In the two community-level climate teams in Menlo Park, we see how splintering and multiplying orga- nization action can actually benefit the climate fight, allowing each community to focus on the issues that they prioritize. The knowledge of community priorities and ability to speak to those needs is a reason why small-scale climate work is necessary. Rather than duplicating efforts, parallel work attracts citizen attention to climate change. 这样, activists and organizers who live and work in the same community participate in co-creating frames for action by consulting their fellow residents and responding to their priorities and perceptions (小的, 2004). This tolerance and adaptability make local-level climate actors valuable. While national-level polls and statistics rely on a binary belief or nonbelief (support/nonsupport) organizations that are more under- standing of people’s diverse and nuanced perspectives help move the needle. Consistent with the literature on framing, I find that the community climate organizations I spoke with rely on leveraging hope and personal empowerment to bring residents into the fray (McAdam, 2017). Acterra, which focuses on vehicle electrification as a key pillar of climate mit- igation, holds clinics to spread the word about how residents can apply for grants to cover elec- tric car purchases. They then use these success stories to keep bringing more people into the fold. According to Wendy Chou, the Communications and Outreach Manager at Acterra, “Just hearing a story of ‘this person did it, so you can too’” is a powerful motivator. People who go through Acterra’s clinics are “so excited when they have a[n] [electric] car that they didn’t think they could afford” ( 瓦. 周, personal communication, 十一月 8, 2021). 这里, we see environmental communications staff building on the well-established technique of connect- ing climate action with positive gains rather than losses or deprivations (莱文 & Kline, 2019). An important part of articulating the potential positive gains of addressing climate change includes how this work can positively impact other community issues; environmental issues are highly intersectional with other hot-button problems like housing, 不等式, and Journal of Climate Resilience and Climate Justice 138 从http下载的://direct.mit.edu/crcj/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/crcj_a_00004/2157224/crcj_a_00004.pdf by guest on 07 九月 2023 Making Progress Through Disagreement Table 2. Frame Examples: Intersectional Issues Frame Type Intersectionality Examples “and just bringing the point of how important it is to recognize that all fights are similar. Every single issue that our society is fighting right now, racial inequity and financial inequity, environmental crisis. All of these are rooted in the same issues.”7 “I feel like many organizations working with the Latinx community are too busy with the struggle, the day-to-day struggle: paying for rent, finding food. And we, if we realize anything, is that we cannot disconnect those issues [从] environmental issues because we know the healthier the planet is, the healthier our communities will be.”8 Table 3. Frame Examples: Personal Empowerment Frame Type Personal empowerment Examples “But we also know that people need to be brought into the solution… There are tons of solutions that individuals can participate in to create change and feel hope around the future.”9 transportation (见表 2). A city councilor from East Palo Alto talked to me about how the housing crisis in his community is “an environmental thing too because people can’t afford to live here”—in other words, they cannot afford to live where they work, which causes an increase in carbon emissions from vehicle transportation (A. 洛佩兹, personal communication, 八月 27, 2021). Beyond material gains, there are benefits to simply bringing people into the decision- making process, which fosters feelings of efficacy or empowerment (见表 3). According to Lauren Weston, Executive Director at Acterra, “the individual piece is still a heavy part of [我们的工作] because policy can feel very top-down. It can feel like people don’t have agency or control, and we don’t want them to be feeling that way” (L. Weston, personal communication, 九月 1, 2021). With this in mind, Acterra deploys a two-pronged strategy of targeting policymakers to effect more systematic changes, while also tailoring a lot of their programming toward individual behavior change. Providing community-members with actionable measures can go far toward advancing self-efficacy and hope.10 Menlo Park activists follow a similar playbook. Sandra Slater’s organization, Cool Block, provides participating neighborhoods with action “recipes” in an easily digestible format that allows people to participate in climate mitigation. Rather than relying on the neoliberal frame of individual “citizen-consumers” whose only latitude for action is through their consumption choices (Barr et al., 2011), organizations like Cool Block focus on neighborhood connections, community accountability, and social networks to amplify their impact. Instead of only recruit- ing residents with a preestablished interest in climate mitigation and adaptation, Slater brings people from different backgrounds and beliefs into the fold. She explains, “the number one reason why people join is to get to know their neighbors… there’s a hunger for that kind of community-building.” And it works. Using the strategy of gathering neighbors to take action and formulate plans for sustainability and disaster preparation, she found that “we lower car- bon about 30 percent per household when they go to the program” (S. Slater, personal com- munication, 十二月 15, 2021). 7 Alejandra Warren Interview, 十一月 9, 2021. 8 Alejandra Warren Interview, 十一月 9, 2021. 9 Lauren Weston Interview, 九月 1, 2021. 10 See Acterra’s website, which includes actions that people can take by category, 例如, elected officials, municipal staff, or residents: https://www.acterra.org/code-red/#Individual. 气候适应力和气候正义杂志 139 从http下载的://direct.mit.edu/crcj/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/crcj_a_00004/2157224/crcj_a_00004.pdf by guest on 07 九月 2023 Making Progress Through Disagreement Another way to bring people into the fold is to call upon their memories and past experi- ences with more sustainable ways of life. Working with Latinx communities in the Peninsula, many of whom are from parts of Central and South America, Alejandra Warren of Plastic Free Future has found that people have cultural connections with sustainable practices. She told me, “I’m from South America, so I know the way we live our life there is a little bit different. We have a lot less access to cheap plastic because everything is more expensive there.” When she talks to fellow community members, they recognize this same feeling and say, “是的, that’s the way I used to live, and I can go back to that and it’s more kind to my family and to nature, to the planet” (A. Warren, personal communication, 十一月 9, 2021). 这样, Warren builds on preexisting beliefs and experiences about disposability and environmental steward- 船 (Tarrow, 1994). She also confirms the value of protecting their shared neighborhood, East Palo Alto (小的, 2004). Because Warren is located within this community and has a shared background with many of her fellow residents, she is uniquely positioned to communicate the benefits of behavior change. CONCLUSION Behind Americans’ disagreement about climate change are diverse experiences, perspectives, and vocabularies. 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