MPBN interviews Rickard about climate change communication study
The Maine Public Broadcasting Network spoke with Laura Rickard, an assistant professor of communication at the University of Maine, about her recent study on climate change communication. The research, which was published in the journal Global Environmental Change, aimed to determine if the perceived proximity of climate change can be manipulated to inspire engagement in the issue. For the study, about 400 participants from New York and Singapore read a scenario describing how life in either location would differ when one of the three randomly assigned departure dates — 2020, 2047 and 2066 — are reached. A departure date is the future date after which the climate experienced on Earth will be unlike anything experienced in the recorded past. “What we found in particular is that just telling people this message — talking to them about the impacts in either Singapore or New York City in a particular year — didn’t have much of an effect on perceptions of risk about climate change or support for policy,” Rickard said. “What really mattered however, is political ideology, and it mattered the most among U.S. conservatives.” U.S. conservatives reported the highest level of climate change policy support after reading a scenario that described negative climate change impacts on New York City in 2066 — the scenario that was closest in terms of spatial distance but farthest away in terms of time. Phys.org also published the UMaine news release on the study.