Artificial trees & moral hazards: framing effects on

public perceptions of geoengineering

Nick Pidgeon & Adam Corner

Understanding Risk Research Group,

School of Psychology, Cardiff University

Integrated Assessment of Geoengineering Proposals (IAGP)• 4 year NERC/EPSRC consortium (6 institutions)

• Climate modellers, systems analysts, social science

• Produce an assessment framework for evaluating geo proposals as they emerge

• Cardiff (Pidgeon, Corner, Parkhill) leading on public engagement (cf ‘Oxford Principles’)

Overview:•2 online ‘framing’ experiments with

nationally representative samples of UK public

• Exploring two key questions

Study 1: Impact of natural analogies

Study 2: Persuasiveness of ‘moral hazard’ arguments

Natural analogies

“Removes CO2 just like an artificial tree”

“Cools the earth just like a volcano”

• Cardiff workshops in 2011 have shown:

• Rich and complex relationship between geoengineering and ‘nature’

• An unjustified intervention? Giving nature a ‘helping hand’? Frankenstein’s monster?

• Are geo technologies ‘like’ natural processes?

Natural analogy = more positive (slightly)

Corner and Pidgeon, Climatic Change, 2014

Statistically significant

What predicts support for geoengineering?

Regression analyses show:

•Some effect of the experimental manipulation (natural analogy gains more support)

•Climate scepticism negatively predicts support for geoengineering

•BUT far strongest predictors of support were naturalness measures – they seem to play a central role

Study 2 – exploring the ‘moral hazard’ argument (Corner and Pidgeon, Phil Trans Royal Society, A, in press)

• Moral hazard: an ‘insured’ party may take greater risks (economically)

• At least 3 possible versions for geoengineering:

Individual (behavioural)Social (others’ attitudes and behaviour)Political (rhetorical or financial resources)

Will geo pose a moral hazard?

• This is an empirical question which can be explored now…but curiously little evidence

• Royal Soc (2009) – geoengineering could ‘galvanise’ climate sceptics?

• More appealing to individualists? (Kahan et al, 2012)

Study 2

• How convincing is the moral hazard argument?

• How do values and levels of scepticism relate to evaluation of moral hazard argument?

• Do people distinguish between different ‘levels’ of moral hazard (individual/social/political)?

• Does consideration of geoengineering galvanise support for existing climate policies?

Design

• N = 610, nationally representative for age/gender/ethnicity/socio-economic status

• Moral hazard vs ‘counter’ moral hazard vs control

• Scepticism, Schwartz values

Measures“Knowing geoengineering is a possibility makes me feel less inclined to make changes in my own behaviour to tackle climate change” (IndividualMoralHazard)

“When people find out about geoengineering, it will reduce their motivation to make changes in their own behaviour to tackle climate change” (SocialMoralHazard)

“If politicians think geoengineering is a possibility, it will make them less likely to pursue other policies to tackle climate change” (PoliticsMoralHazard)

“The prospect of geoengineering makes me think that the risks of climate change are worse than I thought” (GeoGalvanise)

Moral hazard• “My concern is that if we start talking about the

possibilities of geoengineering, and how it could be a ‘Plan B’, we will take our eye off the ball with carbon emissions. After all, while geoengineering can treat the symptoms of climate change, it doesn’t deal with the underlying cause. Some countries will see geoengineering as an excuse to avoid reducing their own emissions – and that’s not fair. We need to focus on existing policies – switching to renewable energy sources, using less energy through changes in people’s lifestyles, and regulating industry more effectively.”

Counter moral hazard• “The great thing about geoengineering is that

it does not require people to change their behaviour, or for green taxes, or for industry to be more heavily regulated. Sure, there are risks in trying geoengineering, but we can deal with these as they arise. If we could remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, or reflect sunlight back into space, we could carry on driving our cars and flying our planes. Geoengineering offers a way of dealing with climate change that doesn’t restrict people’s freedoms or penalise businesses”

Control (rewrite of info from preamble)• “Geoengineering would involve removing

carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it somewhere else (probably underground), or even reflecting a certain amount of sunlight back out into space. There are likely to be some serious risks involved, but at the moment we can say very little with confidence about exactly how geoengineering would work”

Moral hazard more persuasive than counter-arg, esp for non-sceptics

Figure 1: Ratings of argument convincingness in all conditions, by level of scepticism about climate change. Error bars represent one standard deviation

Distinct profiles for different types of moral hazard (regression analyses)

• Agreement with Individual moral hazard measure predicted by scepticism, socio-economic status, self-enhancing values (and not the framing manipulation)

• Agreement with Social and Political moral hazard measures predicted by membership of env group and self-transcendent values

“The prospect of geoengineering makes me think that the risks of climate change are worse than I thought”

• Scepticism negatively predicts agreement

• Self-enhancing values positively predict agreement

…an interesting dissociation between scepticism and self-enhancing values (supports Kahan et al, 2012)

Key conclusions• Subtle but consistent framing effects across

two studies

• Scepticism and value-orientation plays a role in both studies

• Views about nature powerful predictors of geoengineering support

• Distinct profiles for different types of moral hazard – so need for more research(!)

Thanks to co-authors: Dr Karen Parkhill, Dr Naomi Vaughan

‘Experiment Earth?’ (Ipsos MORI, 2010)•Early qualitative exploration of public

views (UK discussion groups)

•Key finding: Biochar, afforestation more ‘natural’ and thus preferred…

•But Q’s re: methodology (Corner et al, 2011)

Technology & the natural•A dynamic and fuzzy category (e.g. smallholder

agriculture)

•GM crops; nanotechnologies…geoengineering

•Nature is socially and politically ‘constructed’

•Nature central to ‘environmentalist’ worldview

(Sjoberg, 2000; McNaghten & Urry, 1998; Hansen, 2006)

The ‘End of Nature’? (McKibben, 1970)

“By the end of nature, I do not mean the end of the world. The rain will still fall and the sun shine, though differently than before. When I say ‘nature’ I mean a certain set of ideas and our place in it”

•Geoengineering seems to add a new dimension to this argument…

Study 1: natural analogies•Experimental study of UK public (N = 412 – ‘nat

rep’ quota for gender, age, SE group etc)

•Online framing study – effect of describing geoengineering by analogy to nature

•What predicts geo views? How important is naturalness?

Hypothesis: natural analogies will increase positive views towards geo

MeasuresExp manipulation:Framing of geoengineering information (natural vs. control (‘chemical’)

Predictor/co-variables:CC scepticism scale (Whitmarsh); Value orientation (self-enhancing/self-transcendent - Schwartz); Geo knowledge (singe item)

Dependent measures (5 point scales)>> “To what extent would you support geoengineering as a response to climate change?”>>“Geoengineering will help the planet more than it will hurt it”>>“The risks of geoengineering will outweigh the benefits”>>“Geoengineering is natural”>>“Humans should not be manipulating nature in this way”>>”The Earth’s temperature is too complicated to fix with one technology”

The term ‘climate change’ is used to describe…the kinds of responses that currently exist for tackling climate change include:

Shifting to renewable sources of energy (e.g. wind or solar), or using more nuclear powerReducing the amount of energy that we use (e.g. through big changes in our lifestyles)Introducing green taxes, and regulations on industry to be more efficient and waste less energy There is one other set of ideas, called ‘geoengineering’. This is the term used to describe technologies that could, in the future, be used to intentionally manipulate the Earth’s climate to combat the effects of climate change. Most geoengineering technologies have not yet been developed, and so there is a great deal of uncertainty about their risks and benefits. There are likely to be some serious risks and side effects associated with geoengineering (e.g. changes to global rainfall patterns) but they are not yet well understood.

‘Factsheet’ from www.climateinfo.org

‘Natural’ frame“One technology that we are working on acts like an artificial tree by breathing in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and then storing it underground. Another of our ideas is to imitate the effect of a volcano, by releasing millions of tiny, reflective particles into the highest part of our atmosphere. When a volcano erupts, there is a temporary cooling effect, because certain particles (for example sulphur) reflect sunlight. If a large number of tiny, reflective particles were sprayed into space, this would have a cooling effect on the earth’s temperature.”

Control/‘chemical’ frame“One technology that we are working on involves a chemical process and large industrial machinery to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and then store it underground. Another idea we have is to inject millions of tiny, reflective particles (also called aerosols) into the highest part of our atmosphere. Certain chemicals, for example sulphur, reflect sunlight, although hydrogen sulphide would also have a similar effect. If a large number of tiny, reflective particles were sprayed into space, this would have a cooling effect on the earth’s temperature.”

Scepticism & support for geoengineering