(A critique of “Global Warming’s Six Americas”)

Researchers at Yale and George Mason University have categorized Americans into six categories based on their reactions to global warming. They call it “Global Warming’s Six Americas” and it’s intended to be a tool for climate educators and communicators.

The six categories range from the most concerned and motivated (the “Alarmed”) to the skeptical and least concerned (the “Dismissive”) based on their belief in global warming, their concern, and their motivation:

"Global Warming's Six Americas" diagram
from climatecommunication.yale.edu

I think this information is important, but the category names are limiting. This diagram makes it look like the best we can do is become more alarmed, and that’s not true. It doesn’t show how many people are already taking action to reduce our emissions and working on solutions. We should, at the minimum, name a category that we want people to move towards — even if there’s only a fraction of a percent of people that fit that description right now.

My feedback to this research would be to include additional attributes:

  1. Understanding: Does the person understand global warming & the systems that accelerate it?
  2. Affected: Has this person been affected by climate change?
  3. Active: How much time/effort does the person devote to climate action? (Or, for the other side — how much time/effort does the person devote to pushing against climate action?)
  4. Agency: Does this person have the knowledge & ability to take climate action?

My underlying belief here is that those who are affected and/or have more agency & understanding will take more action. Maybe that’s wrong, but the research should focus on what factors correlate with action. Otherwise we’re just shuffling people around into powerless categories, as if global warming will suddenly reverse itself when sufficient numbers of people are “alarmed” or “concerned”.

We need to see a path from Disengaged to Positively Engaged. What kind of information do they need and what obstacles are they facing? And — this is a whole separate topic but — what are we asking people to do? If we knew that all 53% of Alarmed and Concerned Americans would follow through — what action would we ask them to do? What is the plan?

Other random thoughts

  1. Do we actually need people to believe in man-made climate change? Most people don’t understand or care how electricity is generated or how products are produced. They just want things to work; they want to get paid; and they don’t want to feel guilty about their lifestyle.
  2. What about all the counter-messaging by fossil fuel companies & other corporate interests? And the people who spread disinformation? They are a big reason for the existence of “Six Americas” and climate doubt.
  3. Sub-category ideas for climate-believers:
    • Fight-flight-freeze
    • Hustlers, leaders, burnouts, the base
    • Stages of grief
    • Main levers for change: policy, consumption, production, asceticism, investment, social media, counters…
  4. Maybe we should be tracking how many people associate climate action with annoying, complicated, sad, unfun sacrifice.
  5. Podcast idea: “Let’s game it out” but for climate action.
    • Format: For each show, pick a popular climate action (like “compost food waste”), assume that all climate-concerned people the US make the change. What would happen? What would change at the individual & household level? What would have to change in the neighborhood, town, etc.? How much CO2e would be reduced & what resources would be needed to support the change?
    • Guests: One expert, one regular person (maybe a urban-planner-type?), and the host

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