Anger is needed: Anger is most powerful emotion by far for spurring climate action, study finds [View all]

[flamingdem]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/21/anger-is-most-powerful-emotion-by-far-for-spurring-climate-action-study-finds

Anger is by far the most powerful emotional predictor of whether somebody plans to take part in a climate protest, research suggests.

The study, which asked 2,000 Norwegian adults how they felt about the climate crisis, found the link to activism was seven times stronger for anger than it was for hope. The effects were smaller for other actions, but fear and guilt were the best predictors of policy support, while sadness, fear and hope were the best predictors of behavioural change.

On average, people reported having fairly mild feelings about the planet heating.

“The problem isn’t that people feel too scared about climate change,” said Thea Gregersen, a climate psychologist at the Norwegian Research Centre and lead author of the study. “The problem, in Norway at least, seems to be that they’re not scared enough.”