Researchers say public pressure can shift climate policy — but one thing makes or breaks progress
Researchers say public pressure can shift climate policy — but one thing makes or breaks progress
“Amid record-high temperatures, devastating disasters, and the resulting climate anxiety that comes with them, it can be easy to give in to despair.
The resounding question of “does this even matter?” likely echoes on a loop, every time you toss an item in the recycling bin, or call your elected officials for the umpteenth time.
But according to research from the University of California San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy, public outcry can indeed lead to significant environmental action — even when public officials are openly hostile to climate-forward policies.
Their paper, titled “Going Viral: Public Attention and Environmental Action in the Amazon,” will soon be published in the Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists. It focuses on the “unprecedented” public scrutiny following forest fires in the Brazilian Amazon in August of 2019.
These fires occurred soon after Jair Bolsonaro became Brazil’s president, after a staunchly anti-environmental campaign.
But after analyzing both media coverage and international pressure towards Brazil’s federal government, the researchers found that the increased public attention resulted in a 22% decrease in fires in the country’s Amazon Rainforest.
This, in turn, translated into the avoidance of an estimated 24.8 million tons of CO2 emissions.
“Our research underscores the significant role that public attention and media coverage can play in influencing local environmental policies and actions,” the study’s coauthor Teevrat Garg, said in a statement…
“The 2019 surge in attention led to immediate governmental responses, which contributed to the notable decrease in fires,” he added.
To come to these conclusions, the researchers compared fire activity in Brazil with that in Peru and Bolivia, countries that did not receive the same amount of public pressure, though typically still have the same level of fire activity per square kilometer.”
-via GoodGoodGood, October 4, 2024