While “freedom” has often been a Republican talking point, Vice President Kamala Harris is trying to bring the concept back to the Democratic Party as part of her presidential campaign. In her speech at the Democratic National Convention last month, she said: Declared He said “fundamental freedoms” are at stake in the November election, including “the freedom to breathe clean air, drink clean water and live free from the pollution that contributes to the climate crisis.”
If Harris is trying to persuade voters wavering between her and former President Donald Trump, she may be on to something good, according to a new study: Researchers at New York University found that positioning climate action as patriotic and necessary to protect the American “way of life” can boost support for climate action among people across the US political spectrum.
“It’s encouraging to see politicians adopting this kind of language,” said study co-author Katherine Mason, a psychology researcher at New York University. Based on the findings, she said this rhetoric “has the potential to bridge the political divide on climate change.”
About 70% of Americans already report supporting the government in addressing climate change, including most junior Republicans. CBS News Poll Experts have long been Appeal to American patriotism You can launch them.
The framework has been taking shape under the administration of President Joe Biden, who has pushed policies to manufacture electric vehicles and chargers domestically.Electrifying America’s Great Road TripHarris emphasized this approach to climate and energy during Tuesday’s presidential debate with Trump, highlighting efforts to create “American-made” electric vehicles and turning a question about fracking into a call to reduce reliance on “foreign oil.”
Masons New ResearchThe study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the largest study to date of the effects of patriotic language on climate change, and involved nearly 60,000 participants from 63 countries. Americans read messages declaring that environmentally friendly attitudes help “keep America the way it should be” and asserting that “protecting the nation’s natural resources is the patriotic thing to do.”
The text was accompanied by photos of climate-related impacts — an American flag fluttering in the breeze, picturesque national parks, flooded Houston after Hurricane Harvey, and the Golden Gate Bridge shrouded in an orange haze of wildfire smoke — and people who read it were more likely to have greater faith in climate change, more willing to share information about it on social media, and more support for environmental policies like higher carbon taxes and expanded public transportation.
The researchers wanted to test a psychological theory that suggests people often defend the status quo even if it’s flawed because they desire stability, not uncertainty and conflict. “This mindset is a major obstacle to tackling big problems like climate change because it leads people to downplay the problem and resist changes that are needed to protect the environment,” Mason said.
For decades, environmental activists have urged people to make sacrifices for the greater good of society — riding a bike instead of driving a car, eating more vegetables instead of meat, turning down the thermostat in the winter. Asking people to give up something can provoke backlash, said Emma Frances Bloomfield, a professor of communications at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She says the study’s framework flips that on its head. “Instead of asking people to make sacrifices or make drastic changes, acting on behalf of the environment can prevent drastic changes in environmental damage.”
Bloomfield, who has studied ways to find common ground with conservatives on climate change, wasn’t surprised by the study’s finding that appealing to patriotism works in the U.S. But the results were less clear in other countries: Patriotic language had some positive effect in Brazil, France and Israel, but backfired in other countries, including Germany, Belgium and Russia.
Bloomfield urged caution when deploying this strategy in the real world, as it could come across as an attempt to pander to and manipulate conservatives. “I think patriotism or any kind of framing message can certainly backfire if it’s not seen as a true nexus of values,” he said.
Talking about global environmental issues in an overly chauvinistic or competitive way can be another pitfall. Research published in Environmental Communication magazine “Green nationalist” framing, which pits countries against each other on environmental progress, was found to reduce people’s support for policies to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Study author Natalia Bogad, a German psychologist, said the new PNAS study “doesn’t touch on any of the key features of nationalism and only briefly touches on patriotic duty,” which may partly explain the difference in results.
But when done well, appealing to local loyalty can translate into support for environmental causes. Take the “Keep Your Hands Off Texas” campaign, launched in the late 1980s to reduce litter along the state’s highways. Its target audience was the idea that littering was “a bad thing.”God-Given RightsRather than challenging their identity, the campaign appealed to Texas pride, with surprising results. 72 percent In just four years, the phrase Texas Power — so bad that many people forget that it was originally meant as an anti-litter message.
