Audience: Environmental 'Base'

A focus on individual actions can distract from the larger climate movement goal of system change. While many activists in the UK-based group Extinction Rebellion (XR) call for “system change,” what is missing is an understanding of what kind of system change is necessary—and how it might be achieved. XR activists still engage in personal pro-environmental behaviors, even though their political goals are aimed at systemic change, and the group continues to argue that blaming and shaming individuals is counterproductive. This article argues that accusations of hypocrisy (based on their personal choices of climate movement activists) are used to discredit, divide, and undermine the climate movement—and those accusations by opponents work, to some degree.

American consumers are willing to reward and punish companies based on their corporate climate behavior, but they don’t always know which companies are good and bad. This survey from September 2021 showed that Americans reported both doing this with their recent, past consumer behavior and their intentional, future behavior. 33% of Americans said they have rewarded companies that are taking steps to reduce global warming by buying their products in the past 12 months, and 28% said they have punished companies that are opposing steps to reduce global warming by not buying their products. 41% said that, over the next 12 months, they intend to reward companies that are taking steps to reduce global warming more frequently than they do now. Americans said that the biggest barrier in preventing more of this kind of behavior was not knowing which companies to reward and punish.

Climate organizers should keep their eye out for people who say they feel responsible to reduce emissions. This research shows that people who say they feel responsible to reduce climate change also say they intend to take future political actions. However, these people don’t necessarily say they took actions like these in the past. Americans who feel more climate responsible are more likely to say they would (A) “join a campaign to convince elected officials to take action to reduce global warming” and (B) support a presidential candidate who “strongly supports taking action to reduce global warming.” These feelings of responsibility did not predict someone claiming they had contacted a politician about global warming in the past 12 months, though.

Interventions designed to encourage a particular pro-environmental behavior may have unintended consequences on other behaviors. These so-called “spillover” effects can be positive (for example, when increasing water conservation behaviors also leads to increased energy conservation behaviors) but advocates may also be concerned that they will be negative (for example, when enrolling in a green power program gives people moral license to consume more energy overall). While research on spillover effects is in its early stages, there are few signs to be concerned. On average, spillover effects on other behaviors are negative, but they are also negligibly small. However, keep in mind that most of these studies were conducted in the lab. Looking at the few studies in the field on spillover effects in real world behavior, there are more positive effects.