Issue: Lab-sponsored Research

The Climate Reality Project and Citizens’ Climate Lobby were interested in knowing whether informing people about existing bipartisan governmental bodies (e.g., the Climate Solutions Caucus in the US House of Representatives) would make the public, in particular moderates and conservatives, both think and act differently about climate. Their hypothesis was that signaling bipartisanship and governmental provenance in an organization could increase enthusiasm about climate action by showing people that powerful interests could unite to tackle the issue.
They find that messaging about government initiatives (as opposed to business and NGO efforts) significantly increases peoples’ sense of efficacy for climate action, which then translates to increased support for personal action-taking. Among conservative men, emphasizing bipartisan government action increases their support for personal action by 30% compared to the bipartisan NGO condition due to raising their second-order beliefs. In other words, telling conservative men that bipartisan governmental groups exist to work on climate change reduces their propensity to say that the average Republican opposes climate action by the government. The researchers do not find any evidence that emphasizing bipartisan government action increases respondents’ optimism about the climate crisis.

Before we can convince the American public to walk the walk on climate action, we’ve got to get them to talk the talk. Read on about our work to normalize relational climate conversations and move folks forward on climate change.

For clean energy engagement with (English speaking) Latino parents on Facebook, testing suggests, cities (rather than school districts) make for campaign targets that garner more support. Additionally, use low-production value videos (text cards & stock footage) rather than high-production value videos (with custom footage and interviews): they produced similar action rates, and in addition to being more cost effective, the low production value videos had higher viewership rates, and can be quicker to make. This research was conducted as part of a field research grant to Climate Parents from the Climate Advocacy Lab.

From June 2018-May 2019, PennEnvironment conducted a test on how personal phone contact (when layered on top of email and SMS contact) affects volunteer recruitment rates with the goal of maximizing staff time efficiency. In particular, they were interested in finding their organization’s break-even point in which their traditional model of personal phone contacts (which is effective, though time-consuming) is matched by digital-only contact (which yields participation, though at lower rates). With a subject pool of 37794 individuals drawn from inactive past supporters and newly recruited volunteers, which were then randomly selected into one of the two experimental groups, PennEnvironment found that the base rate for volunteer sign-ups from electronic contact was 0.002 shifts per contact sent. Layering in phone contact increased this rate to 0.3 additional shifts per call.

This case study summarizes some of the key points from NY Renews’ evidence-based approach to winning the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act, pulling from interviews with organizers and advocates, coalition documents, and news coverage.

Long-form, “deep canvass”-style door to door climate conversations may not be more effective at generating activism than a standard, more direct, canvass approach.  In an experiment involving 1,449 canvass conversations with voters conducted by Minnesota 350, voters were randomly assigned to either a long-form or standard script, and then asked to sign a postcard to lawmakers and recruited for future activism. Future activism rates did not differ between those receiving the two scripts, though the standard script may have produced slightly higher postcard signature rates. Conversely, there is some evidence that volunteer canvassers preferred delivering the long-form script, which may have led to higher volunteer participation in the canvass program. (Supported by a grant from the Climate Advocacy Lab)