participants

Defeating climate apathy

May 30, 2025 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Slowing human-caused climate change requires decisive action. But according to psychologists, the gradual rise in global temperatures can lead to climate apathy, especially among those who don’t face frequent climate disasters.

Climate apathy is a general indifference or lack of emotional or behavioral response to climate change and environmental issues. People experiencing climate apathy may feel disconnected, overwhelmed, powerless, or simply uninterested in climate issues, leading them to avoid taking action or engaging in conversations about it.

A new study by researchers from UCLA and Princeton University looked into ways to effectively communicate about climate change. The research team found that presenting people with continuous data, like rising temperatures in a town, gave them only a vague sense of gradual change. But showing them binary data—like whether a lake froze or not each winter—illustrated the change more effectively.

In the study, which was recently published in the journal Nature Human Behavior, the researchers showed participants either temperature graphs or lake-freezing data for fictional and real towns in order to measure how each format affected their perceptions of climate impact. Participants who saw whether lakes froze rated climate change as more impactful—12% higher on average—than those who saw only temperature data.

By focusing on the increasing rate of once-rare events, the researchers hope that the same temperature data that once led to climate apathy may instead help communities care more about the climate crisis.

**********

Web Links

UCLA study: How to break through climate apathy

Photo, posted November 20, 2008, courtesy of Brad Saunders via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Does vertically-grown food taste different?

January 2, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Vertical farming is a method of producing crops in vertically stacked layers or surfaces typically in a skyscraper, used warehouse, or shipping container. Modern vertical farming uses indoor farming techniques and controlled-environment agriculture technology.

Vertical farming has the potential to be one of the solutions to food insecurity in parts of the world where crop production is limited by climate change or other environmental factors. Vertical farming reduces water and land use, reduces nutrient emissions, and could eliminate the need for pesticides. It also allows more food to be grown locally and with higher yields.

But some critics of vertically-grown veggies say they look pale, artificial, and taste bland. In the first study of its kind, a research team led by scientists from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark sought to investigate whether these consumer prejudices hold true.

The research team asked 190 participants to blind taste test arugula, baby spinach, pea shoots, basil, and parsley grown in vertical farming and compare the taste and appearance to those same leafy greens grown organically in soil.

Overall, the organic greens grown traditionally narrowly beat out the vertically-grown ones in the study, but it was very close. For example, when asked to rate arugula on a scale of 1-9 with 9 being best, the participants gave both types a 6.6. There was no clear winner between basil, baby spinach, and pea shoots. The only clear winner was organically-grown parsley.

The study debunks some myths about vertically-grown food and should help pave the way for more widespread adoption of this efficient method to grow tasty and nutritious food.

**********

Web Links

A delicious surprise: Vertically farmed greens taste as good as organic ones

Photo, posted May 11, 2009, courtesy of Cliff Johnson via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

How Environmentally Friendly Are We? | Earth Wise

January 27, 2020 By EarthWise 1 Comment

Many of us are very concerned about the environment and want to try to do the right things as we go about our daily lives. New research from the University of Gothenburg shows that we tend to overestimate just how much we are actually doing.

A study of over 4,000 people in United States, England, India, and Sweden revealed that most people are convinced that they act more environmentally friendly than the average person. Their actions might include buying eco-labelled products, saving household energy, recycling, driving a hybrid or electric car, and reducing purchases of plastic bags. Participants in the survey rated themselves as more environmentally active than other people, including both unknown people as well as their own friends.

The results are in keeping with a general tendency people have to overestimate their own abilities. Studies over the years have shown that most people consider themselves, for example, to be more honest, more creative, and better drivers than others. This sort of over-optimism apparently also applies to environmentally friendly behaviors.

The data from the survey revealed that the participants were more likely to overestimate their engagement in activities they perform often and draw the faulty conclusion that the things they do often, they in fact do more often than others.

A consequence of thinking that you are more environmentally friendly than other people is that it can reduce the motivation to act environmentally friendly in the future. In fact, when we think we are more environmentally friendly than others, we actually end up becoming less environmentally friendly.

Logically speaking, the majority of people cannot be more environmentally friendly than the average person. We are not living in Lake Wobegone where all children are above average.

**********

Web Links

The majority consider themselves more environmentally friendly than others

Photo, posted March 6, 2014, courtesy of Karlis Dambrans via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.