Dataset Information

Are values related to culture, identity, community cohesion and sense of place the values most vulnerable to climate change?

ABSTRACT: Values related to culture, identity, community cohesion and sense of place have sometimes been downplayed in the climate change discourse. However, they have been suggested to be not only important to citizens but the values most vulnerable to climate change. Here we test four empirical consequences of the suggestion: (i) at least 50% of the locations citizens' consider to be the most important locations in their municipality are chosen because they represent these values, (ii) locations representing these values have a high probability of being damaged by climate change induced sea level rise, (iii) citizens for which these values are particularly strongly held less strongly believe in the local effects of climate change, and (iv) citizens for which these values are particularly strongly held less strongly believe that they have experienced the effects of climate change. The tests were made using survey data collected in 2014 from 326 citizens owning property in Höganäs municipality, Sweden, and included values elicited using a new methodology separating instrumental values from end values, and using the former (which strictly speaking should be seen as estimates of usefulness rather than as aims in themselves) as stepping stones to pinpoint the latter, that represent the true interests of the respondents. The results provide the first evidence that, albeit frequent, values related to culture, identity, community cohesion and sense of place are not the values most vulnerable to climate change. This in turn indicates a need to further investigate the vulnerability of these values to climate change, using a methodology that clearly distinguishes between instrumental and end values.

SUBMITTER: Blennow K

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6328185 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Are values related to culture, identity, community cohesion and sense of place the values most vulnerable to climate change?

Blennow Kristina K Persson Erik E Persson Johannes J

PloS one 20190110 1

Values related to culture, identity, community cohesion and sense of place have sometimes been downplayed in the climate change discourse. However, they have been suggested to be not only important to citizens but the values most vulnerable to climate change. Here we test four empirical consequences of the suggestion: (i) at least 50% of the locations citizens' consider to be the most important locations in their municipality are chosen because they represent these values, (ii) locations represe ...[more]

PMID: 30629690

Similar Datasets

Project description:Climate change affects biophysical processes related to the transmission of many infectious diseases, with potentially adverse consequences for the health of communities. While our knowledge of biophysical associations between meteorological factors and disease is steadily improving, our understanding of the social processes that shape adaptation to environmental perturbations lags behind. Using computational modeling methods, we explore the ways in which social cohesion can affect adaptation of disease prevention strategies when communities are exposed to different environmental scenarios that influence transmission pathways for diseases such as diarrhea. We developed an agent-based model in which household agents can choose between two behavioral strategies that offer different levels of protection against environmentally mediated disease transmission. One behavioral strategy is initially set as more protective, leading households to adopt it widely, but its efficacy is sensitive to variable weather conditions and stressors such as floods or droughts that modify the disease transmission system. The efficacy of the second strategy is initially moderate relative to the first and is insensitive to environmental changes. We examined how social cohesion (defined as average number of household social network connections) influences health outcomes when households attempt to identify an optimal strategy by copying the behaviors of socially connected neighbors who seem to have adapted successfully in the past. Our simulation experiments suggest that high-cohesion communities are able to rapidly disseminate the initially optimal behavioral strategy compared to low-cohesion communities. This rapid and pervasive change, however, decreases behavioral diversity; i.e., once a high cohesion community settles on a strategy, most or all households adopt that behavior. Following environmental changes that reduce the efficacy of the initially optimal strategy, rendering it suboptimal relative to the alternative strategy, high-cohesion communities can fail to adapt. As a result, despite faring better early in the course of computational experiments, high-cohesion communities may ultimately experience worse outcomes. In the face of uncertainty in predicting future environmental stressors due to climate change, strategies to improve effective adaptation to optimal disease prevention strategies should balance between intervention efforts that promote protective behaviors based on current scientific understanding and the need to guard against the crystallization of inflexible norms. Developing generalizable models allows us to integrate a wide range of theories multiple datasets pertaining to the relationship between social mechanisms and adaptation, which can provide further understanding of future climate change impacts. Models such as the one we present can generate hypotheses about the mechanisms that underlie the dynamics of adaptation events and suggest specific points of measurement to assess the impact of these mechanisms. They can be incorporated as modules within predictive simulations for specific socio-ecological contexts.

Project description:BackgroundUnderstanding public perceptions of climate change and how individuals perceive it is critical to developing effective communication strategies, policies, and socially robust technologies to relieve the risks of climate change. Despite the growing literature on climate change, until now, researchers in Arab countries have not been interested in studying citizens' perceptions of climate change or identifying the factors that predict it. This study aimed to identify and understand the nature and dynamics of public perceptions of climate change among Arab citizens and detect the level of climate change perception (CCP) and climate values (CV). Also, to detect the predictability of CCP from CV. As well as to reveal the differences between CCP and CV.MethodsA random sample consisted of 465 participants (236 male and 229 female), residents of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; their ages ranged from 30 years and over. The Climate Change Perception Questionnaire (CCPQ) and Climate Values Questionnaire (CVQ) were applied online.ResultsThe results found average levels of CCP and CV among the study sample. The results also revealed significant statistical differences in the CCP and CV due to gender in favor of females. As well as, there were significant statistical differences in the CCP due to the career field in favor of agriculture, engineering, and construction workers. Also, there were statistical differences in the emotional subscale of climate perception and CV due to age groups in favor of individuals whose ages ranged from 30 to 45 years. The results also found that the CV were a statistically significant predictor (1.2% of total variance) of climate perception.ConclusionThe current study showed an average level of CCP and CV among individuals in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabian. The findings also concluded that individuals' perceptions of climate change are an individual response determined by the individual's gender, age, and career field and are affected by his values about climate. These findings shed light on the need for climate communications to increase the level of CCP and CV, especially among males and individuals in the age group over 45 years and individuals working in various career fields, whether education, engineering and construction, and commerce and business, etc.; to improve the engagement in mitigation and adaptation measures to climate change.

Dataset Information

Are values related to culture, identity, community cohesion and sense of place the values most vulnerable to climate change?

Publications

Are values related to culture, identity, community cohesion and sense of place the values most vulnerable to climate change?

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets