An experimental investigation into climate change denial

气候变化正在发生，而且主要是人为造成的，这一科学证据现在比吸烟与肺癌或达尔文进化论之间存在联系的证据更为确凿。令人担忧的是，否认气候变化的人数正在增加，这反映出唐纳德•特朗普（Donald Trump）等知名人士将气候变化视为“中国骗局”的言论。这项研究通过调查潜意识的“防御机制”是否阻碍了人们对气候变化的理性反应，着手探索这种情况发生的原因。到目前为止，大多数旨在使人们更加意识到气候变化并试图帮助他们以更环保的方式行事的干预措施都将人们视为理性的决策者。这些方法忽略了心理上复杂的情绪反应，如无助、脆弱、内疚、蔑视和否认的感觉。这些反应可能意味着，关于气候变化的传播可能会产生与预期相反的效果，将人们进一步推向否认，甚至激励他们以直接破坏环境的方式行事，例如过度消费。本研究将采用创新的方法，在具有不同政治观点和对环境不同态度的广泛参与者中，调查导致这些感觉的潜意识防御机制。这项研究将告知如何改进与气候变化有关的公共政策干预，并将确定如何更有效地沟通、教授和参与气候变化。

The scientific evidence that climate change is happening and ispredominantly human-made is now more certain than the evidence for thelink between smoking and lung cancer, or Darwinian evolution. Alarmingly,the number of people denying climate change is on the increase, reflected instatements by prominent figures such as Donald Trump dismissing climatechange as a "Chinese hoax". This study sets out to explore why this might behappening, by investigating whether subconscious "defence mechanisms" areblocking peoples' rational responses to climate change. Until now, themajority of interventions aimed at making people more aware of climatechange and attempting to help them behave in more environmentallyfriendly ways have treated people as rational decision makers. Theseapproaches have ignored psychologically complex emotional responses suchas feelings of helplessness, vulnerability, guilt, defiance and denial. Theseresponses may mean that communications about climate change may havethe opposite effect to that which is intended, driving people further towardsdenial, and even motivating them to behave in ways that are directlydamaging to the environment, such as excessive consumption. This study willuse innovative methods to investigate subconscious defence mechanismsthat lead to these feelings, in a wide range of participants with differentpolitical views and different attitudes to the environment. The study willinform how public policy interventions relating to climate change might beimproved and will identify how climate change might be more effectivelycommunicated, taught and engaged with.