Living with climate change: motivation and action for lifestyle change (CLIMLIFE)

The CLIMLIFE project 2020–2023 studies how Norwegian citizens relate the challenges of climate change to their normal, day-to-day life choices. While there is broad agreement on the urgency of the situation, people must also go on living their daily lives, attending to needs and interests, our family and community. How willing are we to change our lifestyle? How do people, in particular young people, relate these challenges to their everyday life choices? And how do politicians and the media address lifestyle questions? We suggest that people use mainly four strategies for integrating, or not, the challenges of climate change (CC) into their lives: 1) Activism: People engage actively to influence policies to mitigate CC. 2) Responsiveness: People respond in accordance with incentives designed for climate-friendly behaviour. 3) Resignation: People recognize the problem but give up engaging with the complex challenges of CC. 4) Rejection: People actively choose not to consider CC in their choices. The CLIMLIFE project studies these questions through a cross-disciplinary collaboration, including researchers from linguistic, media, political and natural sciences. Our material consists to a large extent of data from open-ended survey questions through the Norwegian Citizen Panel/DIGSSCORE, University of Bergen, where citizens, politicians and journalists can answer in their own words. We use different tools for language analysis, such as narrative theory and linguistic polyphony (plurivoicedness), in a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. A survey among 381 high-school students is completed, concerning young people's opinions about lifestyle in a climate perspective, about influence on politics and future perspectives. A new comparable and representative survey is completed among 500 senior people (65+). We observe much agreement between young and senior citizens, but also some disagreement, which may indicate a generation gap. Data from surveys among politicians and journalists are also collected. Major outcomes of CLIMLIFE will be vital knowledge about the role of climate change in everyday lifestyle matters, revealing barriers and opportunities, conflict and consensus. This will be applicable knowledge for stakeholders in general and for communicators, teachers, journalists and politicians in particular. In the following, we suggest various paths of taking the CLIMLIFE research further: • For researchers: We think it may be worthwhile to build on our surveys in the Norwegian Citizen Panel and follow these up in longitudinal studies. Such studies may provide new understandings of current and emerging trends among citizens. We also think it will be fruitful to carry out further studies into the interplay between (i) computational and manual analysis and (ii) open and closed survey questions. • For communicators: We think that our finding regarding the importance of individual action may be exploited to emphasise how each one of us may be part of the solution. Our data has also revealed the need for a carefully calibrated balance between alarming and encouraging language use. • For politicians: We recommend making better use of people’s awareness of the challenges as well as the solutions, and to be clear about the time and urgency aspects. Without ignoring the fact that there are divergent views in the population, we suggest that politicians be braver in making decisions that contribute to achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement. • For journalists: We recommend drawing on the fact that lifestyle matters give rise to a broad range of journalistically relevant issues. Such issues provide opportunities for creating more lively debates on climate issues, including the vital role politicians play in making solutions happen. • For all: We think it is important to pay attention to the activism and public participation of young people, ensuring their inclusion in discussions and decisions that affect their future. To enhance young people’s engagement and counteract fatigue and frustration, we think it is vital that their views are recognised as valid and valuable contributions to the public debate. Moreover, we believe that encouraging collective action alongside individual action is essential for empowering young people with a sense of agency to effect change. In general, we find it important to accept that there are disagreements about solutions; we don’t know all the implications of new climate measures. In addition to the focus on individual action emphasised above, collective responsibilities must not be ignored. We would argue that individual and collective actions together will give us the most powerful impact with regard to climate change solutions.

CLIMLIFE-prosjektet har viktige virkninger på prosjektdeltakernes kompetanse, ved det gjennomførte tverrfaglige prosjektsamarbeidet. Basisen har vært lingvistiske og diskursive innfallsvinkler, men ble betydelig videreutviklet gjennom forskerne fra medievitenskap, retorikk, statsvitenskap og klimavitenskap. Tverrfagligheten bidro også til å lære om og verdsette innfallsvinkler og innspill som man ikke kunne ha funnet frem til gjennom kun ett av fagfeltene. Fra et teoretisk synspunkt har prosjektet bidratt til kontekstualiserte beskrivelser av narrativitet og språklig polyfoni eller flerstemmighet i nye og større datasett enn det som er gjort tidligere. Denne metodologien er overførbar og kan anvendes på analyser av diskurs innen andre komplekse samfunnsspørsmål enn klimaspørsmål. Gjennom undersøkelser av ulike målgruppers meninger og holdninger, er det fremskaffet et stort sett av resultater som kan anvendes av kommunikasjonsarbeidere, skoler, politikere og journalister. Undersøkelsen om skoleelevers meninger om levemåte i et klimaperspektiv og om holdninger til egen rolle i klimaspørsmålet kan potensielt føre til endret adferd for disse ettersom vi gjennomførte flere samtaler om prosjektet de ble en del av, og om viktigheten av individets handlinger og ikke minst de unges aktive engasjement. Det ble pekt på viktigheten av å forstå at vi betyr mer enn vi tror (om oss selv). Effekter som innebærer mer langsiktige endringer, generelt på samfunnsnivå og spesielt innenfor ulike aktørgrupper, kan være det nye og relevante fokuset på språkbruk i klimadebatten. Medlemmene i prosjektet har formidlet om den innflytelse språkbruk kan ha på klimahandling, særlig har vi sett nødvendigheten av å anbefale en balanse mellom alarmerende og negativ i forhold til oppmuntrende og positiv språkbruk.

CLIMLIFE-SUMMARY Living with climate change has become a crucial issue worldwide. Climate change concerns all aspects of our lives and affects how we think about our personal lifestyle choices and political behavior, how we perceive of the fate of our planet and the future of humanity. Recent research shows that, when asked about solutions to tackle climate change, Norwegian citizens generally say "we must all contribute". However, what does this mean more specifically? While there is broad agreement on the urgency of the situation, people must also go on living their daily lives, attending to the needs and interests of themselves, their family and community. How do people relate the political and existential challenges of climate change to their normal, day-to-day life choices? The CLIMLIFE cross-disciplinary project addresses this question and will generate new and vital knowledge about the role of climate in lifestyle issues, revealing barriers and opportunities, conflict and consensus.We suggest that people use mainly four strategies for integrating, or not, the challenges of climate change (CC) into their lives: 1) Activism: People engage actively to influence policies to mitigate CC. 2) Responsiveness: People respond in accordance with incentives designed for climate-friendly behaviour. 3) Resignation: People recognize the problem but give up engaging with the complex challenges of CC. 4) Rejection: People actively choose not to consider CC in their choices. Our new and challenging methodological cross-disciplinary approach consists of a combination of Facebook data and open-ended survey questions, that targeted respondents (citizens, politicians, journalists) can answer in their own words. The project puts a particular focus on the views of young people. We use tools for language analysis generated through linguistic polyphony (multivoicedness), topic analysis, framing and narrative theory, combining quantitative (semi-) automated and qualitative methods.