Climate change cognition and education: given no silver bullet for denial, diverse information-hunks increase global warming acceptance

Elsevier, Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, Volume 42, December 2021
Authors: 
Ranney M.A., Velautham L.
Climate change's particular ‘perfect storm’ problem-nature requires educators and communicators to acknowledge that a single ‘silver bullet’ intervention that eliminates ignorance and denial regarding global warming may never emerge. However, diverse kinds of information-hunks and educational initiatives do incrementally increase acceptance (and alarm) regarding climate change, thus decreasing ignorance/denial. We herein describe advances in several climate education realms, including in-school and extra-school youth learning––along with post-school, general public, climate change communications. Our review includes lenses on socio-emotional learning, social justice, and techniques for addressing misinformation. Finally, we describe a particular set of ten hunks of experimentally vetted information, generally taking less than five minutes, that our laboratory has shown effective in boosting acceptance that global warming is occurring and concerning.