State of the Planet 2010: Public Outrage and What's Up with Climate Change Legislation

Public outrage on climate change is dying down as legislation to mitigate around the world flounders. Public awareness and understanding are the biggest components of any attempt at legislation and change, for any issue, whether it be in regards to climate change or nuclear warheads or health care reform. The influence everyday citizens have on their community and everyday lives is much more potent than elected officials and chairmen of corporations would like to admit. This explains why large corporations have spent a great deal of money to confuse the public regarding climate change. Awareness and full understanding of climate change is still a major stepping stone toward a cleaner and sustainable future that limits carbon emissions. However, the process to enable climate change legislation and take that step forward may have to wait decades until a catastrophe occurs to force people to pay attention.

To describe how people start to pay attention to public policies in need of improvement, Elizabeth Bailey of the University of Pennsylvania has developed a model of how the Public Impetus (momentum) for Action progresses over time. There are four stages of public momentum may aid legislation to enact meaningful change: 1) Leading Activity; 2) Focusing Event; 3) Legislation Change; 4) Trailing Activity. For climate change, the focusing event may come too late.

Stage 1: Leading Activity. As the picture shows, momentum for change is very small at first. Leading activity includes some sort of initial concern, hypothesis, or study that draws the attention of a few important consumers and companies. In this stage is where awareness grows and facts accumulate. Using the history of the ozone hole as an example, the leading activity was a study in 1976 by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences that determined the possibility of ozone depletion due to the use of CFCs in aerosol cans and refrigerating units.

Stage 2: Focusing Event. What is required to gain the public's full attention is a large "focusing event," which is usually catastrophic to people and the environment. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 is one example. The sea barriers that broke allowed storm surge to flood a New Orleans community killing hundreds. Another example of a focusing event was the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989 that killed thousands of animals. In regards to the ozone hole: the ozone in the stratosphere blocks out ultraviolet light from the sun. Ultraviolet light damages cells and is the cause of increased risk of skin cancer. It was this diminished capacity to protect citizens from cancer that was a tipping point to enact legislation.

Stage 3: Change. The result of these three catastrophic events saw the pinnacle of public awareness resulting lasting change, be it in legislation or practices, to ensure such horrific events could be avoided in the future. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, improved levees have been designed and better emergency response systems have been put into place. In the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez spill there was a requirement that tankers be escorted out of the area with two tugboats and advanced oil spill technology had been developed. For the ozone hole, the Montreal Protocol was signed in 1988 by the United Nations to help heal the atmosphere.

Climate change is stuck between Stage 1 and Stage 2. The problem with climate change is that not only is there too few people that fully understand climate change, there is momentum in the opposite direction. Momentum to discredit climate change science and scientists is one barrier to climate change legislation. Another barrier is being unable to pinpoint a catastrophic event due to climate change. We cannot simply blame one single hurricane, earthquake, or food shortage to global warming. A focusing event may not arrive until it is too late in the form of biodiversity losses, national security threats, economic upheaval, public health disaster, sea-level rise, etc. By then, public outrage to enact climate change legislation may be too late.

Photo Credit: Brandon T. Moore