Climate apathy: People are adjusting to global warming too quickly

Despite the urgent need for action to slow human-caused climate change, the gradual rise in global temperatures often fails to alarm people, especially those not directly affected by frequent climate change impacts and disasters.

A new study led by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and Princeton University has found a more effective way to communicate the real impact of climate change and cut through public indifference.

The research suggests that presenting climate data in a binary form – such as whether a lake freezes each winter – makes the consequences of warming much more vivid than simply showing graphs of rising temperatures.

Growing issue of climate apathy

Rachit Dubey, an incoming UCLA communications professor and cognitive psychologist, explained that when participants viewed continuous temperature data for a town, it left them with only a vague sense of gradual change.

In contrast, seeing whether or not a lake froze each winter made the environmental shift much more tangible.

“People are adjusting to worsening environmental conditions, like multiple fire seasons per year, disturbingly fast,” said Dubey, the senior author of the study.

“When we used the same temperature data for a location but presented it in a starker way, it broke through people’s climate apathy. Unfortunately, compared to those who looked at a clearer presentation of the same information, those who only looked at gradual data perceived a 12% smaller climate impact and cared less.”

Communicating about climate change

Dubey focuses his research on how people process and reason about climate change, how it is communicated, and how to improve those communications.

He pointed out that risk perception is deeply shaped by political views and personal experiences, and noted how quickly people shift their understanding of what is “normal” as conditions worsen.

Dubey’s interest was sparked by a 2020 Vox article that highlighted growing climate apathy, even as scientific evidence mounts linking human greenhouse gas emissions to rising disasters like wildfires, droughts, floods, hurricanes, and sea-level rise.

“For years, we assumed that if the climate worsened enough, people would act, but instead, we’re seeing the ‘boiling frog’ effect, where humans continuously reset their perception of ‘normal’ every few years,” Dubey said.

“People are adjusting to worsening environmental conditions, like multiple fire seasons per year, disturbingly fast. My research examines how people are mentally adapting to the negative changes in our environment.”

The power of binary data

The findings were based on experiments involving both fictional and real locations. In one version of the study, participants were introduced to the fictional town of “Townsville.”

In another, they learned about five actual lakeside towns, such as Lake George in New York and Grand Traverse Bay in Michigan. In each case, participants were split into two groups.

One group saw a graph charting temperature increases between 1940 and 2020, while the other group viewed a graph showing whether the local lake froze each winter over the same period. Although the underlying data was the same, participants who saw the binary freeze/no-freeze information perceived a greater impact from climate change.

As the decades progressed and temperatures climbed, the lakes froze less frequently. For the real-world towns, participants were also told about how traditional winter activities like ice skating and fishing had declined alongside the freeze.

When asked to rate the extent of climate change’s impact on the town from 1 to 10, those shown temperature graphs gave an average rating of 6.6. In contrast, those shown the freeze data rated it 7.5 – a 12% higher perception of impact.

Emotional connections drive concern

Lead author Grace Liu, a PhD student at Carnegie Mellon University, emphasized that connecting the loss of beloved local traditions to climate change can be a powerful motivator.

“Our study drives home the importance of discussing climate change not just in gradual temperature terms, but in concrete, either-or terms, showing how life has changed,” Liu said.

“It’s not just warmer winters; it’s also a loss of ice hockey and white Christmases. It’s not just hotter summers; it’s the disappearance of a swimming hole due to drought or soccer practice (being) canceled because it’s dangerously hot.”

Using data to fight climate apathy

The researchers hope their findings will inform the work of climate communicators, policymakers, journalists, and anyone designing graphics about climate change.

“People working in these fields have a sense that binary data is more effective, and our study adds theoretical rigor, using careful cognitive experiments,” Dubey said. “Our study also helps explain why the ‘Show Your Stripes’ visualization is so compelling because it takes continuous data and presents it in a more binary format.”

By emphasizing the increasing frequency of extreme weather events or the vanishing of cherished seasonal activities, the researchers believe that temperature data, once a source of public apathy, could become a far more powerful tool for sparking urgent action on the climate crisis.

The study is published in the journal Nature Human Behavior.

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