Here’s another research summary, broken down for easy reading, sharing, and understanding.

***

“Climate Change and Moral Judgment”
Ezra M. Markowitz and Azim F. Shariff

Summary:

• General public urgency for climate action unequal to magnitude of threat
• Study suggests climate change is not seen as a moral imperative
• Moral intuition triggers immediate action against wrongs, dangers
• Major psychological challenges in perceiving climate change as a moral imperative, including following reasons:

1) Climate Change is Too Abstract, Too Complex

• Clear and visceral concepts are needed to activate moral judgments
• Climate change lacks these concepts
• Instead, climate change activates our analytical reasoning, which is more passive and detached than our emotional reasoning

2) Blamelessness and Unintentional Actions

• Moral imperatives crave a perpetrator: “Who’s to Blame?”
• Climate change fails to answer this moral craving when perceived as unintentional side effect of industrial living.
• Moral action decreases when no one’s to blame as unintentional harms are judged lighter than intentional ones

3) Assigning Guilt Can Be Self-Defeating

• Individuals instinctively defend themselves at all costs when blamed for moral transgressions
• This “Guilty Bias” can lead individuals to deny their role in the problem, question evidence, and even deny the very existence of the problem, leading worst offenders to resist the most

4) Uncertainty Breeds Wishful Thinking

• People are naturally optimistic in the face of uncertainty
• Therefore unrealistic and optimistic thoughts can exist when uncertainty is present, suppressing smart, meaningful, urgent action

5) Moral Tribalism

• Liberals and conservatives differ on moral perceptions
• Liberal-leaning moral focus dominates climate advocacy
• Therefore, conservatives have less moral justification for action, and this framing has polarized climate change, unintentionally activating in-group/out-group thinking

6) Long Time Horizons, Far Away Places

• Climate change seen as harming individuals different than ourselves (poorer, different social, economic, and cultural systems)
• This perspective can turn the perceived victims of climate change into “out-group” members
• Recent research suggests that the more dissimilar or distant the victims, the less morally obligated people feel towards them