Essay on Exploring Climate Memory

Public engagement on climate change is shallow in the United States despite being a crucial social challenge in the 21^st century. The records from the research and the evidence from behavioral sciences show that many people regard climate change as a non-urgent, psychologically distant risk, including space, time, and community. This attitude of the people towards climate change has delayed the decision-making of the public on the policies and their adaption (Lejano et al.). This report discusses the background of the climate memory and their action to analyze the people’s behavior towards climate change, followed by a brief discussion of the people’s reaction to specific calamity in tabular format and finally the recommendations on the policies its implications.

The unusual and extreme weather can have an immediate and long-lasting impact on the public compared with the long-term climatic change (Berz). The community affected by such weather and understanding their survival, such as how they have been affected historically and managed with the disaster, their present time, and how they recollect their memories of the event, can be significant to build a resilient community. This understanding can be beneficial to outline policymaking and decision-making (Hall and Endfield). (Forgas et al.) researched to analyze the implication of bad weather on human memory. The research shows the lousy weather can considerably influence the memory of people, their life setting, and even their moods. Disastrous weather conditions help people to memorize the scene, which is observed casually. Recall accuracy is consistent throughout for the negative mood, according to the recent theories. Infomercial influence could have been exerted due to the affective state of the people and their memory. Therefore, this mood balance within the person’s memory might influence the way people respond to their day-to-day life, even a relationship. (Goebbert et al.) carried out an analysis to understand the perception of Americans on the weather change through an online survey and phone survey. The survey revealed that the people’s knowledge regarding climate change is significantly weaker, especially for the floods and the draughts compared to the temperature. This is because more efforts are being made to characterize the local weather, primarily focused on the temperature compared to droughts and floods.

Table 1: Local weather change and perception of the people (Goebbert et al.)

Table 1 shows the analysis (Goebbert et al.) for the “perception of people on local weather change.” Three main questions were asked in this survey on the three-weather change pattern, temperature change, droughts, and floods. The questions were whether these three patterns of weather changes have increased, stayed the same, or decreased compared to the previous year. Although the study was conducted over three years, and 47% of people think that temperature has increased from the last year, surprisingly, 46% of the people think that drought conditions have stayed the same whereas 51.1% of the people think that floods situation is also remained unchanged (Goebbert et al.).

The policymaking surrounding climate change has primarily focused on technological solutions or the economic model that offers incentives (van der Linden et al.). However, the research shows that the policymaking for climate change should consider human behavior and decision-making for these policies to work. Several recommendations can be made considering behavior such as human brain prioritizes experience rather than analysis, this psychological lesson can be used to highlight harmed done to natural resources in specific parks in the USA. This can be achieved through the National Park Services (NPS). Government agencies can take the initiative to reduce the psychological distance of the public from climate change; for example, NASA or NOAA are encouraging their TV meteorologist to spread awareness amongst their users regarding human-caused climate change. Everyone likes to gain; therefore, the EPA Environmental Protection Agency can provide health benefits to the people contributing to cleaning the nation’s air and water. These few policies are recommended keeping the United States in mind; however, these policies can be implemented in other countries by involving respective agencies to reduce climate change. Climate change is not the responsibility of only a few countries and governments, but its cumulative efforts by every human being living on this planet.

Work cited

Berz, G. “Changing Weather Extremes: The Viewpoint of An International Reinsurer.” Proc. Workshop on Indices and Indicators for Climate Extremes, Asheville, 1997, Accessed 4 Nov 2018.

Forgas, Joseph P., et al. “Can Bad Weather Improve Your Memory? An Unobtrusive Field Study of Natural Mood Effects on Real-Life Memory”. Journal Of Experimental Social Psychology, vol 45, no. 1, 2009, pp. 254-257. Elsevier BV, doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2008.08.014.

Goebbert, K et al. Weather, Climate, And Worldviews: The Sources and Consequences of Public Perceptions of Changes in Local Weather Patterns. Weather, Climate, And Society. 4, 2012, pp. 132-144.

Hall, Alexander, and Georgina Endfield. “Snow Scenes”: Exploring the Role of Memory and Place in Commemorating Extreme Winters.” Weather, Climate, And Society, vol 8, no. 1, 2016, pp. 5-19. American Meteorological Society, doi:10.1175/wcas-d-15-0028.1.

Lejano, Raul P. et al. “Climate and Narrative: Environmental Knowledge in Everyday Life.” Environmental Science & Policy, vol 31, 2013, pp. 61-70. Elsevier BV, doi: 10.1016/j.envsci.2013.02.009.

Van der Linden, Sander et al. “Improving Public Engagement with Climate Change.” Perspectives On Psychological Science, vol 10, no. 6, 2015, pp. 758-763. SAGE Publications, doi:10.1177/1745691615598516.