{"id":4735,"date":"2023-08-07T11:43:01","date_gmt":"2023-08-07T10:43:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/research-business-innovation\/?p=4735"},"modified":"2023-08-07T15:30:47","modified_gmt":"2023-08-07T14:30:47","slug":"climate-change-and-community-psychology-exploring-environmental-and-wider-social-challenges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/research-external-engagement\/climate-change-and-community-psychology-exploring-environmental-and-wider-social-challenges\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate change and community psychology: exploring environmental and wider social challenges"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Dr Miles Thompson<\/a>, and his UWE psychology alumni co-authors, have published an article in an Italian journal of Community Psychology (Psicologia di Comunit\u00e0<\/a>). The study explores environmental and wider social challenges and their relationship to community psychology and climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Community psychology is an area of the discipline that aspires to promote social justice and social change. To do this, it tries to look and work contextually, focusing on interventions wider than the individual alone. Despite these ambitions, multiple community psychologists have suggested that it has not focused enough on the climate and wider ecological emergencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Against this backdrop, the current study gathered data from UK academics and young people about the different i. environmental and ii. wider social challenges that individuals and communities face. In total, 98 academics in environmental disciplines, 100 academics in disciplines related to wider social challenges and 92 young people took part. Participant groups were asked about the two sets of challenges separately to see if there were signs of any knowledge gaps across their responses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the results, academics noted 29 different environmental challenges 10 times or more, young people 21. Seven of the top 10 environmental challenges were shared by both groups and reflected both climate change (e.g., changing weather patterns; increase of emissions into the atmosphere; rising sea levels) and the wider ecological emergency (biodiversity loss; general forms of pollution; exploitation of animal species).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In terms of wider social challenges, academics recorded 30 challenges more than 10 times, young people 28. Here, environmental challenges were at the very top of the list of wider social challenges for both groups (i.e. climate change – 1st for academics, 2nd for young people; environmental loss and damage – 11th for academics; 1st for young people). Five of the top 10 challenges were shared by both groups (climate change; poverty; racial, ethnic and religious intolerance; public health issues; the impact of technology).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The results remind readers that the climate and ecological emergencies are broader than climate change alone. Seeing them as interconnected reminds us how much these challenges are often related to unchecked human consumption, damage and the unsustainable exploitation of natural resources. This may be important to bear in mind when we are offered unproven innovations or technical solutions which somehow offer Western societies the ability to continue consuming in the way we currently do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both groups also highlighted how wider social challenges can prevent a more environmental focus. Individuals, communities and even community psychologists may have, until now, understandably been focusing on the demands of other pressing, local, social challenges. Noting this may provide a useful counterweight to other explanations which ascribe an individual\u2019s or communities lack of pro-environmental behaviour to internal psychological constructs rather than other day-to-day social challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In terms of knowledge gaps, although there were no statistical differences in the number of challenges, those listed by academics did have more nuance and depth. While this was not unexpected, it is noteworthy that the academic lists referred more to the possible root causes of these challenges. For example, across both lists, academics highlighted the role of capitalism. The environmental challenges list also talked of lack of political will and ineffective policy implementation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These gaps do highlight a potential knowledge gap around the systemic roots of both sets of challenges. They also highlight a potential role for wider public education. Within critical community and liberation psychology this would likely be focused on \u201ccritical consciousness\u201d work. Critical consciousness, popularised by Paulo Freire, is a process where people learn more about how the world operates, especially wider social, economic, and political forces (\u201ccritical awareness\u201d) before learning more about what can be done to challenge and control these forces (\u201ccritical action\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The article highlights the importance of critical education, focusing on the need for critical action, especially at macro levels and at scale. It concludes, by noting that while community psychology has always placed social justice as its heart, it may now need to focus on both social and environmental justice equally to move towards its original goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The article can be found on the publishers website<\/a>. If anyone struggles to access the full version, do not hesitate to contact Miles Thompson<\/a> directly for a copy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Reference: Thompson, M., Blumer, Y., Gee, S., Waugh, L., & Weaver, Z. (2023). Climate change and community psychology: exploring environmental and wider social challenges. Psicologia di Comunit\u00e0. 1, 13-33. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3280\/PSC2023-001002<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr Miles Thompson, and his UWE psychology alumni co-authors, have published an article in an Italian journal of Community Psychology (Psicologia di Comunit\u00e0). The study explores environmental and wider social challenges and their relationship to community psychology and climate change. Community psychology is an area of the discipline that aspires to promote social justice and … Continue reading “Climate change and community psychology: exploring environmental and wider social challenges”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":4736,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[264,1015,62,75,76],"class_list":["post-4735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uwe-bristol-research","tag-climate-change","tag-community-psychology","tag-research","tag-uwe-bristol","tag-uwe-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/research-external-engagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/research-external-engagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/research-external-engagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/research-external-engagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/research-external-engagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4735"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/research-external-engagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4738,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/research-external-engagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4735\/revisions\/4738"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/research-external-engagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/research-external-engagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/research-external-engagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/research-external-engagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}