DOES ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE IMPACT POLICY, RHETORIC, AND
PUBLIC OPINION? A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW.
ABSTRACT
WIP
INTRODUCTION
We live in a political world, where most people can become easily divided over the legitimacy of
one cause versus another based on their political ideology. Often times, individuals may
remember to forget the essential role that scientific research plays in the acquisition of truth, or at
the very least, in the approximation of the truth to the best of our ability in an attempt to affix
what we know with a standard, empirical model. Political and Economic gain, whether it be
through the acquisition of power by swaying public opinion, to the acquisition of additional
profits by the monopolization of policymaking via lobbyism, there has been a significant and
frightening turn away from scientific discourse and an even more frightening pull towards
emotionally charged, misinformed opinions shaping the way that we, as a species, make
judgments about our past and decisions about our future.
There is perhaps no domain of public discourse and political policy-making more charged with
the aforementioned emotions than that surrounding Climate Change. According to the United
Nations Development Programme, only 64% of over half of the world’s population believe that
Climate Change is a global emergency (Flynn, et al., 2021). Which is in essence a very slim
majority at a time when we need “all hands on deck.” We are interested in why this occurs, and
what factors inhibit the dissemination of sound, valid, scientific findings from being able to
penetrate public opinion and synthesize themselves in our policy-making decision, and how
Green Research could adapt to a climate that is less interested in what the truth is, and more
interested in how it is said.
A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
In an effort to crystalize a focus and purpose to this paper, it is important to familiarize one’s self
with the most important questions to ask in order to reach a conclusion about the state of Green
Research and its various impacts. To that end, we have synthesized several Research Questions
that we aim to answer in the Discussion section following this literature review:
1. How is Green Research conducted?
a. If Green Research has gaps and/or flaws in its methodology, how can they be
addressed?
b. If Green Research is able to reach sound conclusions with actionable data, why
are they not being addressed as openly in public rhetoric?
2. What is the degree by which research into the environment able to sway public opinion?
3. Likewise, to what degree is it able to sway politicians, governments, and policy makers?
Green Research is not so unlike many traditional research methods. It continues to adhere to
empiricism as its primary motivation, and to that end endeavors to utilize many of the techniques
that we have now come to associate with Health, Social and Behavioral Sciences, such as: the
creation of operational definitions, the construction of scales that measures latent variables, and
the critical evaluation of trends and data using quantitative and qualitative methods. Primarily,
Green Research is very much an ad hoc synonym for Environmental Psychology when discussed
in the realm of psychology. Though it is a given that psychology often plays a part, either directly
or indirectly, whenever the environment is concerned, owing to the extreme relation between
human action and environmental impact. Thus, Green Research and Psychology, as conceptual
disciplines, are inexorably intertwined in that manner.
A large chunk of Green Research delves into people’s psychology in regard to their acceptance
or denial of Climate Change. This is first and foremost supported by the idea that our casual
everyday methodology for discovering what is and isn’t true ultimately relies on our needs,
drives, and desires more so than our reality, which in turn leads to the politicization of facts that
are presented wholly and largely by the scientific community (Davis & Lewandowsky, 2022).
The discussion is dominated by fear, Davis and Lewandowsky explain, both the fear of the
possibility that climate change may be real, as well as the consequences a response to climate
change might incur – a fear of the anticipated solutions, so to speak. Fear is a powerful motivator
and a catalyst for both action and inaction. Fear can be the root cause of denial and avoidance, as
well as the spark which ignites red-eyed, spur-of-the-moment reactionism. In this instance, a
sociological fight, flight, freeze response becomes all-encompassing in the face of a reality
dictated by the data of the scientific community. This spurs the “politicization” of climate
change. As an existential threat, it is easier to have gut reactions to such a frightening revelation
than to delve into the depths of its underlying truths.
A meta-analysis that was conducted on 253 experimental treatments regarding the behavioral
outcome of individuals in regard to their behavior towards the environment concluded that
cognitive dissonance, goal setting, and social modeling appear to be some of the premiere factors
to be tackled in the cross-realm of behavioral-environmental psychology (Osbaldiston & Schott,
2012).
AN OPEN-ENDED DISCUSSION
In essence, Green Research does have many pitfalls and flaws which undermine the overall
legitimacy of research conducted, and which regularly leads to Type I and Type II errors which
threaten to unravel hypotheses designed to interrogate the relationship between human behavior
and its environmental impact, as well as the attitudes and beliefs which are connected to the
environment as a whole. These flaws fully manifest themselves when faced with a harsh reality:
Green Research is a field which seeks to synthesize “climate truths” in a world full of industries
that have been so deeply sabotaged with misinformation, underhanded tactics, and decades of
peddling false narratives, that it becomes extremely difficult to undermine what we have now
come to understand as “environmental common sense.”
Picking up a random research paper and examining its contents will more often than not lead the
reader to the conclusion that scientists are not immune to bias. Disregarding methodological
biases which may lead to Type I and Type II errors, there is also a significant bias that may not
be as openly discussed: the bias in hypothesis construction. Scientists are people, and
unfortunately people can fall victim to marketing (“you are not immune to propaganda” comes to
mind). Facts stand strong about concepts like the Carbon Footprint. A concept which has been
carefully constructed and peddled by British Petroleum as a way to shift blame away from
corporate activity and more squarely in the arms of the consumers. Likewise, a concept like
Recycling which is only a small third of the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle triumvirate takes center
spotlight due to the ease by which it can assure the masses that an individualistic approach is
needed rather than a systematic one for the repairment of climate change and its outcomes.