Project+8802




 * Climate Change is hazardous to your health ||
 * @Smoking ||
 * @Asbestos ||
 * @DDT ||
 * @Climate Change ||
 * @Evaluating timelines ||
 * @Current attitudes towards climate change ||
 * @Progressing attitudes towards climate change ||
 * @References ||

**“All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed; Second, it is violently opposed; Third, it is accepted as self-evident.”**

 [|Arthur Schopenhauer]

**Introduction **

Science overwhelmingly indicates that human behaviours are contributing to dangerous climate change. Yet we are doing far too little about it, despite the fact we know we must urgently change our polluting behaviours and we already possess significant technology and capability to reduce our environmental harm.

**Given our historical shifts in attitude towards several major health risks, how might attitudes to climate change progress over time? **

**Audience ** This report is intended for policy makers, social researchers, environmentalists and all concerned community members frustrated by inertia regarding one of the 21st century’s most pressing concerns. By understanding what influences our collective behaviour to be anti-survival, we will be better equipped to develop new actions, messaging, framing and strategies that more effectively and expeditiously drive resolutions to our climate crisis.

Using analysis of climate change as a health risk, I will compare our response to climate change with history of responses to other significant risks, to consider whether there is evidence of consistent causality and patterns of behaviour. This data will provide insight into possible future attitudes towards climate change.

**Perspectives, evidence, aspects and dimensions **

Using historical and futures modes of enquiry, this project will draw on and integrate aspects of chemistry, physics, sociology, psychology, medicine, history, biology, ecology, agricultural science, ethics, economics, psychometrics and the geosciences, to consider causality and analyse the problem from a range of perspectives. In doing so, I seek to discover common ground and integrate insights to develop greater understanding of the problem, providing audiences with a basis for the development of policies and actions to move us forward.

**Process: **


 * Develop four historical timelines, citing key developments through history of cigarette smoking, asbestos use, DDT use and climate change.
 * Simplify this timeline into a graph plotting key transitions (apply Transtheoretical Model of Behaviour change and a psychometric scale)
 * Evaluate the timelines and compare those transitions - looking for consistent influences leading to attitudinal change
 * Consider what influences current attitudes towards the fourth example: climate change
 * Based on first three examples, consider what might progress attitudes to climate change
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Are we there yet or will it get worse before it gets better?

**<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Why frame climate change as a health risk? **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Climate change is a multi-dimensional challenge. Human-caused disruption to the natural balance of earth systems can be viewed from many perspectives, including those of human rights, social equity, geopolitics, security, ethics and philosophy.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">However it also threatens human populations through habitat loss, mass migration, water scarcity and contamination, famine, infectious diseases, natural disasters (floods, bushfires, tsunamis, heatwaves), biodiversity loss influencing food chain, air-pollution based illness - all issues which could collectively be defined as health-related. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; vertical-align: super;">1.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">According to a 2003 report by the World Health Organisation, ‘Climate Change and Human Health’, //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">“While our personal health may seem to relate mostly to prudent behaviour, heredity, occupation, local environmental exposures, and health-care access, sustained population health requires the life-supporting “services” of the biosphere. Populations of all animal species depend on supplies of food and water, freedom from excess infectious disease, and the physical safety and comfort conferred by climatic stability. The world’s climate system is fundamental to this life-support.” // <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; vertical-align: super;"> 2.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">In a 2010 report into human health effects of climate change, the US federal Interagency Working Group on Climate Change and Health (IWGCCH) reviews more than a dozen health issues relating to climate change, including asthma, allergies, airway diseases, cancer, cardiovascular disease, foodborne diseases, heat-related morbidity and mortality, human developmental effects and waterborne diseases. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; vertical-align: super;">3.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">As //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">this //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">report seeks to better understand why humans resist changing behaviour that causes them harm, it was logical to compare our actions in the production of greenhouse gases, to other human actions which have historically been proven to risk our health.

**<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Explanation of Graphs **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">The series of graphs presented in this report have been developed using a simplified psychometric scale, mapping generalised attitudes of populations over a linear period of time in which the nominated action (‘smoking’, ‘use of asbestos’, ‘DDT’, or ‘climate change’) has taken place.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">The X axis follows a linear timeline from the earliest known human interaction with the activity, to the latest. The Y axis applies two measures. The first of these is the Transtheoretical Model of Behaviour Change (TTM). This Model refers to several stages of change: ‘Precontemplation’, ‘Contemplation’, ‘Preparation’ and ‘Action’. Note: The Y axis does not include the 5th stage of change in this model, ‘Maintenance’. This is because none of the four examples could reasonably be considered to have reached this phase.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">The second, more detailed measure on the Y axis is a psychometric evaluation based on the Likert Scale. The 8 stages cited are based on recurring transitional attitudes observed along the timelines of the four examples. They are ‘Ignorance’, ‘Suspicion’, ‘Research’ ‘Evidence’, ‘Denial’, ‘Acceptance’, ‘Action’, and ‘Change’. We can presume these are scaled responses to the question (collectively addressing the general population) “What is your attitude to the statement that (action) is hazardous to your health?”

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">These graphs are designed to indicate general variations in attitude over time and to demonstrate: <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">• Whether each attitudinal journey follows a logical, straight line transitioning from ‘ignorance’ to ‘action’ and ‘change’ - or whether we will observe influences that cause the line to vacillate, even after scientific evidence clearly indicates the action is harmful to health. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">• Whether there are any consistent patterns of transition to be found across each of the four graphs