What is it about?
Do we understand climate change through metaphors? Do metaphors help us decide whether or not we want to take action to mitigate climate change? Are metaphors that powerful? Metaphors – like describing climate change as “Mother Earth venting” – are often used in conversations about climate change to help people understand the issue and encourage mitigating action. Past research conducted in the U.S. has shown that these metaphorical messages resonate with Democrats but not Republicans, with Democrats also being more likely to support climate action. We wanted to explore whether using a metaphor that aligns more closely with conservatives’ worldview, personality traits, and cognitive predisposition could influence how people feel and think about the issue. To that end, we tested if framing climate change as a “war” could evoke emotions like fear or anger, and whether these emotions, along with personality trait aggressiveness, might shape support for climate action among both liberals and conservatives. We found that the war metaphor did create fear in both groups, especially among conservatives, but it didn’t seem to trigger anger. Despite that, it did not make conservatives support climate action significantly more than they did before, though it did liberals. Indeed, conservatives, who presented higher levels of aggressiveness to begin with, as expected, were less supportive of climate action, and that did not change even after experiencing fear.
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Why is it important?
Previous research had largely assumed that conservatives were climate apathetic and immune to climate metaphors. However, our study found that conservatives do feel the threat of climate change when the messaging meets their personality and emotional conditions, and that ‘war’ metaphors might be especially effective communication tools. Additionally, it also introduces an important question: why is it that despite feeling fear, conservatives do not increase their support for climate action?
Perspectives
This article is the result of a long-term team effort, combining knowledge from cognitive linguistics, affective and personality psychology, and econometrics. It is a testament to how interdisciplinary research leads to novel and valuable findings.
Claudia Gaele
Lancaster University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The climate battle in America, Metaphor and the Social World, April 2025, John Benjamins,
DOI: 10.1075/msw.24015.gae.
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