Climate debates often frame individual behaviour and systems change as distinct pathways to action. We suggest that social change arises from individuals’ agency within their roles in societal systems, and that this agency should be actively leveraged to achieve meaningful climate change mitigation.
Positech@CSCW2026
People care about climate change, injustice, and humanitarian crises. The challenge is not apathy but capacity: sustained engagement with large-scale problems is psychologically costly, and social media architecture often amplifies awareness while providing few pathways to meaningful action.
Climate Change: Global Crisis To Local Action By Kevin Anderson
Morality vs. Politics as a Framing Problem: How (Not) to Misunderstand the Fight Against Climate Change
Topoi - This paper is guided by two research hypotheses: (1) In contemporary public discourse, many of the most urgent political problems are predominantly framed and understood in moral terms; (2)...
We asked our climate reporters to highlight one idea for positive change. We got a chronicle of global transformation
There are countless initiatives around the world that can inspire people and spur them into action. Amid the devastation of the climate crisis, our journalists strive to highlight these stories of hope
Offering experience, intelligence, and wisdom for climate action
A Necessary Response: The Climate Action Handbook for Urbanists is an impassioned and technically useful guide to taking action at the community level.
The i-frame and the s-frame: How focusing on individual-level solutions has led behavioral public policy astray
An influential line of thinking in behavioral science, to which the two authors have long subscribed, is that many of society's most pressing problems can be addressed cheaply and effectively at the level of the individual, without modifying the system in which the individual operates. We now believe this was a mistake, along with, we suspect, many colleagues in both the academic and policy communities. Results from such interventions have been disappointingly modest. But more importantly, they have guided many (though by no means all) behavioral scientists to frame policy problems in individual, not systemic, terms: To adopt what we call the “i-frame,” rather than the “s-frame.” The difference may be more consequential than i-frame advocates have realized, by deflecting attention and support away from s-frame policies. Indeed, highlighting the i-frame is a long-established objective of corporate opponents of concerted systemic action such as regulation and taxation. We illustrate our argument briefly for six policy problems, and in depth with the examples of climate change, obesity, retirement savings, and pollution from plastic waste. We argue that the most important way in which behavioral scientists can contribute to public policy is by employing their skills to develop and implement value-creating system-level change.
Correcting climate ‘misperceptions’ may not boost climate action - Carbon Brief
Most people "underestimate" general support for climate change and "overestimate" actual, real-world climate action.
Stewardship of global collective behavior
Collective behavior provides a framework for understanding how the actions and properties of groups emerge from the way individuals generate and share information. In humans, information flows were initially shaped by natural selection yet are increasingly structured by emerging communication technologies. Our larger, more complex social networks now transfer high-fidelity information over vast distances at low cost. The digital age and the rise of social media have accelerated changes to our social systems, with poorly understood functional consequences. This gap in our knowledge represents a principal challenge to scientific progress, democracy, and actions to address global crises. We argue that the study of collective behavior must rise to a “crisis discipline” just as medicine, conservation, and climate science have, with a focus on providing actionable insight to policymakers and regulators for the stewardship of social systems.
Canada's National Observer (@nationalobserver.com)
Canada's National Observer delivers vital reporting on the defining crisis of our time: climate change. Through rigorous investigation and compelling storytelling, we expose the forces shaping Canada's climate future. www.nationalobserver.com/subscribe
The fastest way to lose someone in a climate conversation? Start with the facts. Climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe explains why people are more likely to engage when we begin with shared values… | TED Countdown
The fastest way to lose someone in a climate conversation? Start with the facts. Climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe explains why people are more likely to engage when we begin with shared values instead. ⬇️
The climate crisis: a war on the world
The climate crisis is a self-destructive war, with aggressors and victims
The Gargantuan Lie That is Collapsing The World’s Climate
Thinking we have time left to address climate change, or that “Net Zero by 2050” will save us, is driving us toward full social collapse in ways that become more obvious with every new broken temperature record.
Our methodology
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An s-frame agenda for behavioral public policy research
We have previously argued thatbehavioral scientists have been testing and advocating individualistic (i-frame) solutions to policy problems that have systemic (s-frame) causes and require systemic solutions. Here, we consider the implications of adopting an s-frame approach for research. We argue that an s-frame approach will involve addressing different types of questions, which will, in turn, require a different toolbox of research methods.
Climate doom may discourage climate action, but there’s a way to counter it
One way to guard against misinformation is to empower people to identify climate doom in the first place.
