Parenting in a Changing Climate: Tools for Cultivating Resilience, Taking Action, and Practicing Hope in the Face of Climate Change

by Elizabeth Bechard

Yale’s data suggests that just under half of Americans perceive injunctive social norms for taking action on global warming, though this norm may not yet be very strong. Thirty percent of survey respondents indicated they believed it is “moderately” important to their friends and family that they take action to reduce global warming, while only 17% said their personal action is “very” or “extremely” important to their loved ones. An even smaller cohort of respondents perceived a descriptive norm, reporting that their friends and family make “a great deal of effort,” “a lot of effort,” or “a moderate amount of effort” to take action to reduce global warming. Just under half of us, these numbers suggest, see our family and friends responding to climate change’s metaphorical fire alarm at all. And less than 10% of us see our loved ones making a concerted effort to put out the fire.