Resources

Search below for resources covering the intersection of climate engagement, social science and data analytics.

RESULTS

Climate activism and its effects

Dana Fisher and Sohana Nasrin, University of Maryland at College Park. WIREs Climate Change.
Research & Articles
11-09-2020

Synthesis of research on the specific ways citizens have engaged civically around the issue of climate change and documented effects of these efforts on climate change itself suggests: 

  • Behavior-change campaigns can positively influence lifestyle choices that reduce their individual carbon footprints, such as reducing car-use, purchase renewable electricity, and eating less meat
  • An increasing number of environmental NGOs is associated with lower levels of environmental degradation (including reduced carbon dioxide emissions)
  • "Insufficient evidence" regarding what legal challenges/litigation have had on greenhouse gas emissions
  • Targeting the economic sector and specific businesses (through boycotts, divestment campaigns, etc.) has resulted in "notable" emissions reductions

Lessons from NYC’s Williams Pipeline battle

Patrick Houston and Pete Sikora, The Forge
Research & Articles
07-14-2020

A multi-racial coalition focused on organizing and escalating tactics helped defeat the Williams Pipeline: The Stop the Williams Pipeline coalition won by building, organizing, and activating a large and intense base of opposition targeted at the key decision-maker, Governor Andrew Cuomo. 

Resilient Clean Energy for California

Bentham Paulos, Paulos Analysis for Vote Solar
Research & Articles
01-31-2020

This report documents the widespread impacts of power shutoffs in California and the drawbacks of conventional solutions. Vote Solar documents the risks of relying on dirty BUGs, including deaths from carbon monoxide poisoning, hazardous air pollution, and, ironically, fire hazards.

Research & Articles
11-18-2019

This conversation highlights findings from two reports focused on how the climate advocacy community can support equitable climate resilience (the ability of communities to adapt and thrive in the face of impacts from climate change) in climate policies and programs, as advocates nationwide are pushed to think beyond a frame of "simply" climate mitigation: Making Equity Real in Climate Adaptation and Community Resilience Policies and Programs: A Guidebook and Mapping Resilience: A Blueprint for Thriving in the Face of Climate Disasters.

Hurricanes, Climate Change Policies and Electoral Accountability

Stefano Gagliarducci, M. Daniele Paserman, and Eleonora Patacchini. National Bureau of Economic Research
Research & Articles
05-01-2019

When climate disasters hit, politicians representing those places may become more concerned about climate change. This resource documents that congress members from districts hit by a hurricane are more likely to support bills promoting more environmental regulation and control in the year after the disaster. The change in legislative behavior by these members of congress is persistent over time, and it is associated with an electoral penalty in the following elections. Further, this effect mainly happens among legislators who are from safe districts (i.e., less likely to face a strong general election challenger in the next election), those with more experience, and those with strong pro-environment records.

Research & Articles

Gillion’s research examines whether a protest can make a real change – and the short answer is that it does. Looking at the effect of civil rights protests from the 1960’s–1990’s on Congress, he found that protest had a small but detectable effect on legislators. And he identified factors that increased the salience of a protest to politicians.

Frequent pro-climate messaging does not predict pro-climate voting by United States legislators

Seth Wynes, Mitchell Dickau, John E Kotcher, Jagadish Thaker, Matthew H Goldberg, H Damon Matthews and Simon D Donner. Environmental Research: Climate.
Research & Articles

Tweets are not a good way to judge elected leader's climate actions: the frequency with which Congresspeople tweet on climate is only weakly linked to their constituents’ opinions, and not linked to their climate voting record at all. In an analysis of US members of Congress over the 6 months prior to the 2020 election, constituent support for Congressional climate action was only weakly related to the rate of pro-climate tweeting by legislators.