We know it's fun to trash-talk climate deniers and otherwise point out how fossil fuel bosses and their political lackeys are holding back climate action.
But is it good messaging?
Yes! At least, coming from healthcare professionals, anyway.
According to a new study published in The Lancet's Planetary Health journal, messages about the health dangers from climate change that included a mention of the fossil fuel CEOs, lobbyists, and politicians who oppose climate action performed best. So while doctors and other healthcare professionals may be worried that talking about the parties responsible for the climate crisis may be polarizing or even backfire, the opposite is actually true!
After conducting a survey experiment involving 2,201 people, the researchers concluded that identifying opponents to climate action can be advantageous to building support for such action, reducing political issue polarization and fostering greater trust in health professionals as climate messengers."
Messages that included the culprits increased support for reducing emissions and intentions to advocate for solutions.
While those findings were largely consistent across political ideologies, there were some differences between liberals and conservatives – just not what you might expect. Conventional wisdom might suggest that it'd backfire to tell Republicans that their elected officials are beholden to the fossil fuel industry after receiving campaign contributions, and that's why they're experiencing asthma from the wildfires, heat stroke in extreme temperatures, mold allergies from floods, or any other of the numerous health-related impacts of climate change. However, the study found the opposite!
While moderates didn't really change, and for "liberals, invoking politicians as climate opponents reduced the message effect," for "conservatives, invoking a climate opponent consistently increased policy support regardless of the opponent portrayed."
Not only did naming a villain do well for conservatives, but "the combined condition" of naming both fossil fuel bosses and politicians "performed the best among conservatives, prompting stronger responses on all outcomes compared with the two control conditions."
"Thus," the researchers wrote, "not only did messages portraying climate opponents not backfire among conservatives, these messages led to stronger positive effects on several key outcomes, demonstrating the depolarising potential of this message frame."
Fortunately, doctors, nurses, and other health professionals that the public already largely trusts (anti-vaxxers aside) don't lose any credibility for talking about culpability. Instead, hearing about the opponents of climate action actually makes Republican audiences more trusting!
So if you’re a health professional trying to delve into the complicated world of climate communications, make sure you heed the researchers’ words: "health professionals who advocate for climate action can be assured that calling attention to opponents of climate action is likely to be effective, depolarising, and conducive to fostering trust in them as messengers."