The Dragons of Discredence are agents of mistrust – the species of this genus are responsible for climate deniers, contrarians, and conspiracy theorists. But it’s not only the fringe that suffers from the dragons of discredence. They can act in subtle ways on all of us: casting doubt on well-intentioned policy, and dissuading us from aligning our self-interest with the interests of our environment. To tip the scales, we have to prove that there’s plenty of honey to go around.
Many of the Dragons of Inaction are insights for individuals – leading change from the bottom up. In this chapter, we discuss the other side of the equation: how governments and policy makers can design programs for climate change that people actually want.
Visit futureecologies.net/dragons to learn more about the Dragons of Inaction (including their names, descriptions, and phylogeny).
You can hear all of Scales of Change on its own dedicated podcast feed.
Guests: Robert Gifford, Reuven Sussman, and Christine Kormos
Music: Loam Zoku, Lloyd Richards, Circus Homunculus, Soda Lite, Soft and Furious, Damon Boucher, and Sunfish Moon Light
Other Recordings: altfuture, sinewave1kHz, Alterr, unfa, SpliceSound, ALLANZ10D, Sandermotions, Zihris, unreadpages, Kinoton, AryaNotStark, elliedixon
Citations:
Chen, Y, Meier, A. (2016). Fuel consumption impacts of auto roof racks. Energy Policy. 92. 325-333. 10.1016/j.enpol.2016.02.031.
Kormos, C, Gifford, R, Brown, E. (2014). The Influence of Descriptive Social Norm Information on Sustainable Transportation Behavior: A Field Experiment. Environment and Behavior. 47. 10.1177/0013916513520416.
Kormos, C, Axsen, J, Long, Z, Goldberg, S. (2019) Latent demand for zero-emissions vehicles in Canada (Part 2): Insights from a stated choice experiment, Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, Volume 67, 2019, Pages 685-702, ISSN 1361-9209, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2018.10.010.
Sussman, R, Tan, L, Kormos, C. (2020). Behavioral interventions for sustainable transportation: An overview of programs and guide for practitioners. Transport and Energy Research, 315-371. doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-815965-1.00014-4