Jessica Eise's Blog

By Jessica Eise, Indiana University originally published in The Conversation

Climate change has been in the news for more than 40 years. It’s typically covered as a scientific or political issue. However, social scientists like me have found that feelings and values are what drive people toward broad, collective change – not charts, graphs or images.

Surveys confirm that the majority of Americans now believe that climate change is real. But many adults seem to feel too exhausted, defeated or powerless to do anything about it.

I am leading a large multiyear research project funded by the National Science Foundation that examines how to tap into morals, ethics and spirituality to create enduring behavioral shifts on this issue. In the pilot study for this project, which has not been published yet, we recently surveyed 275 U.S. adults to understand their relationship with and feelings toward the natural world. 

This is a first step toward understanding how to start communicating differently about climate change. Climate change is altering weather patterns, temperatures and seasons, which people are now beginning to feel in nearly all locations in the world.

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Until July 27, join us in watching these captivating films! Free on Vimeo for those who could not attend the in-person event, enjoy the 4 different film sessions curated for this event.

Visit the Earth Connection Film FestivalAnd join us in congratulating this year’s winners!

Special thanks to our judges Masha Vlasova and Chie Togami for their dedication and support.

1st Place Winners: Fire Beneath Her, Decoding Ancestral Knowledge, The Big Steppe

2nd Place Winners: We Are the Earth, Once Upon a Forest, The River

3rd Place Winners: The Purple Bear, PLASTIK, Greta the Time Traveler

Spirit Award: Troglodyte

I would like to invite you to participate in some research with my team and me. We are conducting a study on human behavior over time. Particularly, we want to learn about people’s moral, ethical and/or spiritual beliefs and their thoughts and behaviors related to the climate and environment. Participation is fully online and you don’t need to show up anywhere in person.

If you are over the age of 18 and live in the United States, you are eligible to participate. We want everyone to participate, no matter their political preferences, religion, race or education level. Everyone’s thoughts and behaviors matter to us. 

This is a longitudinal study, which means the study will last either TWO or THREE years and requires about 4 to 10 hours of time each year. Participants will be compensated $50 to $100 each year depending on the length and complexity of the study cohort they are assigned to, which means you could earn $150 to $300 total by the end of the study. 

We would very much value your participation. Research is an important process and depends exclusively on the help and generosity of people like you. If you are interested, please fill out the Google form posted below that will collect your demographic information, which will be kept strictly confidential to this study. 

We look forward to working with you on this research! If you think of anyone else who might be interested, please share with them or your network. Thank you!

Fill out this form if you are interested in participating in the research https://forms.gle/M7fQ1v1oMir9XBn59

New article out in Sierra Magazine “Inside one professor’s exploration of our innate interconnectedness”

Five years ago, I was winding my way along verdant Colombian mountains spotted with rows of coffee trees to collect data for my dissertation research. Every so often, I would stop at a small village square to conduct interviews with farmers who’d descended from their small plots of land.

While my objective was to gather information about climate change impacts on coffee farmers’ lives, following these interviews, something else stuck with me. At times, each farmer seemed to speak of his or her land with a kind of poetic mysticism. As if it were more than composite pieces of dirt and trees and air and water, but rather something sacred. The tendency was subtle yet prevalent….

Read the full article here in Sierra Magazine

For the past year and a half, my Clima y Café team and I worked with the World Resources Institute to develop a free online tool to help us understand and visualize climate change impacts around the world. The following tutorials in English and Spanish demonstrate how to use it, with a brief description of the tool. I think there are two particularly unique aspects to this, which are (1) the ability to layer maps on top of each other to see how different risks interrelate and (2) information on the impacts of climate change on the various stages of the agricultural supply chain. Also, the tool is available in English, Spanish, Tamil and Telugu. You can change the language in the upper left corner.

Visit the AgriAdapt Tool

In this how-to video I review the free beta climate risk tool AgriAdapt. The tool helps policymakers, businesses & other stakeholders assess current & future risk and impacts climate change will have on agriculture. This tool is being designed and developed by World Resources Institute, funded by the Walmart Foundation.

En este tutorial yo reviso la herramienta beta gratuita de riesgo climático AgriAdapt. La herramienta ayuda a los formuladores de políticas, las empresas y otras partes interesadas a evaluar los riesgos actuales y futuros y los impactos que el cambio climático tendrá en la agricultura. Esta herramienta está siendo diseñada y desarrollada por World Resources Institute, financiada por la Fundación Walmart.

How does climate change influence our identities and human life? In this 15-minute mini-documentary, six young people around the world share their personal stories and drive to make sure others don’t experience the same. From studying by the light of an open lamp in Nigeria to months without power in Puerto Rico to the fear of a child’s stolen future, these personal stories drive home the impact of the climate crisis on our lives – and draw on our interconnection to inspire hope for change.

I had the privilege of leading this experiential learning project with five fellows during the Summer Institute for Sustainability and Climate Change. We made this documentary with virtually no budget – filmed on computers and phones, using b-roll gathered by the fellows. Our goal was to show that the power of connection is greater than any destructive force – and that we can choose to be vulnerable now, so vulnerability isn’t forced on us later. The fellows learned and practiced various communication skills, from constructing narratives to the basics of multimedia production.

We are conducting a study to better understand people’s identity and relationship with the environment. It’s a short digital survey, and shouldn’t take longer than 10 minutes.

Follow this link or hit the button below:

https://utsa.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_a4dyxm2QAXljnPo

Take the Survey

Understanding society and the shifts that are happening through careful research can have a positive impact on the decisions we make in the long-term, and help institutions and policymakers to understand what people need and want. This is research conducted at a public institution for the public (The University of Texas at San Antonio) – there is no profit associated with it and it is intended to help us try to improve society in the long-run.

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Una niña valiente enfrenta el cambio climático para salvar su finca 

Por Laura Montes y Jessica Eise, ilustrada por Vanessa Bernal

El libro se trata de…

Flora, una valiente y curiosa niña de 11 años, ama recorrer su finca en los cafetales de Colombia. Le encanta jugar, conocer y maravillarse ante la inmensidad de la naturaleza. Pero todo cambia un día, cuando se da cuenta que todo lo que ama corre peligro. Pronto, decide embarcarse en un sinfín de aventuras mágicas para salvar su finca del cambio climático. Después de todo, si no lo hace ella, ¿quién más lo hará?

Junto a su mejor amigo Marco y su perro Pancho, siguen a la abuelita Aurora, quien los guiará para descubrir un mundo nuevo y les enseñará una valiosa lección: que hasta la persona más pequeña puede cambiar el mundo.

Educación y divulgación sobre el cambio climático

Este libro es parte de una campaña de divulgación realizada por Clima y Café, un proyecto que crea conciencia y apoya la adaptación al cambio climático, particularmente en la región cafetera de Colombia. Con el fin de llegar a las poblaciones rurales con contenido de adaptación al cambio climático, nuestro equipo escribió, produjo y distribuyó este libro infantil para escuelas rurales en la región cafetera de Colombia. Está dirigido a niños de 10 a 13 años, pero es apropiado para lectores de muchas edades. Imprimimos 1.000 ejemplares y los distribuimos a tres municipios de Colombia para sus escuelas rurales (Santuario, Pereira, Santa Rosa de Cabal). El libro ya está disponible en línea en español e inglés. Se está reimprimiendo y distribuyendo a más escuelas rurales a medida que lo permitan los fondos.

Contenido de muestra

— ¿Por qué las personas producen dióxido de carbono si es malo?

— Porque al principio no entendían – ni sabían que iba a pasar. Pero luego, cuando se enteraron, no querían cambiar. Unos porque se habían acostumbrado a hacer las cosas de cierta forma. Otros porque ganaron dinero, y no pensaron en los demás. Algunos tenían miedo de enfrentar lo que habían hecho. Y había ciertas personas que simplemente no entendían.

— No me gusta esto – yo dije, sintiendo frustración –. ¡Quiero que todo sea perfecto, que vuelva a ser como antes!

— No te preocupes, mi querida – me dijo mi abuelita Aurora, con otra sonrisa misteriosa. No dejes que eso te frustre. A veces tenemos que equivocarnos para aprender cómo ser mejores. No mires hacia atrás, siempre camina hacia adelante. Es fácil desear echar la culpa y enfadarse, pero no queremos tomar el camino fácil, ¿verdad? Queremos tomar el camino correcto.

Leer más sobre Flora y sus aventuras.

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A brave little girl stands up to climate change to save her farm

by Laura Montes and Jessica Eise, illustrated by Vanessa Bernal, translated by Carrie Abbas Estrada

About the book…

Flora, a brave and curious 11-year-old, loves trekking through her coffee farm in Colombia. She likes to play, learn, and marvel at nature. But one day her life changes when she realizes that everything she loves is in danger. She embarks on a magical adventure to learn about and save her farm from climate change. After all, if she doesn’t do it, who will?

Together with her best friend, Marco, and her dog, Pancho, they follow her Grandma Aurora on a discovery of new worlds, as she teaches them an important lesson: even the smallest person can change the world.

Education and outreach on climate change

This book is part of an outreach campaign conducted by Clima y Café, a project that raises awareness for and supports climate change adaptation, particularly in the Colombian coffee growing region. In order to reach rural populations with climate change adaptation content, our team wrote, produced and distributed this children’s book for rural schools in the coffee-growing region of Colombia. It targets 10 – 13-year-olds, but is appropriate for readers of many ages. We printed 1,000 copies and distributed them to three municipalities in Colombia for their rural schools (Santuario, Pereira, Santa Rosa de Cabal). The book is now available online in Spanish and English. It is being reprinted and distributed to more rural schools as ongoing funding allows.

Sample content

“Why do people produce so much carbon dioxide if it’s bad?” asked Flora. “Because they didn’t understand it in the beginning – they didn’t know it was going to happen either. But later, when they realized it, they didn’t want to change. Some people didn’t want to change because they had gotten used to doing things a certain way. Others because they made money, and only thought about themselves. Some were afraid to admit what they had done. And then there were certain people who just didn’t understand.”

“I don’t like this,” Flora said, feeling frustrated. “I want everything to be perfect, to go back to the way it was!” Her grandmother looked at her. “Sometimes we have to make mistakes to learn how to be better. Don’t look back, always move forward. It is easy to want to place blame and get angry, but we don’t want to take the easy path, do we? We want to take the right path.”

Read more about Flora and her adventures.

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My research team and I conducted a systematic review of climate change communication research over the past 25 years. This post shares our findings and access to the full white paper and conference paper.

Click for white paper | Click for full paper

What and where we choose to research has huge ramifications; the topics and people who get attention receive benefits over other topics or people who may remain ignored or invisible. A systematic review can reveal who and what is getting attention, and if there are disparities.

Climate change is – and will increasingly become – the greatest challenge of our time. Around the world, communities are starting to feel its early impacts. What we choose to research now, and how we choose to research it, will have long-term impacts on our preparedness and ability to handle this crisis. Communication is an essential part of how we handle climate change; it controls whether we take it seriously, what actions we choose to take in its face, how we transfer scientific findings to decision makers and groups in need, whether governments or companies respond and why and much more.

We compared our trends against where the American Meteorological Society (AMS) recommends that we focus our attention in the future (find more details in our white paper or our article). Our needs have changed over time. Some 25 years ago, mitigation (decreasing carbon emissions that cause climate change) was a bigger focus. Today, as we’ve failed to act comprehensively, we now face both mitigation and adaptation (adjusting to new climates). Amidst others, we focused on what topics are researched and what regions of the world we’ve been focusing on. Here are our key findings:

Citation: Eise, J, Lambert, NJ, Adekunle, T & Eise, L. (2020). More Inclusive, More Practical: Climate Change Communication Research to Serve the Future. Purdue Climate Change Research Center Publications. Paper 3. http://dx.doi.org/10.5703/1288284317278

As we make choices of what research to conduct, we can focus on filling the gaps as well as responding to new challenges. Our primary findings show that we need immediate, practical research into adaptation and mitigation within local communities. Additionally, we need to make sure we are researching equitably; that all areas of the world are receiving attention. Right now, the majority is focused on North America, Europe and Australia. We can expand this. Here are more tailored breakdowns of the findings that led to these conclusions:

Citation: Eise, J, Lambert, NJ, Adekunle, T & Eise, L. (2020). More Inclusive, More Practical: Climate Change Communication Research to Serve the Future. Purdue Climate Change Research Center Publications. Paper 3. http://dx.doi.org/10.5703/1288284317278 Citation: Eise, J, Lambert, NJ, Adekunle, T & Eise, L. (2020). More Inclusive, More Practical: Climate Change Communication Research to Serve the Future. Purdue Climate Change Research Center Publications. Paper 3. http://dx.doi.org/10.5703/1288284317278

These key findings led to our final conclusions, which are that:

Citation: Eise, J, Lambert, NJ, Adekunle, T & Eise, L. (2020). More Inclusive, More Practical: Climate Change Communication Research to Serve the Future. Purdue Climate Change Research Center Publications. Paper 3. http://dx.doi.org/10.5703/1288284317278 Citation: Eise, J, Lambert, NJ, Adekunle, T & Eise, L. (2020). More Inclusive, More Practical: Climate Change Communication Research to Serve the Future. Purdue Climate Change Research Center Publications. Paper 3. http://dx.doi.org/10.5703/1288284317278

Climate change poses a huge challenge; but we can respond with innovation and foresight. Research is a bedrock of our ability to do this. We learn what the problems are and how we might address them. We strongly encourage researchers – in communication and elsewhere – to focus attention on climate change, particularly focusing on solutions regarding the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, carbon capture and adaptation to current and future climate change impacts in all areas of the world.