Abstract

Climate change adaptation requires that we anticipate future conditions that may deviate from our historical experiences. Our ability to do so is associated with the perceived proximity of decision-outcomes. Through analysis of semi-structured interviews with farmers in the northeastern United States, we conclude that temporal distance (now versus later) and social distance (self versus other) of climate impacts interact to play important roles in climate risk perception. Using Psychological Distance and Construal Level Theory, we identified two distinct temporal perspectives, historically oriented and future oriented. Our analysis suggests that climate-informed farmers use different temporal perspectives depending on whether they are asked to imagine the climate risks through a personal lens versus a lens reserved for the other.

摘要

气候变化适应要求我们预测可能与我们的历史经验不同的未来条件。我们这样做的能力与决策结果的感知接近度有关。通过对美国东北部农民的半结构化访谈的分析，我们得出结论，气候影响的时间距离（现在与以后）和社会距离（自我与他人）相互作用，在气候风险感知中发挥重要作用。使用心理距离和解释水平理论，我们确定了两种不同的时间视角，历史导向和未来导向。我们的分析表明，了解气候的农民使用不同的时间视角，这取决于他们是被要求通过个人视角还是为他人保留的视角来想象气候风险。