While some may still think of climate change as a problem for a future generation, it's happening right now. Data from NASAopens in new window, for example, show that the Earth has warmed since 1880, with 10 of the warmest years occurring in the past 12 years. Global sea levels rose nearly seven inches in the last century, but at nearly double that rate in the last decade.
As a research social scientist at the U.S. Forest Service's Pacific Southwest Research Station, Patricia Winter, PhD, is among those working to address climate change now. In particular, she's pairing psychological research with that of other domains to find ways to protect community well-being. The Monitor asked Winter about her latest research and what more psychology can do to address environmental issues.
What is your research looking at?
My current work is part of a larger effort that examines community well-being and risk in Los Angeles as temperatures increase between a projected 3 to 7 degrees by 2100 depending on the climate model. We've been looking at neighborhood park use in eight Los Angeles parks, some in disadvantaged areas and some in affluent areas. Working with a plant biologist, a chemist, and experts in green infrastructure and geodesign, we wanted to explore how neighborhood parks contribute to community well-being. This is important because of the many benefits of green spaces, and the increased importance of these parks in buffering effects of climate change. For example, we expect that with increasing temperatures, more people in areas with no or unaffordable air conditioning will want to go to parks to relax in the shade.
In our study, we observed the times of day when people used the parks as well as their gender, age, ethnicity and activity levels. At the same time, our observers wore passive ozone monitors to capture pollution levels.
What did you find?
The good news is that the parks are well used. But the concerning news is that we found that the communities with the greatest needs—the people from the most vulnerable areas who visited their neighborhood parks—were at greatest risk. In our disadvantaged communities, especially those more inland, ozone dose exposure was much higher on average.
It's important to note that the ethnic mix was reflective of the surrounding community, with the majority of the visitors being Latino. So, when we talk about these findings, the discussion takes on an environmental justice component—we need to look at the fact that the people most at risk for being exposed to elevated ozone are also those that tend to have other elevated risk factors, both social and environmental.
What are the implications of your findings?
They point to the need to pay more attention to these at-risk communities. Even small changes will be impactful. For example, we need to look at the tree canopy and be sure that we are planting good species that are resistant to drought and pest invasion. Vegetation is essential to mitigating effects of climate change since it has a cooling effect and helps remove pollution, including ozone, from the air.
These data also help us build a messaging campaign for communities. We know, for example, that there is generally less ozone in the mornings so we can recommend better times of the day to engage in vigorous outdoor activities. Locations in inland canyons were found to have higher ozone so we might make recommendations about areas that are better to visit, especially for sensitive populations. And, we might recommend on particular days that sensitive populations try to exercise indoors and avoid elevated outdoor exposure. Others have used such messaging in the past, and it's worked, so that is reassuring.
What more can psychologists do?
Psychologists bring a highly unique set of skills to the table. Not only do we understand wellness, but we understand the denial about climate change and know how to improve resilience. Overall, I think we are moving in the right direction, but we also need to collaborate more with experts from other disciplines to address the challenges of climate change holistically. The scale of change that is happening now is taking us into a range of the unknown and pushing the limits of what we thought we knew, so it requires more interdisciplinary teamwork.
Read more about psychology's role in climate change in the APA report: "Psychology and Global Climate Change: Addressing a Multi-faceted Phenomenon and Set of Challenges" on APA's website.
