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Community perception of climate change is a factor in increasing local awareness of climate disaster risk. This encourages more disaster risk reduction actions by the communities themselves, and thus, provides a driver for sustainable community disaster risk management (DRM) initiatives. Using these hypotheses, this chapter assesses whether the communities’ climate change perceptions, awareness of climate hazardous risk, and subsequent actions on DRR enable local DRM capacity to reduce the increasing climate disaster risk. The study conducts household surveys with an original questionnaire in four communities in Cartago City, Costa Rica.

It is not surprising that the dominant cognitive frame through which most audiences view climate change is that of an environmental problem. However, this messaging strategy has proven susceptible to counter-attacks, defensing processing, and other cognitive biases. As such, many environmental advocates are switching gears. From Barack Obama to Pope Francis, the environment-as-public-health-concern narrative is increasingly found in climate change messages. This strategy involves making the abstract issue of climate change more concrete by tying it to negative health impacts, like asthma, heat-related illness, and the spread of disease. Understanding why and for whom this strategy is persuasive, particularly in a social media context where users often encounter persuasive climate change messages, can help advance theory and practice.

The purpose of this chapter is two-fold: 1.) Test the effects of climate message frame (damage to nature or damage to public health), message source (liberal or conservative organization), and the use of visual human exemplars (present or absent) in social media messages; and, 2.) Assess the predictive utility of different conceptual frameworks (personification, construal level theory, and moral foundations theory) as explanatory mechanisms for persuasive social media climate message effects. The results of a nation-wide experiment reveal that the use of visual exemplars matters when climate change is framed as an environmental problem, but otherwise message frame, source, and visual exemplar use have little impact on policy attitudes. Further analyses demonstrated that multiple conceptual mechanisms related to the aforementioned theories help explain social media effects on climate change attitudes.

Ladakh is an isolated arid environment in the Western Himalayas whose population relies mainly on glacial melt water. If the predicted adverse impacts of climate change occur, rising temperatures would accelerate the retreat of glaciers and place immense stress on the traditional Ladakhi agriculture and way of life. Very few studies in hydrology and glaciology currently document physical processes happening in Ladakh and only one project has combined climate data based upon measurements of temperature and precipitation, collected by the Indian Air Force in Leh town, and perceptions of local communities in order to explore the potential impacts of climate change in the area. This information constitutes the basis for climate change-related interventions of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), both local and international, and could help inform any future climate modeling. However, the quality of this data can be questioned on several points, it terms of accuracy, availability and, most importantly, usefulness. Moreover, this chapter discusses the relevance of this kind of data when the focus is placed upon the adaptation of local communities to global environmental changes where climate change may not be the primary cause. For instance, the region is also currently undergoing a rapid transition from subsistence farming to a market-based economy due to the integration of Ladakh into India and the growing influx of tourism. When addressing the broader context of environmental change, reliable, accurate, and available climate data and models could be useful only if used as part of a holistic approach. This approach requires research and interventions to combine scientific information with local knowledge and perceptions about the impacts of climate change to root the physical data in a “real world” context. It must also acknowledge other drivers of environmental changes such as unsustainable development.

The chapter reviews recent evidence of, and debates about, the integration of art, entertainment, and media in media portrayals (e.g., movies, photographs, theater, music, performance art, museums, story-telling, modifications of an environmental space, social media, painting, comics, dance, videogames, etc.) of climate change based on three sources of data: 1) articles listed in academic reference databases and Google Scholar, 2) online sites, and 3) climate change news images. 1) Retrieved articles discuss both the potential and challenges of communicating about climate change through art, entertainment, and media. However, research is inconsistent on and in some cases is critical of the nature and extent of effects of art-based climate communication. 2) The Internet is a rich and diverse source of websites and videos about climate change. We analyzed 49 sites based on the art medium or form discussed, the primary content related to climate change, and the apparent goal of the site or video. The most frequent goals were promote action, collaboration, raise awareness, climate change communication, discussion, empowerment, reshape public perception, and engagement. 3) Based on the major themes and frames identified through content and cluster analysis of 350 images associated with 200 news articles from 11 US newspaper and magazine sources through late 2009, we summarize the theme of art and mass media representations of the environment, and how those are associated with the other major themes. We conclude by suggesting promising areas for future research on the intersection of art and science in communicating about climate change.

Conceptually, reducing the risk of disasters is closely associated with adaptation processes. A fairly conventional approach to disaster risk reduction (DRR) characterizes preparation as part of a continuous cycle of activities that move from disaster events through recovery (damage limitation) and risk reduction (preparation) phases until the next event occurs (Moench, 2007). Moench argues that climate change is increasingly recognized as among the greatest challenges human society will face over the coming century. While it will affect everything from basic ecosystem processes to the spread of disease, some of the greatest impacts are anticipated to occur due to increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme climate events, such as storm, floods, and droughts. Therefore, many of the elements identified in the cycle – strengthening of resilience, land-use planning, insurance, and the development of early warning information – should reduce vulnerability to the next event and thus, assist regions in “adapting” to the types of events that can cause disaster. However, the frequent occurrence as well as the increase in the intensity of the hydrometeorological hazards does not imply on enhanced perception and awareness of the people for preparedness, as experience is not the prime factor to it (Shaw, Shiwaku, & Kobayashi, 2004). In this sense, climate change related disaster management and risk reduction plans should be prepared targeting the concerned target population. A combination of clear and accurate warning messages with high level of preparation with an effort of self-reliance during the crisis time needs to be looked into (SEEDS, 2008).