RESUMO
How and why climate change opinions vary within countries at a small geographic scale is rarely investigated. Previous research has focused on public opinions at the individual or national level, leaving local differences within countries and their underlying factors largely unexplored. The lack of research at subnational levels is problematic, as adaptation and mitigation policies depend on collective support and action involving multiple stakeholders at the local scale. It is thus crucial to identify geographic differences in climate change opinions and to unravel their determinants at a fine-grained local scale. We examine public CCOs across 4,667 municipalities in Germany by relying on a representative survey of households. Here we show substantial and systematic differences in public climate change opinions across locations that manifest between urban vs. rural and prospering vs. declining areas. Besides these geographic features, more complex historical and cultural differences between places play an important role.
RESUMO
Narratives and stories are important communication tools and as such essential subjects of social geography. This paper analyses the retelling of Greta Thunberg's sailing trip across the Atlantic to the Climate Action Summit in New York in 2019 in leading German newspapers and magazines and how her intentions are transformed through this reporting into different narratives. The research mainly focuses on examining the influence of space and place, as geographical research has revealed that spatial determinants are crucial in risk communication and knowledge generation on climate change but have yet to be studied considering stories. The paper, therefore, extends the story-based approach from communication sciences by geographical research on the role of space and place in action-based stories. Therefore, the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) is used to decode the spatial environment in narratives as an active element that shapes the narrative, and the way characters can (inter)act within these settings. The paper further develops the NPF framework through a geographical lens by focusing particularly on the selection options of spaces for social interactions and affective bonds. Thus, it becomes evident how spatial contexts and environments shape the interactions between individuals and crucially influence the types of narratives that emerge.
RESUMO
The Covid 19 pandemic has caused dramatic disruptions in the public transport sector that has seen a stark downturn in many cities across the globe, calling into question previous efforts to reduce air pollution and CO2 emissions by expanding this sector. Especially, the current surge of individual car use is worrying and the question remains which users might be able and willing to substitute public transport by cycling. This effect is interesting to study for the case of Hanover Region, because of the well-developed biking infrastructure that makes biking a viable alternative to individual car use. In this paper, we analyze survey data from June 2020 on the use of transportation modes before and during the pandemic in the Hanover Region. We ask if and how the over 4.000 participants substitute public transport and what characterizes those who chose biking over individual car use. We use multivariate regression models and find evidence that Stadtbahn (local light rail) and bus are substituted by bike, car and working from home, while train use is not significantly replaced by car and seems to be positively related to bike use. The data also shows that women have a higher level of fear of infection than men have during public transport use and therefore reduce public transport use more. Moreover, income displays a positive effect on increased car use while cycling is independent of socio-economic indicators but instead driven by the eco-consciousness of users. Surprisingly, we find that car use was increased in particular by residents of Hanover city, while it was decreased by residents of less densely populated urban areas in the region.
