1043SCG Assignment: Psychology's Contribution to Climate Change

This report investigates the contributions of psychology to climate change mitigation and adaptation, and its impact on sustainability. The paper begins by defining psychology and outlining its relevance to environmental issues, including the examination of the profession’s role in addressing climate ...Read More

Geography
Geography
Name
Institution
Professor
Course
Date

Geography
Introduction
My chosen profession is psychology. This is a field which is advantageous in protecting
environment from threats which would otherwise results to negative impacts on the entire
ecosystem. It is a filed which focus in what and how human being think and perceive things thus
contributing to policies and understanding that helps people change their behavior and perception
(VijayaVenkataRaman, Iniyan, Goic, 2012). In this case the paper deals with how psychology
profession contributes in offering solution s during adverse climatic changes and ensuring
environmental sustainability. It will also indicate strategies, research skills and policies enacted
by psychologist to deal with effects of global climatic changes
My profession: Psychology
Psychology is an expansive discipline which fuses both the logical scientific research of human
behavior characteristics and its natural, psychological, and social bases, and the methodical use
of this information to connected issues. It is the logical investigation of how individuals act,
think and feel. Therapists contemplate everything about the human experience from the essential
operations of the human cerebrum to cognizance, memory, thinking and dialect to identity and
emotional wellness (Clayton, et al 2015).A psychologist is an individual who ponders the brain
and behavior. In this case this particular profession typically envelops a wide scope of forte
regions including such things as animal study and organization behavior.
Psychology, first perceived during the 1870s, is a science centered on human conduct. It is a
changed order in which look into psychologist creating and testing hypotheses with respect to
mental and conduct working and prosperity of people. In this case as a psychologist with how
people’s behavior changes contribute positively to dealing with threats of climate changes

Geography
(Doherty, & Clayton, 2011). Throughout the years, a superior comprehension of the association
between the brain and the body has brought about organizations among clinicians and other
human services suppliers, as indicated by the American Mental Affiliation. This has made entire
individual human services progressively satisfactory, open and accessible to more patients.
There exist two major procedures environment responses to adverse climatic change: mitigation
and adaptation (Gifford, 2011). Mitigation involves identifying root causes by lowering
greenhouse gas impacts while adaptation addresses risks resulting by the impacts of the huge
changes to climate.
Climate change mitigation involve utilization of upcoming advanced technologies and various
renewable energies, making instruments more effective and also changing the societal individual
behaviours.It revolves around actions to restrain the impacts of future global warming and the
also other related events. Some examples include maximizing energy effectiveness, removal of
fossil fuel and CO2 gases from the atmosphere region.
Adaptation and climate change
Climate change adaptation involves a reaction to an Earth-wide temperature boost or global
warming (otherwise called "environmental change" or "anthropogenic environmental
change").This aims to diminish the helplessness of both social and biological frameworks to
moderately sudden change and accordingly balance the impacts of global warming (Hall,
Gössling, Scott, 2012).This is the existing ability for people to adapt to the rapid changes in
environment issues. This aspect ensures the evaluation of both sensitivity and vulnerability
domains in climate negative impacts.

Geography
Some of the adaptation measures are infrastructural modifications to prevent sea level increase or
enhancing road surfaces in order to deal with high temperature .Other include human behavior
shifts like planting crops, less water usage (Reser, & Swim, 2011).
The adaptation assists people, society, nations and environmental systems to withstand adverse
effects of climate change which are ultimately unavoidable. Psychologists help to take active
actions to reduce the risks, protect society and improve economy.
Adjustment is a common duty. Governments at all dimensions, organizations and family units
each have reciprocal tasks to carry out (Smith & Olesen, 2010).
Contributions of psychology profession to climate mitigation and adaptation
One imperative manner by which my psychology profession will contribute to climate mitigation
and adaptation is by creation key strategies, understanding the beliefs of individuals and
research.
Psychologists profession are put forth new knowledge and answers to assist counter
environmental change, while helping individuals adapt to the natural, financial and wellbeing
impacts officially incurring significant damage on individuals' lives.
Psychologists expand research and work intimately with industry, government and instruction to
address environmental change.
They play an important role in acknowledging barriers that protect people from behavior change
and d improve communicating on the correct course of action thus helping the facilitation of
debate regarding the matter.

Geography
Psychology profession has a huge role in adaptation measures that will be required for the
dimensions of environmental change which are as of now anticipated as inescapable
(VijayaVenkataRaman, Iniyan, Goic, 2012). They help in reducing environment conflicts
through changing behavior and also offering resources which lower political conflicts aggravated
by changing climatic conditions.
In both climatic mitigation and adaptation, this profession can prompt on two dimensions:
manageable conduct change in people; and the talks, commitment and goals resolution systems
required for society to discuss the significant financial and auxiliary changes required
The utilization of psychology hypothesis and experimental research is all around cutting edge in
regard of ecological conduct change and sustainable ways of life Hypothetical systems, for
example, the hypothesis of planned conduct have been utilized as often as possible in this field to
inspect practices, for example, the utilization of open public transport (Koger & Winter, 2011).
Broad changes in both structure and economic dimensions aided by this profession will be
significant so as to alleviate environmental change, and these are probably going to fuel political
and open contentions. Psychology in this manner has a critical job in understanding the elements
of these debates.
Psychology profession contributions to restricting environmental change will come not from
endeavoring to change individuals' frames of mind, but rather by making low-carbon innovations
increasingly alluring and easy to use, monetary motivating forces progressively straightforward
and less demanding to utilize, and data increasingly significant and applicable to the general
population who require it (Swim et al,2011).psychology is fundamental to understanding the
human causes and results of environmental change. They can utilize key interventions drawn

Geography
from catastrophe psychology research and bolster long haul modification that perceives
fluctuated responses to the natural and advanced technology disastrous events (Kahle & Gurel-
Atay, 2013).
They are likewise proposing arrangements identified with understanding explicit human
practices.
In summary;
This profession contribute by conceptualizing and comprehend the human conduct commitments
to environmental change (like populace development and utilization) and the mental (e.g.,
inspiration, capacity) and logical drivers of these commitments (e.g., physical chances and
limitations, social and social standards).
It ensures sharing learning and comprehension of how people in general see the dangers of, and
comprehends environmental change.
Gives responses to inquiries concerning how individuals and organizations can change their
conduct to decrease the dangers of environmental change (relief).
Helping people and networks adjust to the psychosocial effects of environmental change and
dangers, including helping individuals to deal with the pain of confronting the dangers of
environmental change.
Sorting out reasonable and feasible guidelines for impartial sharing of worldwide assets.
Psychologist profession will also contribute to climate mitigation and adaptation through
creation of programs that instill skills to people and create awareness in order for people to
appreciate their environment (Norton, Zacher, Ashkanasy, 2014). This will prevent them from

Geography
carrying practices such as deforestation as they will be aware of the dangers of such
environmental malpractices.
Contribution of psychology in sustainability
In order to understand the role of psychology in sustainability it is best that we first understand
the concept of sustainability so that we can relate it to its impact in the environment and in doing
so we would understand who these two aspects, psychology and sustainability are concerned
about.
Sustainability is a term that can assume various definitions and meanings depending on the
context with which the term is used. In most occasions, however, sustainability is used to refer to
that unique ability that is expected to be maintained at a certain level and/or rate (Castro,
2012).In other words, sustainability may mean the deliberate act of avoiding the depletion of
some very fundamental natural resources with the main purpose of maintaining a state of
ecological balance. It often concerned with the aspect if meetings one’s current needs without
compromising the ability of some other future generations to satisfactory meet their needs.
In recent years psychology of sustainability has been a new discipline in the field of psychology
and through it then totally new research has been presented from time to time again regarding
psychology and its contributions to sustainability. Psychology as we all know is a wide discipline
(Winter & Koger, 2014). In sustainability for instance, it has had an impact of creating an
environment that specially seeks to not only create but as well as improve the quality of life of
people and their environment. In most cases psychology has regarded this traditional framework
as the three ‘Es’ that is Economy, Equity and Ecology. Psychologists claim that this is derived
from the primary definition of sustainability that mentions that psychology is often more about

Geography
trying to avoid something from being exploited. Psychology of sustainability thus brings into
play a totally new perspective that is based on sustainability for people in their natural
environment. It is also important to note that these environments could either be natural,
personal, social and/or organizational environments. It also puts more emphasis towards ensuring
that there exists a sustainability not only interpersonal talent but as well as that of various groups
and communities.
In most cases this is usually based on various aspects that are considered to be very core and
important in the whole concept of sustainability. Some of the core cases that can be looked at
regarding to this involve flourishing on personal careers and goals, meaning of purposes and
lastly being in a position to harmonize the various aspects sustainability by looking at their
psychological point of view.
Basically, based on study conducted by various scholars and academicians across the globe, the
whole concept of sustainability and its interplay with psychology is often more related to human
beings and how they interact and respond to nature and the environment at large. Through
psychology a mechanism has been developed that links between sustainability and various
psychological perspectives. In other words there are various environmental hazards and problems
that are known to be caused by human behaviors and some tiny aspect of changes in the human
behavior.
Conclusion
In summary, psychology is an expansive discipline which fuses both the logical scientific
research of human behavior characteristics and its natural, psychological, and social bases, and
the methodical use of this information to connected issues (Hansmann, 2010). As mentioned

Geography
earlier in the text, psychology has had a very great impact of various areas such as in adaptation
and climate change as well as in sustainability. In adaptation for instance, psychology has played
an important role in acknowledging barriers that protect people from behavior change and d
improve communicating on the correct course of action thus helping the facilitation of debate
regarding the matter (Ones & Dilchert, 2012).
Consequently, statistics show that psychology profession is tremendous. For instance,
contributions to restricting environmental change will come not from endeavoring to change
individuals' frames of mind, but rather by making low-carbon innovations increasingly alluring
and easy to use, monetary motivating forces progressively straightforward and less demanding to
utilize, and data increasingly significant and applicable to the general population who require it
It can therefore be concluded that psychology is a profession that is very crucial in our day to day
activities. In the recent changing world, psychology has a role to play (Roome, 2012).

Geography
References
Castro, P. (2012). Legal innovation for social change: Exploring change and resistance to
different types of sustainability laws. Political Psychology, 33(1), 105-121.
Clayton, S., Devine-Wright, P., Stern, P. C., Whitmarsh, L., Carrico, A., Steg, L., ... & Bonnes,
M. (2015). Psychological research and global climate change. Nature Climate
Change, 5(7), 640.
Doherty, T. J., & Clayton, S. (2011). The psychological impacts of global climate
change. American Psychologist, 66(4), 265.
Gifford, R. (2011). The dragons of inaction: psychological barriers that limit climate change
mitigation and adaptation. American Psychologist, 66(4), 290.
Hall, C. M., Gössling, S., & Scott, D. (2012). Tourism and climate change: Impacts, adaptation
and mitigation. Psychology press.
Hansmann, R. (2010). “Sustainability learning”: an introduction to the concept and its
motivational aspects. Sustainability, 2(9), 2873-2897.
Kahle, L. R., & Gurel-Atay, E. (Eds.). (2013). Communicating sustainability for the green
economy. ME Sharpe.
Koger, S. M., & Winter, D. D. (2011). The psychology of environmental problems: Psychology
for sustainability. Psychology press.
Norton, T. A., Zacher, H., & Ashkanasy, N. M. (2014). Organisational sustainability policies and
employee green behaviour: The mediating role of work climate perceptions. Journal of
Environmental Psychology, 38, 49-54.

Geography
Ones, D. S., & Dilchert, S. (2012). Environmental sustainability at work: A call to
action. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 5(4), 444-466.
Reser, J. P., & Swim, J. K. (2011). Adapting to and coping with the threat and impacts of climate
change. American Psychologist, 66(4), 277.
Roome, N. (2012). Looking back, thinking forward: Distinguishing between weak and strong
sustainability. In The Oxford handbook of business and the natural environment.
Smith, P., & Olesen, J. E. (2010). Synergies between the mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate
change in agriculture. The Journal of Agricultural Science, 148(5), 543-552.
Swim, J. K., Stern, P. C., Doherty, T. J., Clayton, S., Reser, J. P., Weber, E. U., ... & Howard, G.
S. (2011). Psychology's contributions to understanding and addressing global climate
change. American psychologist, 66(4), 241.
VijayaVenkataRaman, S., Iniyan, S., & Goic, R. (2012). A review of climate change, mitigation
and adaptation. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 16(1), 878-897.
Winter, D. D. N., & Koger, S. (2014). The Psychology of Environmental Problems: Psychology
for Sustainability. Psychology Press.