Engaging with Climate Change:
Local Views of Challenges

Climate change is an overarching issue of the 21st century. As something that cannot necessarily be measured or experienced directly like the weather, climate is a very abstract phenomenon. What can be measured, however, is temperature over long periods of time, either on a global or local scale. In her research, Greta Simon has focused on the local scale, where rising temperatures, pollution and industrialization lead to the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. The intrinsic characteristics of UHI are discussed, as well as paradoxes such as housing shortages vs. the need for green infrastructure, and unequal access to mitigation to the UHI by the elite vs. the poor. She focuses on the current mitigation and adaptation strategies of the city of Göttingen, namely the Climate Plan 2030 and interviewed a representative of the city who works on climate adaptation. She found that climate adaptation has only been a topic of interest for about 10 years, which is why there are still a lot of shortcomings in Göttingen itself. In short, policy needs to play its part in paving the way for resilient and UHI-adapted cities as seen during the Covid-19 pandemic and the energy shortages since the Russian war on Ukraine. Politics has the power to steer our way of life in certain directions, so why not in a direction that makes it worth living on this planet again?

Greta completed an internship at the Department of Sustainable Urban Development in Göttingen after the course.

The climate crisis affects us all. Like an invisible thread, it runs through every part of our society weaving an ever-tighter web around the world. These threads make visible where politics has failed, and social injustices are reinforced. Who has power and who does not? Climate projections see the next 10 years as a crucial window for action to prevent climate change from becoming an irreversible crisis. This will also lead to an increase in emotions and feelings such as stress, anxiety and helplessness. Using the "Letzte Generation" as a case study, my research focuses on where to find emotions in climate activism, how emotions in climate activism are used discursively to influence the politics of climate change, and how emotions affect activists' agency, well-being and ultimately their motivation to trade the physical comfort of their homes for the ever-present danger of being hit by a car or physically attacked by angry passersby while sitting in a road blockade with their hands glued to the road.


Bild: Felix Heller

In the Harz National Park in central Germany, Carl Simon Spinger is investigating which processes and factors play an important role in how climate change is perceived and processed locally and what effects this can have on human behaviour. As part of a mixed-method study, he interviewed 40 people about the forest dieback that occurred there, which is considered an example of a local impact of climate change. His analysis shows that the interviewees perceive the forest dieback emotionally on various levels and that this perception is in turn significantly influenced by local-specific factors such as the search for those to blame for this event. The interviewees also criticised the climate communication of public institutions and the general media coverage, among other things. In connection with the psychological processing of this event, other factors such as the value-action gap, social comparisons and self-efficacy in the implementation of climate protection measures play a role. Overall, some of those surveyed showed a greater awareness of climate change and the need for corresponding climate protection measures. However, the actual implementation of their own measures is difficult to verify and, according to the respondents, often fails due to a lack of knowledge about how to integrate climate protection into their own everyday lives. These results help to clarify the factors that play a role in the perception and realisation of climate protection.


Bild: Carl Simon Spinger