The fiscal cliff, Yes We Can!, and Gangnam Style all have something in common…they are what is known as “memes.” The Merriam-Webster Dictionary online defines a meme as, “an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture.”1 On the Internet, memes are usually in the form of images and videos that are passed electronically from one Internet user to another.
Environmental memes are a special category of memes that inform our view of nature and are used to help us judge and mediate our interactions with nature. For example, some memetic phenomena include “Gaia”2 and “stewardship,” which inspire us to experience a natural world with inherent value above and beyond the utility of its resources. In contrast, memes such as “drill baby drill”3 assert that nature is nothing more than an economic opportunity to be exploited. Recently, researchers have started to identify and disseminate memes that could help advance important global initiatives, like the fight to stop climate change . 4;5
The Importance of Memes
Most of us don’t stop to think about how memes that we hear from our family and friends or see on the Internet might influence us. Researchers in the emerging field of meme science are beginning to investigate how and why these sticky phrases or trends “sink into our cultural psyche and subconsciously influence the way we process the world around us.”6 The memes we encounter on a daily basis represent ideas, behaviors, or styles that spread from person to person. They can create associations between certain ideas and moral or political values, and they can make new ideas popular or unpopular.
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Environmental Memes
We all know that attitudes about the environment in the United States are highly polarized—Republicans are stereotyped as climate deniers and Democrats are stereotyped as tree-hugging hippies. Recently, researchers from Stanford conducted five studies to examine the “moral roots of environmental attitudes,” which involved content analyses of newspaper op-eds and public service announcements (PSAs).8 The op-eds and PSAs described climate change from two different perspectives. Half described the ecological harm that humans are inflicting on the environment, complete with images of slashed forests and bleached coral reefs. However, the other half focused on the fact that pollution violates the sanctity and purity of the earth, complete with images of pollution and dirty drinking water. Both messages ended by telling readers that they could help to protect the environment.9
Self-described liberal participants reacted about equally strongly to the environmental damage and the environmental sanctity messages, whereas self-described conservatives were unmoved by the environmental harm message. However, when conservatives were presented with a sanctity message, they expressed support for pro-environmental legislation. “We were able to persuade conservative participants to be supportive of environmental policy and care more about the environment in general…They were not only persuaded but almost as supportive as liberals when they perceived the environment as a moral issue.”10 These results suggest that reframing environmental discourse by using memes that create new moral associations with sustainability and conservation can reduce the gap between liberals and conservatives in dealing with environmental issues.
Climate Memes
With lessons taken from these new studies in mind, climate advocates are trying to find memes that will “stick” more. As the founders of the Climate Meme Project put it: “Despite the valiant efforts of climate advocates, we still are not seeing the shift in consciousness necessary to propel global action…. We just don’t know which ideas are going to stick…. So they just throw ideas out blindly and hope for the best. We can do better than that.” 12
The climate meme project seeks to develop more effective messages by gathering the memes in active use right now—through interviews and from Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms—and analyzing them to figure out the feelings and beliefs that people already have about global warming . With this knowledge in hand it will be much easier to know what sustainability messages will be successful with less environmentally-focused groups.13
Finally, the last stage of the Climate Meme Project will be to spread memes that are likely to make an impact, such as “we are part of this world and must live accordingly” or “a healthy economy is fundamentally linked with a healthy environment.” The Climate Meme team plans to draw on a network of foundations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to help promote the message and supplant memes that keep the conversation stuck like “drill, baby drill” or “the science isn’t settled yet.” Imagine instead if we talked about “protecting the environment for the health of our children,” “violating the purity of nature when we dump,” or “humanity is part of the natural world” as resounding truths? Let’s hope that the climate meme researchers are correct when they posit that, “particular worldviews are only constrained by what people think…To change what is possible is to change the beliefs that keep people from seeing pathways to solutions.”14
