Social representations of climate change : farmers in Sweden

The scientific community concludes that the climate is changing. However, publics around the world have formed diverse opinion about climate change which is strongly influenced by local cultural dynamics, value orientation, and political orientation. Among these parts of the society, communication w...

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Autor principal: Bekele, Aschalew Mekkonen
Formato: H2
Lenguaje:Inglés
Publicado: SLU/Dept. of Urban and Rural Development 2019
Materias:
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author Bekele, Aschalew Mekkonen
author_browse Bekele, Aschalew Mekkonen
author_facet Bekele, Aschalew Mekkonen
author_sort Bekele, Aschalew Mekkonen
collection Epsilon Archive for Student Projects
description The scientific community concludes that the climate is changing. However, publics around the world have formed diverse opinion about climate change which is strongly influenced by local cultural dynamics, value orientation, and political orientation. Among these parts of the society, communication with farmers about climate change has proven to be difficult, with relatively low acceptance of anthropogenic climate change or the idea that climate change will negatively affect agriculture. The purpose of this study was to analyze how farmers in Sweden make sense of climate change in relation to agricultural production - a sector characterized as climate sensitive. The social representations perspective reflects the social dimensions of thinking and the perceptual organization and structure of social reality. In this study, the researcher analyses how farmers talk about climate change as one of the factor affecting agricultural production. Semi-structured phone interviews were conducted to examine challenges encountered, overcoming challenges, and the implementation of climate change policy towards the agricultural production. Responses from farmers indicated: • The farmers are aware of the negative effects of GHGs to the changing climate. • Measures taken to protect the environment, challenged the agricultural production. • Climate change has both challenges and opportunities to Northern part of the world. • Farmers’ representation in decision making helps to meet environmental goals, and as a result combat climate change. • Farmers make sense of society and policy as something they do not trust. This study recommends state authorities to satisfy the needs of farmers and engage them in policy formulation and implementation for a better results. The researcher could not identify the interplay between scientific and everyday knowledge which is highly significant in the study of social representations of climate change but does describe other knowledge forms significant to study farmers.
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id RepoSLU15260
institution Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
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publishDate 2019
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spelling RepoSLU152602020-06-04T12:50:01Z Social representations of climate change : farmers in Sweden Bekele, Aschalew Mekkonen climate change social representations agriculture common agricultural policy communications farming policy environment The scientific community concludes that the climate is changing. However, publics around the world have formed diverse opinion about climate change which is strongly influenced by local cultural dynamics, value orientation, and political orientation. Among these parts of the society, communication with farmers about climate change has proven to be difficult, with relatively low acceptance of anthropogenic climate change or the idea that climate change will negatively affect agriculture. The purpose of this study was to analyze how farmers in Sweden make sense of climate change in relation to agricultural production - a sector characterized as climate sensitive. The social representations perspective reflects the social dimensions of thinking and the perceptual organization and structure of social reality. In this study, the researcher analyses how farmers talk about climate change as one of the factor affecting agricultural production. Semi-structured phone interviews were conducted to examine challenges encountered, overcoming challenges, and the implementation of climate change policy towards the agricultural production. Responses from farmers indicated: • The farmers are aware of the negative effects of GHGs to the changing climate. • Measures taken to protect the environment, challenged the agricultural production. • Climate change has both challenges and opportunities to Northern part of the world. • Farmers’ representation in decision making helps to meet environmental goals, and as a result combat climate change. • Farmers make sense of society and policy as something they do not trust. This study recommends state authorities to satisfy the needs of farmers and engage them in policy formulation and implementation for a better results. The researcher could not identify the interplay between scientific and everyday knowledge which is highly significant in the study of social representations of climate change but does describe other knowledge forms significant to study farmers. SLU/Dept. of Urban and Rural Development 2019 H2 eng https://stud.epsilon.slu.se/15260/
spellingShingle climate change
social representations
agriculture
common agricultural policy
communications
farming policy
environment
Bekele, Aschalew Mekkonen
Social representations of climate change : farmers in Sweden
title Social representations of climate change : farmers in Sweden
title_full Social representations of climate change : farmers in Sweden
title_fullStr Social representations of climate change : farmers in Sweden
title_full_unstemmed Social representations of climate change : farmers in Sweden
title_short Social representations of climate change : farmers in Sweden
title_sort social representations of climate change : farmers in sweden
topic climate change
social representations
agriculture
common agricultural policy
communications
farming policy
environment