Facilitating Climate Change Responses: A Report of Two Workshops on Knowledge from the Social and Behavioral Sciences

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, understanding the need for policy makers at the national level to entrain the behavioral and social sciences in addressing the challenges of global climate change, called on the National Research Council to organize two workshops to showcase some of the decision-relevant contributions that these sciences have already made and can advance with future efforts. The workshops focused on two broad areas: (1) mitigation (behavioral elements of a strategy to reduce the net future human influence on climate) and (2) adaptation (behavioral and social determinants of societal capacity to minimize the damage from climate changes that are not avoided).

Facilitating Climate Change Responses documents the information presented in the workshop presentations and discussions. This material illustrates some of the ways the behavioral and social sciences can contribute to the new era of climate research.

• Front Matter
• Introduction
• Part I: Public Understanding and Mitigation of Climate Change
• 1 Public Understanding of Climate Change
• 2 The Potential for Limiting Climate Change Through Household Action
• 3 Public Acceptance of Energy Technologies
• 4 Organizational Change and the Greening of Business
• Part II: Adapting to Climate Change
• 5 Climate Change Adaptation: The State of the Science
• 6 Federal Climate Change Adaptation Planning
• 7 Place-Based Adaptation Cases
• 8 Adaptation and Natural Resource Management
• 9 Cross-Cutting Issues in Adaptation
• 10 Synthesis of Key Questions for the Workshop
• References
• Appendix A: December 2009 Workshop Agenda and List of Participants
• Appendix B: April 2010 Workshop Agenda and List of Participants
• Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members and Staff