Global climate change and human behavior: Decreasing energy consumption

To decrease carbon dioxide emissions per capita and hopefully reduce the problem of climate change, many scientists have addressed supply-side methods using carbon-reduction technologies such as carbon capture and storage. But with increasing population and rising energy demand in developed and developing countries, it is unclear whether supply-side methods alone can make sufficient progress toward solving the problem. This thesis investigates demand-side management methods to facilitate a reduction in carbon emissions. The thesis consists of three main studies. First, I design and implement intervention experiment to facilitate a decrease in energy consumption. Second, I use surveys to understand when and why an individual would accept voluntary actions, soft regulations or hard regulations to curb fossil fuel consumption. Third, I show how lay perceptions of energy consumed by different every-day behaviors differ from actual energy consumption data.;My first experiment was an eight-week intervention study that examined whether holding people accountable for their behaviors leads to energy conservation (n = 100). The intervention asked participants for reasons why they did or did not engage in energy conserving behaviors, with questions focusing on household operations, transportation, and food purchases. Results show that the intervention, in general, did not facilitate behavior change in these sectors. However, an important finding is that participants erroneously perceived there is not much difference in energy saved by several different behaviors. Furthermore, 60% of participants perceived a change in their own behavior over the course of the study even though no overall behavior change occurred. This result could imply that participants have optimistic illusions regarding their own behavior change.;My second experiment was a study on preferences to change behavior. Pittsburgh residents (n = 209) reported their preferences for voluntary actions, soft regulations, and hard regulations to (a) limit the number of SUVs and trucks and (b) increase green energy use for household energy consumption. These two goals were presented in one of two motivating frames, as addressing either environmental or national security issues. For the goal of limiting SUVs and trucks, results indicated that participants favored voluntary actions over hard regulations, and soft regulations over voluntary actions. For the goal of increasing green energy, results indicated that participants preferred both voluntary actions and soft regulations over hard regulations, but had no significant preference between voluntary actions and soft regulations. Participants' environmental attitudes (as assessed using the New Ecological Paradigm scale) had a strong positive relationship with support for regulatory strategies intended to change the behaviors in question. Women were more likely to support voluntary actions than men. The loss of personal freedom was frequently mentioned as a reason for saying no to hard regulations.;My third experiment studied how participants (n = 505) perceive energy consumption and savings for household, transportation, and recycling behaviors. Participants' showed a tendency to overestimate energy consumption and savings for low-energy behaviors and underestimate energy consumption and savings for high-energy behaviors. On average, participants underestimated the amount of energy used or saved by different behaviors. Pro-environmental attitudes and higher numeracy scores were associated with more accurate perceptions of energy consumption. However, participants who reported engaging in a greater number of environmental behaviors had less accurate perceptions of energy consumption. On average, participants reported that engaging in energy-conserving behaviors would not be difficult for any of the behaviors considered.