Scientists who believe technology will largely solve climate change are significantly less likely to act on it themselves, according to a survey of more than 9,000 researchers across 115 countries.
The study, by the London School of Economics and published in Environmental Research Letters, found that 27 percent of scientists agreed technology will largely solve the problems caused by climate change, while 44 percent disagreed. Those techno-optimists were 23 percent less likely to engage in civic climate action and 18 percent less likely to make high-impact lifestyle changes than their colleagues who rejected the idea.
The gaps show up across specific behaviors: signing petitions (41 percent versus 52 percent), protesting (17 versus 28 percent) and advocacy (25 versus 33 percent). On daily life, the optimistic group was less likely to cut flying (43 versus 57 percent), reduce car use (62 versus 74 percent) or eat a mostly plant-based diet (31 versus 45 percent). Interestingly, technology-flavored actions showed almost no difference: switching to an electric vehicle (18 versus 21 percent) and to renewable home energy (46 versus 47 percent) were statistically indistinguishable between the groups.
The researchers are careful not to read the result as hypocrisy. Beliefs about solutions plausibly channel effort — toward the lab and the market rather than the street. But as scientists’ public credibility rests partly on visible consistency, the finding adds a personal dimension to a professional debate: what researchers believe about the fix shapes what they do about the problem.
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