People in U.S. Cities Worried about Climate Change Discuss Nature Less Negatively Online

Abstract In this mixed-methods, exploratory study, we map how people in cities with varying levels of worry about climate change discuss nature in conversations on reddit.com. Previous research has begun to document ways people discuss climate change online. This study expands upon this work by testing for differences in nature-talk generally across the United States and with the goal of shedding light on less obvious psychological responses to climate worry. We searched the subreddits of N = 81 major cities in the United States and identified N = 1593 threads about nature ( M = 718 words/thread) and paired that data with information on climate worry from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. Quantitative tests showed a negative correlation between a city’s percentage of people “somewhat or very worried” about climate change and negative tone and emotion in nature-related threads. Inductive qualitative analyses identified themes that made up these more negative conversations in less worried cities. In less worried cities, themes regarding the “hassles of nature” and literal and figurative “contamination of nature” drove negativity. In more worried, less negative cities, a theme of “cheerful problem solving” emerged. We also observe a regional pattern in which areas with more exposure to the effects of climate change (the coasts and the South) use less negative language about nature than those more insulated from those effects (the Midwest and the Plains). These results help us understand more about psychological responses to the threat of climate change, which has implications for slowing its progression as well as managing its impacts.