Abstract
Climate change is happening, that is agreed upon by most scientist. However, there still exists uncertainty amongst the public about its seriousness and consequences, and different perceptions are shaped because climate change has become a cultural, as well as being a physical, phenomenon. Understanding peoples’ perceptions of climate change are hence, important in engaging the public and to further promote mitigating actions.
This study investigates peoples’ perception among a selected number of interviewees in Kristiansund. Hence, qualitative method, more specifically, semi-structured interview was used to produce the data. This resulted in 12 interviewees. Further, the results that were produced answer the main research question: “In what ways do people relate to and perceive climate change as part of their everyday life?”
The interviewees perceive climate change primarily as changes in weather. However, uncertainty regarding its seriousness and consequences still exists among the interviewees as climate change is perceived as a distant issue in both time and space. Further, climate change holds uncertainty amongst the interviewees because of how and from whom information about climate change is received. Experiences with climate change by the interviewees are primarily experiences of changes in weather. However, interviewees also talk about experiences of plastic waste in nature when talking about climate change. Hence, this indicates that the interviewees mix climate change with other environmental issues, especially when climate change is translated down to the local level. This is also evident when the interviewees talk about actions they have taken in order to mitigate climate change, as recycling is one of the main actions that the interviewees do in order to mitigate climate change. Thus, climate change holds several perceptions by the interviewees as the interviewees are exposed to different cultural and social contexts.