Engaging with Climate Change:
Local Views of Challenges

Climate change is real, and its effects are now increasingly felt around the world. But although a global phenomenon, climate change is understood and experienced differently in different places.

Engaging Gruppenfoto
Image: Werner Krauß

The course Engaging with Climate Change: Local Views of Challenges was successfully held from April to June 2022. The goal of the course was to guide students from different Master's programs (and advanced Bachelor's programs) to explore the local challenges for citizens of our university cities and adjacent regions in relation to the impacts of global climate change. The course was developed with the participation of the Universities of Göttingen, Groningen and Uppsala and was implemented in the summer semester of 2022 with students from the Universities of Göttingen (Germany), Groningen (Netherlands), Ghent (Belgium) and Uppsala (Sweden).


Structure

Preparatory Weeks (Week 1-5)

  • Introduction I: Climate Change from a Social Science Perspective
  • Introduction II: Climate Change and the Local
  • Theory: Climate Change Key Concepts
  • Methods I: Qualitative Research
  • Methods II: Analysis of Qualitative Data

Research Weeks (Week 6-8)
Over the course of the three weeks, the students did research at their respective localities. The topical lessons during these weeks provided an inspiration to their research. They documented their research experiences in their respective portfolios.

  • Topic 1 e.g., Climate Change and Emotions
  • Topic 2 e.g., Climate Justice
  • Topic 3 e.g., Climate Change and Tourism


Content

Student Presentation
Image: Leon-Fabian Caspari

This ENLIGHT Blended Intensive Program (BIP) undertook a multi-disciplinary exploration of local perspectives of climate change and its impacts in European localities of the ENLIGHT network university cities and campuses. Students of the course learned about place-based socio-cultural dimensions of climate change and conducted empirical research on what challenges are seen as a result of the impacts of global climate change by citizens of the different ENLIGHT university cities or surrounding regions. In preparation, student from all over the ENLIGHT network as well as a multidisciplinary team of teachers from the University of Göttingen, the University of Groningen and Uppsala University became part of a cross-university online classroom. The classes prepared the students with social science theories on climate change, key concepts of climate science, policy, and activism as well as qualitative methodological training for data collection and analysis. Students conducted their research during the semester at their own location and analyzed and presented their data during an on-site week in Göttingen from 12.06.2022 to 17.06.2022. This gave them the chance to get to know the students and faculty from the other universities that they have previously only met online. In addition, they got to know the university city of Göttingen and learned about the different perspectives of its citizens and the consequences and challenges of climate change for the city on the ground.


On-site-week

Werner Krauß Workshop
Image: Leon-Fabian Caspari

During the on-site week, the students were able to complete their data analysis and prepare a presentation on the interim results of their individual research projects. They were divided into groups of three to find common ground in their research topics and to present their findings to the whole group of students and lecturers. The group work was accompanied by workshops with Leon-Fabian Caspari, Dr Werner Krauß and guided explorations of the city of Göttingen in relation to climate change impacts and adaptation as well as conversations with local inhabitants.


Selected Results of the Course

Here you will find three selected examples of research work by Göttingen students. All research was conducted in Göttingen or in the region.


Climate change is an overarching issue of the 21st century. As something that cannot necessarily be measured or experienced directly like the weather, climate is a very abstract phenomenon. What can be measured, however, is temperature over long periods of time, either on a global or local scale. In her research, Greta Simon has focused on the local scale, where rising temperatures, pollution and industrialization lead to the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. The intrinsic characteristics of UHI are discussed, as well as paradoxes such as housing shortages vs. the need for green infrastructure, and unequal access to mitigation to the UHI by the elite vs. the poor. She focuses on the current mitigation and adaptation strategies of the city of Göttingen, namely the Climate Plan 2030 and interviewed a representative of the city who works on climate adaptation. She found that climate adaptation has only been a topic of interest for about 10 years, which is why there are still a lot of shortcomings in Göttingen itself. In short, policy needs to play its part in paving the way for resilient and UHI-adapted cities as seen during the Covid-19 pandemic and the energy shortages since the Russian war on Ukraine. Politics has the power to steer our way of life in certain directions, so why not in a direction that makes it worth living on this planet again?

Greta completed an internship at the Department of Sustainable Urban Development in Göttingen after the course.


The climate crisis affects us all. Like an invisible thread, it runs through every part of our society weaving an ever-tighter web around the world. These threads make visible where politics has failed, and social injustices are reinforced. Who has power and who does not? Climate projections see the next 10 years as a crucial window for action to prevent climate change from becoming an irreversible crisis. This will also lead to an increase in emotions and feelings such as stress, anxiety and helplessness. Using the "Letzte Generation" as a case study, my research focuses on where to find emotions in climate activism, how emotions in climate activism are used discursively to influence the politics of climate change, and how emotions affect activists' agency, well-being and ultimately their motivation to trade the physical comfort of their homes for the ever-present danger of being hit by a car or physically attacked by angry passersby while sitting in a road blockade with their hands glued to the road.

Letzte Generation
Bild: Felix Heller


In the Harz National Park in central Germany, Carl Simon Spinger is investigating which processes and factors play an important role in how climate change is perceived and processed locally and what effects this can have on human behaviour. As part of a mixed-method study, he interviewed 40 people about the forest dieback that occurred there, which is considered an example of a local impact of climate change. His analysis shows that the interviewees perceive the forest dieback emotionally on various levels and that this perception is in turn significantly influenced by local-specific factors such as the search for those to blame for this event. The interviewees also criticised the climate communication of public institutions and the general media coverage, among other things. In connection with the psychological processing of this event, other factors such as the value-action gap, social comparisons and self-efficacy in the implementation of climate protection measures play a role. Overall, some of those surveyed showed a greater awareness of climate change and the need for corresponding climate protection measures. However, the actual implementation of their own measures is difficult to verify and, according to the respondents, often fails due to a lack of knowledge about how to integrate climate protection into their own everyday lives. These results help to clarify the factors that play a role in the perception and realisation of climate protection.

Harz Mountain_Carl Simon Springer
Bild: Carl Simon Spinger



Engaging Gruppenfoto 2.jpeg Image: Elfriede Hermann