Framing Climate Change: Structural Education, Individual Action

Southeast Florida is a region of the U.S. that is predicted to incur severe damage due to climate change (CC). As a result, one particular grassroots organization created a CC workshop to educate, advocate, and build resiliency locally. Social movement’s literature reveals processes of framing, resource mobilization, and organizational structure that have had successful outcomes locally while climate action literature argues that civil society has been ineffective at creating significant impacts on the global scale of climate policy. In order to expand this literature further, I conducted a research project to examine how different frames presented in CC education influence climate actions in the Southeast Florida region. Using qualitative research methods of participant observations and interviews, my analysis of the data collected suggests that organizers of the workshop used an environmental and climate justice narrative along with a collective action framework, relying on three master frames of place, justice, and power to educate members on CC. Amongst the prognoses presented to members during the education were climate action solutions primarily within the meso (community/civic engagement) level to create structural change within the region. I found that participants interpreted CC to be an issue of 2 places in Southeast Florida, one on the coast and one inland and, thus, depending on which region participants lived, their level of climate action was affected, whether at the individual or community/civic level. Therefore, some participants focused on individual behavioral and household consumer tactics, while other participants worked on community building and creating structural change. Given the unsuccessful nature of local organizations at impacting global climate negotiations and the goal of social movement processes to create change within societal structures, this case study contributes to the growing body of knowledge regarding the influence of climate education on climate actions.