Motivations for participation in climate activism
Adrian Cooper
Oct. 15, 2025, 11 a.m.
Dr Adrian Cooper | ECS Ambassador for the UK
UK citizen scientists have spent 2025 developing their understanding of motivations among members of the public to participate in climate activism. This discussion summarises this work in four sections. First, I will explain the methods used in this research. Second, I will discuss the data types which were encountered. Third, I summarise the five sets of motivations which have been discovered. Finally, I explain how this work will be developed during the rest of 2025 and into next year.
This research used a mixed method approach, employing ethnographic interviews to achieve a depth of understanding, alongside telephone interviews for a breadth of coverage. Ethnographic interviews began by establishing rapport with interviewees. That work developed with structured, semi-structured and unstructured interviews. Telephone interviews focused on groups of 100 randomly chosen individuals from community-based conservation projects.
However, while that depth and breadth of investigation has much to recommend it, the main challenge was the diversity of data types. That is, interviewees described sights, sounds, fragrances, touch experiences (e.g. running fingers across tree bark in woodland habitats) and taste experiences (e.g. from foraging local edible berries and mushrooms). The challenge of representing that diversity of data types was addressed through collaborative map making. Each map was therefore the product of citizen scientists creating their own base maps and then surrounding those core maps with side panels describing each of the data types. A further benefit of this approach is to try and avoid reductionism in the visualisation of data. Examples may be found on the Facebook page of Felixstowe's Citizen Science Group.
Collaborative map making is therefore a democratic, inclusive and empowering way for citizen scientists to work alongside communities to represent the richness of connections with local environments.
The third section of this article identifies the five sets of motivation which have been discovered in the UK public's participation in community-based climate activism. The first of those motivations arises from activists' scientific understanding of their local environments. That scientific understanding may be further broken down into eleven examples. They include biodiversity loss; alterations to biogeochemical cycles; changes in soil and atmospheric chemistry; land-use changes; the accumulation of human-made materials (such as plastic, metal, concrete and glass); techno fossils (such as plastic particles, aluminium and synthetic chemicals); global infrastructure networks (such as roads, cities and data systems); pollution (in the air, water, soils, persistent organic pollutants, and heavy metals); geological and stratigraphic markers (such as black carbon from fossil fuel combustion); ocean acidification; and system feedbacks. In reviewing that collection of scientific knowledge, it is significant that none of the interviewees for any part of this research ever used the term Anthropocene. However, it remains clear that these eleven features amount to a comprehensive definition of the Anthropocene idea.
The second set of elements which has been discovered as being part of the motivation to take part in community-based climate activism arise from the beauty of local environments. However, the problem with any discussion about environmental beauty is its complexity and illusiveness. It is therefore helpful to refer back to the ethnographic interviews to establish a comprehensive set of definitions which interviewees employ concerning environmental beauty. The telephone interviews also help significantly. On the basis of those mixed methods, it is possible to suggest five elements which constitute a broad consensus of what is meant by environmental beauty in the context of this research. They therefore include the sights, sounds, fragrances, touch experiences and tastes which participants found from walking in their chosen environment. Beyond those five features of environmental beauty there is also a significant valuing of the chosen location as being therapeutic. Finally, the seventh part of what our interviewees mean by environmental beauty as a motivation for their participation in community-based climate activism refers to the fact that, for people of faith, those environments can be thought of as local pilgrimage destinations where they can pray, meditate or simply reflect. Throughout the whole of 2025 so far, these seven elements of environmental beauty have recurred during research interviews.
The third set of motivations for members of the public to participate in community-based climate activism refers to an appreciation of an environment as a community-resource. That appreciation includes reference to the environment as being a local educational resource. One of the main features within that appreciation of a local environment as an educational resource refers to informal education by parents, grand-parents and guardians to young members of their family or community.
The fourth set of motivations for participation in community-based climate activism refers to the appreciation that favoured environments can be therapeutic. Again though, using data from ethnographic and telephone interviews, it is possible to unpack the concept of therapeutic environments into five elements. They are the physical characteristics of a location as a safe, comfortable, calm and quiet location; the emotional characteristics of locations as places which visitors can trust; social characteristics of places where helpful and healing conversations can be shared; psychological characteristics of a place where visitors can find that their identity and dignity are empowered; and holistic characteristics of locations which can help the mind, body and spirit.
The fifth set of motivations for participation in community-based climate activism are of greatest relevance to people of faith. That is, there is a recognition that places which are regarded as local pilgrimage destinations can be a strong and persistent motivation to take part in local climate activism. In this context, 'faith' refers to any form of spiritual or formal religious sensitivity.
The main benefit of identifying these five sets of motivation is they significantly help community-based conservation and citizen science groups as they promote activities such as Climate Justice agendas and Climate Action Planning.
For the rest of 2025, and the whole of next year at least, this research will be supplemented with further work at different locations.