In the Past, Winter was Winter, and Summer was Summer: Climate Change in the Eyes of Older Adults from Poland

Climate change is highly complex in cognitive terms because it differently affects various parts of the globe, its temporal scale being non-linear, which translates into a wide range of possible weather patterns. This necessitates an analysis-based approach to thinking about climate rather than an affect-based one, thus requiring greater effort than is typical for expert knowledge and not for common sense (Weber 2010).

Construal-level theory of psychological distance proposes that while people are intellectually capable of adopting a longer and less egocentric perspective, embracing remote localities and temporalities, their initial engagement prioritises what is close in space and time, or what has directly observable consequences (Trope, Liberman 2010). This means that global problems such as climate change are more engaging when construed from a personal and local perspective rooted in the present. However, since climate change appears to be a threat, people try to protect themselves by construing this issue as temporally distant, unrelated to their lives, and more severe in remote geographical locations. As a result, many environmental problems are perceived as more urgent elsewhere (Ballew et al. 2019). The iconic representation of climate change as a polar bear cast adrift aptly captures the mechanism of distancing oneself because this animal represents a faraway region that is not inhabited by humans.

This defence mechanism constitutes one of many cognitive distortion’s characteristic of the perception of climate change. Aside from deficits in knowledge and the effects of disinformation (Swim et al. 2009, Lamb 2020), this issue is something that people are actively distancing themselves from, as Norgaard (2011) has demonstrated. Such socially constructed repression is meant to protect individuals from emotions such as guilt and to create a comfortable parallel reality, where climate change may be real but does not pose a problem that is serious enough to break the status quo.

On the other hand, people who are profoundly aware of the threat posed by climate change often pay a high emotional price for this knowledge (Swim et al. 2009, Budziszewska, kałwak 2022). Norgaard (2011) identified three main consequences of accepting the actual scale of the problem in spiritual and psychological terms: a sense of guilt caused by dangers looming over individual and collective identity (owing to their contribution to climate change), fear about the future related to ontological insecurity (the world not being as it was), and particularly acute helplessness and powerlessness. Numerous other studies also add persistent anxiety to this list (Swim et al. 2009, Weintrobe 2012, Budziszewska, kałwak 2022).

Glenn (2011) developed the now widespread concept of solastalgia, which denotes the longing for a world whose stability would provide comfort and relief. Subtle properties of local climate and landscape — colours associated with seasons, vegetation cycles, scents, and sounds — comprise a mental blueprint of childhood and homeliness. They manifest in culture and language, in poetry, and in the way, people describe their locality. From the perspective of solastalgia, climate change entails not only material problems but also the loss of some part of one’s culture.

Direct experience of nature in childhood shapes one’s attachment to place (Amel et al. 2017). Sites associated with play, holidays, and free time can vastly differ among various generations, making their understanding of locality dissimilar. Kahn (1999) brought attention to the phenomenon of ‘environmental generational amnesia’ — loss of memory concerning past states of the environment, causing childhood memories to be the norm for each generation. For this reason, the elderly would assume that the Polish climate is synonymous with the one they remember from their childhood, while today’s children will regard the current climate as the standard model. Hence, if climate change is to be noted locally, it becomes necessary to foster intergenerational dialogue.

Motivated cognitive and emotional mechanisms affect not only the perception of climate change but also (and perhaps even more strongly) the perception of its possible mitigation. For the latter, it is crucial to consider both the environment and other people — society and politics (Wójcik et al. in press). Key factors in this area include lack of knowledge and disinformation, which are sometimes rooted in political discourses that go to great lengths to undermine pro-climate transformation and delay it (Lamb 2020). Many studies also indicate the crucial impact of a personal and collective sense of agency (Swim et al. 2009, Gifford 2011), whose deficiency may engender fatalism.

As far as responsibility for climate change is concerned, one frequently encountered defence mechanism is shifting blame elsewhere (Lamb et al. 2020), as exemplified by offloading culpability on other social groups, countries, or generations (Bieńkowska et al. 2021). However, this tendency appears to be more widespread in the media rather than in private conversations (Lamb et al. 2020). Many people declare readiness to make personal sacrifices to achieve a more sustainable lifestyle, invoking ethical norms (Wójcik et al. in press). The apparent lack of engagement in climate issues may stem not from a lack of care for the environment, but from a lack of faith in other people’s commitment as well as doubtfulness about collective agency and political workability (Kemkes, Akerman 2019). Finally, this could be connected with disbelief in the possibility of broader social change and focus on individual choices, which appear more viable in this context (Wójcik et al. in press).

Despite these concerns, citizens’ support for climate policy can be substantial and dependent on more factors than the perception of climate change itself. In a survey conducted worldwide across 28 countries, including top emitters and both advanced and emerging market economies (Dabla-Norris et al. 2023), several policy attributes decided about citizens’ support for climate mitigation measures. These attributes were the policy’s perceived effectiveness, fairness of distributing related burdens, and perceived co-benefits regarding better health, air quality, or new jobs. Similar results were found in Poland (Byrka, Wójcik 2016, Worek et al. 2021), demonstrating that there is already an existing broad support base for introducing climate-friendly policies, especially if these transitions are framed in terms of their co-benefits. In a study (Wójcik 2023) on different energy policies, most respondents would not support further development of coal-based energy systems in Poland, while more than 90% of them would endorse developing more renewables and taking energy efficiency measures. Results from some studies (Bieńkowska et al. 2021, Worek et al. 2021) highlight, however, that if climate policies are framed as an external influence, for example, European Union requirement, or in a context of danger, there might be substantially more backlash against them. Altogether, these results demonstrate that social rather than purely environmental concerns decide climate policy support. And policy choice is often a form of social dilemma, choosing between different concerns and values within multiple frames of reference.

Older adults are often described as having lesser knowledge about climate change and being less engaged in this issue than younger people (Ayalon et al. 2023). Indeed, in one survey conducted in England, researchers found that persons over fifty-five were less concerned about climate change and less inclined to support its mitigation; further, they would share more misconceptions about this topic (Haq et al. 2010). Using panel data from New Zealand, Milfont et al. (2021) confirmed the existence of a generational gap in beliefs about climate change. However, they explained this by indicating different starting points for each generation. In a scoping review of global studies, Ayalon et al. (2023) found that while generational differences in knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours are typically identified in studies worldwide, they can be quite small. Studies usually focus on how older people are perceived in the context of climate change. Some researchers emphasise intergenerational conflict, while others stress solidarity, the transfer of knowledge, and the value of life experience.

According to the socioemotional selectivity theory (Carstensen et al. 2003), the shorter perspective of remaining life causes older adults to have different goals and motivations than younger people. This also surfaces in ways of seeking and processing information. The elderly prefer positive information that does not endanger their beliefs, better serving their well-being, over information that concerns future risks and is thus regarded as having lesser importance.

In Poland, attitudes to climate and the environment as well as concern over these issues have changed over time. In regular polls conducted by CBOS, Poles are asked which phenomena arising from civilisational progress are the most dangerous. In 2018, 75% of respondents answered that it was pollution, while 37%, climate change. Since the early 1990s, distress about the environment diminished in Poland: from 78% to 40% at the lowest point in 2006, then remaining at a considerably low level until 2016. Two subsequent years, however, brought abrupt change, which could be rooted in the rising media attention to smog and the increasing international emphasis on air pollution. At that point, the greatest level of concern for the environment was demonstrated by people aged 35–44 and 55–64, while the lowest was by those over 65 and those aged 18–24 (CBOS 2018). Later years also brought a distinct increase in concern for climate change. In a country-wide poll by Kantar (2019), as many as 72% of respondents agreed that the state of the Earth is serious and requires immediate action, including over a half viewing climate change (51%) and pollution (55%) as a serious threat for the world. In 2022, one study using a representative dataset found that people aged 46–65 are more inclined than those younger to accept sacrifices to mitigate climate change by limiting consumption. Additionally, researchers have demonstrated that, contrary to popular stereotypes, the most engaged social group in Poland is not the youth, who often declare frustration at the fact that problems are shoved their way although their contribution is smallest, and at the calls to limit consumption while older generations are not following suit.

Owing to ambiguous results of studies concerning the perception of climate change concerning old age, as well as their focus on Anglophone countries, this study aims to offer a better understanding of how older adults in Poland perceive climate change, how they experience it and how they regard possible action to mitigate it. This qualitative study aims to provide unique insight into the experiences of people based on a small and relatively homogenous sample. These findings can shed more light on the issue and stimulate the formulation of hypotheses to be verified in further studies. However, it does not provide quantitative knowledge about prevailing social attitudes.

The following research questions have been asked: 1) How do older (65+) Polish adults perceive and understand climate change? What are their sources of information? How do they perceive it in their local environments? How does their understanding relate to the scientific knowledge? 2) How do older adults react to climate change emotionally? 3) How do they perceive possible mitigation options and the questions of responsibility for mitigation?

An overview of themes identified in the analysis is presented in Table 2.

Results of this study show that the older adults’ longer temporal perspective has enabled them to develop a deeper awareness of climate change, based on their personal experience. It is the younger generation that appears to be more sceptical in this area than older people, perhaps because their sources of information are often limited to the Internet and social media, where disinformation is widespread and real experience has less importance (Bieńkowska et al. 2021). Obtained results also reinforce existing knowledge about the importance of tangible and sensual locality in the perception of climate change by non-experts. This has significance for communication between scientists, policymakers, and citizens (Swim et al. 2009). Even though our sample consisted of more than half of the participants with higher education, the interviews have shown that localised and concrete knowledge is the primary mode of understanding, more than abstract, global, and academic modes of thinking.

Further, results show that at least some older adults experience climate change as something that strongly resonates with them emotionally, especially causing sadness, creating a sense of loss, and stirring anger against other people and politicians. Changes in one’s close vicinity — whether in the city, in the mountains, or at garden plots — elicit vivid responses, just like in the classical account of solastalgia (Glenn 2011). However, some of the most visible changes do not stem from climate change but from more clearly discernible processes originating in anthropopressure, urbanisation, and landscape transformation. The discussed coping strategies include ones related to distancing or deliberate focus on the positives. This agrees with the literature on emotional self-regulation in old age (Carstensen et al. 2003).

Especially, notable from the perspective of communication is the cognitive and discursive coupling of climate and certain iconic yet distinct and far more local environmental issues such as smog and pollution. This could result from certain social campaigns in Poland (e.g. anti-smog ones that stigmatised burning solid waste) and the attachment to traditional notions of environmental protection, in whose spirit the study participants were raised. Self-narratives in the generation of ‘nature lovers’ brought up with respect for forests and water are often constructed in opposition to ‘vandals’ who leave trash behind them or burn it instead of using clean fuels. The awareness that carbon dioxide emissions produced by all citizens can be an even worse problem appears difficult to incorporate into the ecological consciousness developed throughout an entire lifetime. Concentration on pollution and littering suggests clearer criteria of valuing based on the opposition between ecological and unecological behaviour. Identifying environmental protection with climate change potentially shields one from guilt or helplessness, facilitating greater control and cementing a positive, pro-ecological self-narrative.

Relativisation of the experienced need for climate action is significantly shaped among older adults by their awareness of age and the narrowing perspective of a remaining lifetime. This is understandable in light of the above-mentioned preference among the elderly to maximise their mental well-being and minimise their exposition to negative information that could endanger security (Carstensen et al. 2003). As a result, responsibility for mitigating climate change can be easily shifted onto children and the youth. Also, notable is the mechanism of delegating responsibility between social classes (Bieńkowska et al. 2021). Unlike age, social class and limiting the frequently class-driven patterns of consumption remain largely disregarded in social debates on mitigation, whereas littering and burning solid waste comprise a vivid yet inaccurate representation of the climate crisis.

Lack of agency and distrust of politicians proved to be critical subjects in narratives developed by study participants. Social comparisons emerge almost automatically in conversations on climate, just like criticism of authorities. It is surprising how unanimous study participants have been in their fatalistic assessment of policymakers and fellow Poles. The lifelong experience of low cooperation culture and bad governance might be a part of the historical legacy, including remnants of post-communist experience, the peripheral status of the Polish state and economy, the complicated background of the Polish transition to a free-market-economy, and the current political divide (Bieńkowska et al. 2021). Older participants have lived through all of these historical processes. Lack of faith in the Polish state and possible citizens’ cooperation thus appears to be a more significant obstacle in the mitigation of climate change than any shortage of knowledge or commitment (Wójcik et al. in press).

For study participants, one way of addressing this issue, which greatly exceeds the limits of individual control, was to focus on ‘organic work’, or the kind of action in one’s immediate vicinity that could translate into palpable results (Norgaard 2011). They would underscore the importance of efforts made at the smallest, local scale. In psychological terms, the focus on locality and environmental questions rather than ones about climate could be seen as a strategy that helps to regulate one’s well-being and increases individual sense of agency (Wojcik et al. in press).

In summary, mechanisms explaining older citizens’ attitudes involve primacy of personal experience and tangible, sensual locality for perception; the tendency to use positivity-focussed coping to disengage from the sense of loss and damage done to the natural environment while this harm is accepted as fact, and experienced emotionally; helplessness and mistrust towards authority and policymakers rooted possibly in historical lifetime experience, and attempts to maintain positive pro-environmental identity by focussing on small scale local actions and personal agency. While some of these mechanisms are universal, several of them can be enhanced in old age and by historical factors.

In a study that is fundamentally qualitative and based on reflexive thematic analysis, the small sample size is not inherently limiting. However, it would be advisable to conduct future studies in such a way to cover more specifically determined regions, including not only areas connected with coal mining (which are often examined), but also other parts of Poland, along with representatives of specific professions (e.g. farmers) and social classes. One potentially insightful strategy could be to foster intergenerational dialogue, e.g. conversations between grandparents and grandchildren.

In terms of self-reflexivity, Magdalena Budziszewska who designed the study and analysed its results, as well as Magdalena Majchrowicz, who conducted the interviews, have considered their impact on the study through discussion, reflection, and supervision, considering both interviews and analysis. The context in which interviews were conducted and the method of selecting interviewees could have inclined the older adults to try to make a good impression. On the other hand, however, not all study participants were deeply engaged in the subject matter, voicing a range of different opinions.

The conducted study supports the idea that communication regarding climate change geared towards non-experts should focus on tangible and local changes, which emphasises everyday experiences and developments already in place. Regardless of this, the global character of climate change and the invisible functioning of greenhouse gases require better communication and separation of this issue from other environmental concerns. It appears particularly important that communication of solutions about climate change be separated from those addressing only air quality.

One important potential resource is the inclusion of older adults as witnesses to change and narrators of stories about the local environment. Strategies supporting intergenerational communication could help the elderly regain a sense of agency in the face of the climate crisis and find their role in the efforts made to address this issue. This, in turn, could prove beneficial for the well-being of both older and younger people as they confront an overwhelming global problem. Intergenerational conversations and narrating climate history from local perspectives could also, to a degree, counteract social individualisation and atomisation, which accompany this problem, as well as prevent further diminishing of shared local knowledge safeguarded by older adults.