They outline their causal reasoning in the paper.

Debunked how? There are reasonable criticisms about the expected carbon footprint of having fewer children, but this doesn't mean that there is no mitigation potential.

You might also be interested to see how technological optimism interacts with support for climate stringency among COP delegates: doi.org/10.1038/s418...

Absolutely! It's a great and highly relevant paper :)

Possibly, but I would expect this effect to be much less prevalent among powerful decision-makers compared to techno-optimism.

Among the studied behaviors, reducing flying will likely be the most impactful. But you are right that it's hard to know what that means in the absolute number of foregone flights.

...But hinging our climate strategy on breakthroughs is incredibly risky when we already have the solutions!

A very timely paper from @fdabl.bsky.social, @colognaviktoria.bsky.social, @maiensachis.bsky.social, and @jmbh.bsky.social 🙌

osf.io/preprints/ps...

This matters. Strong faith in future technological breakthroughs can act as a subtle yet powerful form of delay -- reducing engagement in the structural and behavioral changes that are essential to cutting emissions.

If new technologies arrive and help substantially, that’s excellent. But...
(3/4)

Across a global sample of more than 9,000 scientists, the authors find that those who are more techno-optimistic report lower engagement in both civic climate actions and high-impact lifestyle changes (like reducing flying, car use, or shifting diets).
(2/4)

Politiken dækkede rapporten med en helside af Magnus Bredsdorff, der også bragte gode perspektiver fra @kristiansn89.bsky.social og Peter Møllgaard.

politiken.dk/del/GVPnpiAF...

📄 Read here: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Huge thanks to Nina Frings for excellently leading the paper and to @zah-rahmani.bsky.social and Ulf Hahnel for the great collaboration!

Low carbon literacy highlights the potential gap between motivation and effectiveness in climate action.

Many people want to help but lack accurate cues about which behaviors matter most. Correcting such cues may help mobilize collective effort toward the most effective climate actions. (7/8)

🗳️ Policy support varies by context:
Accurate impact perceptions were linked to stronger support for climate policies in Germany, but this relationship was weaker or politically moderated in the United States and absent in China. (6/8)

🚗🥩✈️ Behavior matters:
Participants with lower carbon footprints also tended to judge carbon footprints more accurately. This suggests that one's own behavior and climate impact perceptions may reinforce each other. (5/8)

🌐 Cross-country differences:
Participants in Germany were most accurate overall, followed by China and the United States — possibly reflecting differences in public discourse, norms, and infrastructure. (4/8)

⚖️ Widespread misperceptions:
Across countries, people underestimated the impact of high-carbon behaviors like flying, eating meat, and electricity supply, while overestimating the impact of low-impact actions such as recycling.

These findings perfectly align with previous studies. (3/8)

Using a new experimental design, we examined how accurately people judge the carbon footprints of different lifestyles and behaviors — and how these perceptions relate to reported behaviors and support for climate policies.

Here’s what we found...🥁 (2/8)