Absract: People feel increasingly emotional about climate change: As of 2023, 66% of Americans are at least “somewhat” worried about climate change, and 55% believe they’ve already experienced some of the negative effects of climate change. But emotions aren’t only felt, they are expressed. Changes in the media environment have given people unprecedented access to the expressed emotions of others. Through both contemporary news stories and social media, people now learn how others – often strangers – feel about climate change. Do people believe in the sincerity of these expressed emotions? The answer depends on the context. This includes both the context that caused the emotion (e.g., was the person expressing their emotions themselves harmed by climate change?) as well as the context through which the emotion is encountered (e.g., was this a TikTok the expressor filmed and shared themselves, or a quote in a news article). Emotional expression can serve an important role, helping people find the community of others who also care about the issue. And, even if it doesn’t achieve any instrumental goal, expressing emotions makes people feel better. The takeaway then is not that people should keep their feelings to themselves, but instead that such expression won’t always be taken at face value.

Bio: Talbot M. Andrews is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Government. She studies how policy design and the changing environment interact with individuals’ attitudes to shape their behavior related to environmental policy. She is also more broadly interested in the public’s ability to hold their elected officials accountable. While most of her work is based in the United States, she also works with a team studying climate change literacy across Africa. Her book, Climate Games: Experiments on How People Prevent Disaster uses lab experiments to examine how the strategic features of climate change help and hinder successful disaster prevention. Prior to joining Cornell, she was an Assistant Professor at the University of Connecticut (2021-2024), and a postdoctoral research fellow in the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics at Princeton University (2020-2021). She completed her PhD in political Science at Stony Brook University in 2020.

This event is presented as part of the 2026 Perspectives on the Climate Change Challenge Seminar Series:

• Most Mondays, Spring Semester 2026, 2:55-4:10 p.m.
• 155 Olin Hall & Zoom

This university-wide seminar series is open to the public (via Zoom), and provides important views on the critical issue of climate change, drawing from many perspectives and disciplines. Experts from Cornell University and beyond present an overview of the science of climate change and climate change models, the implications for agriculture, ecosystems, and food systems, and provide important economic, ethical, and policy insights on the issue. The seminar is being organized and sponsored by the Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering and Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability.