An investigation of Urban and Rural Climate Change Discources
Mallory Payne, Arie Weidemaier, Dr. Lisa Meierotto
Introduction
This study is exploratory research that utilizes accessible data and provides a possible framework for future research. The importance of this research is identifying how specific counties in Idaho have their present climate change discourse, based on the three variables. The objective in this study is to assess how present climate change discourse is between urban and rural areas. Shoshone County was chosen to represent the urban area while Ada County represents the urban area. The maps show these counties and areas of urban clusters and metro areas. To analyze the climate change discourses between the two counties, a framework was created, which can be viewed below.
Methods
Climate Change Discourse Framework broken into three categories: education, governmental discourse, and media. Education asked questions about climate change curriculum. Governmental discourse asked questions about climate change governmental documents. Media asked questions about climate change news articles.
Results
Shoshone County follows ID standards, one governmental document and one article. Ada county follows ID standards and embellishes in some curriculums, dozens of governmental documents, and thousands of articles.
Discussion
Looking at the differences of climate change discourse between the two counties shows that overall, Ada County demonstrates a much larger and developed climate change discourse compared to Shoshone County. Based on our framework and findings, urban areas have more climate change discourse, although it is difficult to fully quantify discourse because this research was so exploratory in nature. This implies that the environment of urban areas fosters and more developed climate change discourse. This research has been somewhat limited and the methods used were exploratory in nature. Research was composed of information that could be found on the internet. Additional information is needed to make concrete conclusions about how urban and rural factors influence this discourse. Further research into the context of news articles, analysis of social media, and studying the political climate will give a much more thorough insight into the discourse. Â The findings were able to successfully show that climate change discourse in an urban county in Idaho, compared to a rural county, was more present.
Additional Information
For questions or comments about this research, contact Mallory Payne at mallorypayne@u.boisestate.edu.