Do Artistic Images Affect the Willingness to Buy Carbon Offsets? An Empirical Study

The artwork shown in the exhibit Sensing Change is part of a thriving environmental art movement. There is a long history of art influencing environmental attitudes and to some extent behavior. Historically such art has used what photography critic Vicki Goldberg calls the " pastoral eulogy " approach but there is also a more recent approach that she calls a " dryly sophisticated, relatively unimpassioned, critical stance " that emphasizes the environmental damage and risk associated with human behavior (Goldberg 1991, p. 107). Sanders (1992) gives examples of art that illustrate environmental problems and educate about natural systems as well as examples of direct activist art. Environmental art, ecological art, and Eco-art are terms, each with varying and malleable definitions, used to categorize art such as that in the Sensing Change exhibition. Ecological artist Ruth Wallen (www.ruthwallen.net, accessed April 10, 2014) says, " Ecological art can engender appreciation, address core values, offer remediation, build relationships, advocate political action, and broaden intellectual understanding. " But there is little evidence about whether people change their behavior in response to this sort of art. This chapter reports on a contingent choice survey (a kind of choice experiment) used to investigate whether exposure to particular artwork influences a particular kind of environmental behavior: the purchase of carbon offsets. Purchasing offsets finances various kinds of mitigation efforts that reduce net greenhouse gas emissions. Curtis (2011) points out that, while there is a substantial literature in sociology suggesting that art might affect attitudes and behavior, the impact of art on environmental behavior is not usually considered. Similarly, the environmental psychology literature (see for example Steg, van den Berg, and de Groot 2013) has well developed theories and evidence about the determinants of environmental behavior, but the arts are not included. Curtis (2009) develops a theoretical model to remedy this situation; in his model, art can affect environmental behavior by creating an emotional affinity with nature, developing a cognitive interest in nature, and/or provoking emotional indignation about environmental harm. The explanations offered by Steg, van den Berg and de Groot (2013) are slightly different: they include theories of environmental behavior based on affect, reasoned choice, and social norms, although they do not explicitly discuss art. There is almost no direct evidence of effects of art on environmental behavior. Leiserowitz (2004) and Lowe et al (2005) investigate whether viewing the movie The Day After Tomorrow influenced survey respondents' …