Talk About Climate change: park ranger interpreters on the hot seat

Item

Title

Eng Talk About Climate change: park ranger interpreters on the hot seat

Date

Eng 2021

Creator

Eng Cloughly, Robyn

Identifier

Eng Thesis_MES_2021_Cloughley

extracted text

Talk About Climate change: park ranger interpreters on the hot seat.

by
Robyn Cloughley

A Thesis
Submitted in partial fulfillment
Of the requirements for the degree
Master of Environmental Studies
The Evergreen State College
June 2021

© 2021 by Robyn Cloughley. All rights reserved.

This Thesis for the Master of Environmental Studies Degree
by
Robyn Cloughley

has been approved for
The Evergreen State College
by

_______________________________
Kathleen M. Saul, Ph.D.
Member of Faculty

_______________________________
Date

ABSTRACT
We Talk About Climate change: Park Ranger Interpreters on the Hot Seat
Robyn Cloughley
One of the most important things we can do about anthropogenic climate change is to talk about
it, making it easier to act on it. Many public lands showcase physical, compelling evidence of
climate change, past and present. Park ranger interpreters are directed to talk about it in National
Parks. Resources abound to coach park ranger interpretive staff in the fine art of handling
potentially controversial subjects including anthropogenic climate change. Yet interpretive staff
remark that climate change conversations at public lands visitor centers are uncommon. This
thesis explores the possible impact from staff group dynamics on individual staff members
willingness to talk about anthropogenic climate change with public lands visitors. The results of
this study indicate that the group dynamic most impacting park ranger interpretive staffs’
willingness to talk about climate change is the interpersonal dynamic between the park ranger
interpreter and the public lands’ visitor or visitors. Providing scientific or academic based
education to the public can conflict with positive customer service if the information is
controversial.

Table of Contents
Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................................... v
Literature Review............................................................................................................................ 1
Social Psychology ....................................................................................................................... 3
Group Life ................................................................................................................................... 4
Group structure ....................................................................................................................... 5
General Avoidance of Climate Change Conversations .............................................................. 7
Methods......................................................................................................................................... 11
Results/Discussion ........................................................................................................................ 13
Climate Change Conversations ................................................................................................. 14
Group Dynamics ....................................................................................................................... 19
Group Cohesion .................................................................................................................... 19
Group Member Interdependence .......................................................................................... 20
Group Dynamics Meets Climate Change Conversation Avoidance ......................................... 22
Customer Service or Educating the Public?.................................................................................. 22
Positionality Statement ................................................................................................................. 28
Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 29
References ..................................................................................................................................... 32
Appendix A ................................................................................................................................... 40

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Acknowledgements
Thank you to the interviewees. I am most grateful for their time and willingness to share
their thoughts. I feel very honored to have been entrusted with their perspectives on their work
and how it intersects with anthropogenic climate change conversations. I have a heartfelt
appreciation for the unique intelligence and passion of everyone working for public lands.
Thank you all the MES faculty and staff for your hard work and dedication, especially
during the difficulties imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Thank you, Kathleen Saul, for the exceedingly long time I have felt that you were always
in my corner.
Thank you, Brandt Detering, for taking on tasks that allowed me to continue writing my
thesis and for keeping us laughing.
Thank you, Scott Dubble, for making this endeavor possible.

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Literature Review
In public lands parks across the country, park ranger interpretive staff face engaging the
public on the topic of anthropogenic climate change. Park ranger interpreters are the staff
members who talk to people. They answer questions, conduct tours and hikes, and present
programs. The National Park Service partnered with Colorado State College to survey both
visitors and interpretive staff at the parks discovering that while visitors said they wanted park
staff to educate them on anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change, park staff responded
with reluctance to engage visitors (NPS Climate Change Response, 2013; NPS Training Climate Change Response Program (U.S. National Park Service), 2015). Park ranger
interpretive staff stated overall that visitors are not interested in discussing climate change, that
the staff do not want to “burden” visitors with the issue, and that the interpreters themselves felt
unsure about their climate science literacy.
Researchers in Missouri State Parks and Historical Sites (Balasubramanyam et al., 2019)
asked employees specifically about their own perceptions of climate change, the evidence of it at
their sites, and how those elements intersect to impact engaging visitors on the topic. Results of
their interviews and surveys indicated that employees in Missouri State Parks have lots of
uncertainty about the science of climate change and attributing current climate change to human
behavior. Interpretive staff also mentioned lack of physical impacts at their specific sites and
seeing their roles as more of park stewards versus climate change experts.
As in the National Park surveys, Missouri state employees also mentioned not wanting to
intrude on visitors’ holiday recreation by bringing up the negative impacts of climate change.
Likewise, during discussions of interpreting climate change at the annual National Association
for Interpreters Conference 2020 in November, many professional and amateur public lands

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interpreters cited insecurity about their knowledge of the complex science of climate change as
reasons to avoid engaging the public on this issue (NAI National Virtual Conference 2020,
November 10 - 13). Even as participants cited the many resources for understanding the basics of
anthropogenic climate change, and the tutorials on how to talk to others about the potentially
emotional issue, and with the conference itself providing more resources and training,
interpretive staff still felt reluctant to discuss the science and unprepared to deal with visitors’
reactions. What else besides individual level of scientific knowledge and training to de-escalate
confrontational situations could be discouraging park ranger interpretive staff from
communicating about climate change?
My own experience working at public lands visitor centers suggested the pressures, “real,
imagined, or implied” as social psychology defines, from coworkers, supervisors, and visitors
could affect whether interpretive staff engage in climate change conversations. At one visitor
center, I was concerned about failing to correct a visitor on his climate change views, whereas at
a different visitor center, my coworker accused me of bringing politics into our federal facility
when I answered a direct question about anthropogenic climate change. Therefore, my research
question is: How might staff group dynamics impact individual park ranger interpreters’
willingness to engage in climate change conversations at public lands visitor centers?
Much research explains our human aversion to and difficulty with the idea that we could
be making our climate unfit for ourselves just by going about our daily lives, so it is not
surprising that people in the profession of park ranger interpreters find conversations on the
subject daunting (Dunlap & Brulle, 2015; Fielding et al., 2014; Hulme, 2009; Kahan, 2012;
Leiserowitz, 2006; Marshall, 2014). One can approach the resistance to talking about climate
change through academic disciplines of sociology, psychology, social psychology, political

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science, and economics, for example. Various theories have emerged within each of these
disciplines to explain how individuals discern risk (Leiserowitz, 2006; Linden, 2014), how
cultures and subcultures assign value to aspects of life (Hulme, 2009), and how regional views
on governance and religion (Brownlee et al., 2013) can impact our willingness to talk about
climate change.
My research probes how group dynamics might impact the behavior of individuals in the
group. This study falls under the field of social psychology and the powerful influence of groups
on group members.
Social Psychology
Social psychology is “…the scientific study of the ways in which people’s thoughts,
feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real, imagined, or implied presence of other
people” (Aronson & Aronson, 2018, p. 32). Humans, according to social psychology, are the
social animal (Aronson & Aronson, 2018;) or the “ultra-social animal” (Tomasello, 2014, p. 7).
Michael Tomasello, professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke
University and past co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, said
that humans are ultra-cooperative. Testing on human children as young as 18-months-old
demonstrated a collaborative trajectory that our closest relatives, the chimpanzees and bonobos
of any age, are unable to match (Tomasello, 2010). The importance of our socialness left behind
evidence in our children’s cognitive development and our complex language, which gives us our
species-unique ability to share knowledge, experiences, and perspective in a way no other animal
can (Dunbar, 1996; Moll & Tomasello, 2007; Tomasello & Carpenter, 2007).
Current neuroscience also illuminates our social natures. We are so obsessed with others,
and our place amongst others, that our brain’s “default network”, the system in our brain that

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lights up in fMRI imaging when we have not been given any task, is the same system our brain
uses to consciously think about social situations (Lieberman, 2013). In other words, our brain’s
base system is the system for thinking about ourselves in relation to other people.
When we think about ourselves in relation to others, we are mostly thinking of people
and situations with whom we are familiar – our social life. “Our responsiveness to social
situations – and therefore their considerable impact – results from evolutionary pressures for
individuals to survive in groups…other people constitute our evolutionary niche” (Fiske, 2018,
p. 11). A long list of human universals that “all humans manifest regardless of their
culture…points to the centrality of group life for the survival or our species” (Aronson &
Aronson, 2018, pp. 50–51). This kind of power should not be underestimated.

Group Life
The need to belong is the core social motive for humans and the base of social situations
(Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Fiske, 2018). Social psychology takes a scientific view that an
individual’s behavior is to a large extent a response to their social situation rather than a function
of their personality (Fiske, 2018, p. 6; Shaw, 1981, p. 262). Could the need to belong to a group
exert pressure on whether an interpretive staff member chooses to engage in anthropogenic
climate change conversations?
People prefer groups that include two to six members when actual interaction is required
for the purpose of the group (Fiske, 2018; Mullen, 1991; Forsyth, 2018). Thus, most naturally
occurring face-to-face groups consist of a small number of members. My experience has been
mostly at small public lands visitor centers with small staff groups. For interviews with people in

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larger staff groups, I asked respondents answer group dynamic questions based on the small
number of staff with which they interacted daily.
Group structure
A group can be defined in simple terms as “interacting people considered by themselves
or others to belong together” (Fiske, 2018, p. 390). To dig deeper into that definition, an
aggregate of people becomes a “group” when the members are perceived by themselves and/or
others as a functioning single unit based on their similarity, common fate (interdependence), and
maybe the proximity of the members. Susan Fiske provided the example of people riding in an
elevator. The people are merely an aggregate; people in close proximity only because they
happen to be in the same place at the same time riding in an elevator car. However, if the
elevator were to get stuck between floors, then the people in the elevator car might become a
“group” – working together, reliant on each other’s skills and abilities, to solve their problem and
escape the stuck elevator car. If the people were similar in “age, gender, ethnicity, or class”
(Fiske, 2018, p. 390) they might become an even tighter group.
When people first come together to interact, individual differences appear. Some talk
more, some leap to task, some exert more influence, some sit back and observe. “Differentiations
occur among the members of the group such that inequalities exist among them along a variety
of dimensions. These differentiations are the basis for the formation of group structure” (Shaw,
1981, pp. 262–263). The connections between each facet of one member and another creates a
web of connections, an overarching structure composed of several single structures. For instance,
coworkers who like physical work and have experience operating large machinery might form a
single structure within and supporting the larger group structure. For interaction with the public
like hosting a booth at special events, outgoing staff members who are funny and not shy about

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talking to strangers might be the core of that structure which can then incorporate other staff
spreading experience and instruction while strengthening the overall group structure. Staff
members who are interested and experienced in writing and editing educational materials lead an
outdoor interpretive signage team creating another substructure. In this way, various unique links
between different group members differentiated by task, personality, and/or experiential
inequalities create single structures that nest within “…an integrated organizational pattern that
reflects the totality of the separate parts that inhere in each individual group member. An
adequate conception of group structure must recognize this complexity” (Shaw, 1981, p. 263).
Interdependence, working together towards a common goal with some degree of
cooperation, is key in defining groups for many researchers (Poole & Hollingshead, 2004; Shaw,
1981; Forsyth, 2018; Thibaut, 1959). Having a common goal creates interdependence because
people need each other to accomplish the goal (Fiske, 2018, p. 390). For example, in 2018
seasonal employees came together at a visitor center. We did not know each other previously.
We came from different states, religious backgrounds, ethnicities, and were of different genders
and ages. Our first task was to design a parade float that could be built on our truck. Having the
common goals of managing resources, creating and implementing the design, and winning the
subsequent competition, made us dependent upon each other’s skills, ideas, and our ability to
cooperate and compromise to attain our goals. We became a “group”. We won an award as a
group, even if we defined single roles for each of us based on our talents, enthusiasms, and
experience. We individually took roles of the creative inspirer, the engineer, the director of
energy, the social facilitator, etc. This structure existed for one precise goal – to create a parade
float. As our group functioned over the next six months, our proximity (working in the same
place), our similarity (all employees of this visitor center), our interdependence, and our ongoing

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interaction, encouraged group cohesion and a sense of group membership. We perceived
ourselves, and others perceived us, as a functioning single unit – in short, a staff group.
Group cohesion is perhaps the most theoretically important concept of group dynamics
(Forsyth, 2018). It is a large subtopic applicable to my study due to supervisor encouragement
for cohesion within staff groups. According to Susan Fiske, the factors of proximity, similarity,
interdependence and ongoing interaction lead towards group cohesion, and group cohesion result
in “a shared understanding of their situation and an emotional bond with each other” (Fiske,
2018, p. 390). Groups can develop social, task, identity, emotional, and structural cohesion to
name just five overlapping and important types (Forsyth, 2018, p. 128). In my study, supervisors
spoke of setting clear goals with tasks that require the collective effort of the group for
engendering emotional and identity cohesion, for example.
Cohesion can be beneficial in that tighter cohesion can indicate increased productivity
and long-term sustainability. It also can be detrimental to independent, diverse thinking by
inhibiting disagreement (Aronson & Aronson, 2018; Edmondson, 1999; Forsyth, 2018).

General Avoidance of Climate Change Conversations
Before addressing the impediments particular to park ranger interpretive staff talking
about anthropogenic climate change, I will briefly discuss two social psychological perspectives
that bring a comprehensive approach to why people generally, and specifically in the United
States (“Climate Change in the American Mind,” 2020), avoid talking about climate change.
Overarching theories and explanations for Western societies’ lack of urgent response to climate
change include Terror Management Theory and the avoidance of cultural trauma. My
descriptions will merely touch on the ideas presented in these complex concepts.

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Ernest Becker’s work in the early 1970’s led to the formalization of Terror Management
Theory in social psychology (Dickinson, 2009). Terror Management Theory is supported by over
400 empirical studies (Dickinson, 2009; Pyszczynski et al., 2006, 2010). These studies and the
theory uniting them reinforce Becker’s idea that humans, as creatures aware of their mortality
and able to imagine their own death, would be predisposed to evolve psychological barriers to
avoid this terrifying mental state. Death thoughts would be so costly to our species, that all
humans would eventually create socially and cultural realities that provide a way for us to
enhance our self-esteem and give us a sense of immortality. Human mythologies of an afterlife
and world views that focus on leaving legacies are the result (Becker, 2007; Dickinson, 2009).
Janis Dickinson used Terror Management Theory to explain general human reluctance to
urgently address anthropogenic climate change. She cited empirical studies utilizing reminders of
death to explore both conscious and unconscious psychological coping mechanisms that work to
push ideas of death from our minds (Dickinson, 2009; Pyszczynski et al., 1999, 2006). In relation
to climate change, conscious defenses against thinking about mortality are likely to be displayed
as outright denial or skepticism, doubts as to human-causes of changes, and projections of
impacts far into the future rather than during the individual’s lifetime. Unconscious defenses are
symbolic and work like a seesaw between self-esteem and death thoughts. Empirical studies of
Terror Management Theory predictions include verbal, written, and subliminal death stimuli and
result in an increased effort to bolster self-esteem (Harmon-Jones et al., 1997; Pyszczynski et al.,
2010; Routledge et al., 2010) . Self-esteem immortality projects that help us move past our timelimited lives used to be more focused on nature-based rebirth and renewal, but the more
universal self-esteem, immortality projects today are money-centered. Increased striving for selfesteem, especially in Western society, can increase status-driven consumption and materialism

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that increase carbon emissions (Dickinson, 2009). George Marshall places the narrative around
climate change within Terror Management Theory by writing, “the most pervasive narrative of
all is the one that is not voiced: the collective social norm of silence…is all too similar to that
other great taboo, death…”(Marshall, 2014, p. 3).
The notion of cultural trauma avoidance is used by Robert J Brulle and Kari Marie
Norgaard to explain the “…social inertia, the interrelated cultural, institutional, and individual
processes that inhibit action…” on the dire issue of climate change (Brulle & Norgaard, 2019).
Globally, Western societies have done little to reduce their carbon emissions, the cause of
anthropogenic climate change. In fact, even with the decrease in emissions due to the global
COVID-19 pandemic, carbon emissions are expected to not only rebound, but to increase in
2021 (Global Energy Review 2021 – Analysis, n.d.; Home | Climate Action Tracker, n.d.). Robert
Brulle and Kari Marie Norgaard’s work sought to connect the disparate social science
perspectives on the lack of realistic Western societal response to anthropogenic climate change
through the lens of cultural trauma avoidance model. Brulle and Norgaard defined cultural
trauma as “ a social process that involves the systematic disruption of the cultural basis of a
social order” (Brulle & Norgaard, 2019, p. 3). Alexander, et. al., (2004), emphasized that cultural
trauma is felt by a collectivity when an event occurs that forever alters their group consciousness
and identity and can be initiated “by an abrupt and unexpected, and sometimes not even
particularly malevolent, experience of social transformation and change” (Alexander et al., 2004,
p. 2). Addressing anthropogenic climate change requires profound societal change of Western
nations (Brulle & Norgaard, 2019; Leahy et al., 2010). Brulle and Norgaard argued that the
general and inclusive model of cultural trauma avoidance explains “the powerful processes that

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work at individual, institutional, and overall society levels to maintain current orientations and
ensue social and cultural stability” thus creating social inertia (Brulle & Norgaard, 2019, p. 9).
For instance, even though there is ample evidence of dire consequences to humanity and
civilization of continuing to emit the carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at the levels that current
daily living in Western nations entails, many citizens of these nations continue to consume at
socially expected levels by building large houses, buying large cars, frequently traveling by
airplane, and expecting to have levels of energy production and lifestyle remain where they are
today. Corporations often fail to put ecological health above making profits and governments
must compromise to win constituent support (Brulle & Norgaard, 2019; Garrett et al., 2020;
Weyler, 2021).
Forces explained by cultural trauma avoidance and Terror Management Theory affect
people across political boundaries and cultures. These two broad perspectives highlight the
overall reasons people tend to avoid anthropogenic climate change conversations providing a
backdrop for likely difficulties of engaging in these conversations at visitor centers. Visitors
might answer surveys indicating that they want climate change education at public lands sites
(Balasubramanyam et al., 2019; NPS Climate Change Response, 2013), but what they seek is
something in the abstract versus the actuality of conducting conversations on this topic and
particularly in public with strangers (Marshall, 2014; Norgaard, 2011).
Both Terror Management Theory and the notion of cultural trauma avoidance also
explain the reasons there is a “socially constructed silence” (Zerubavel, 2006) around the topic of
anthropogenic climate change. The need to avoid pain in the form of “awareness of something
particularly distressful” is the psychological explanation of denial (Zerubavel, 2006, p. 5). As
described in Terror Management Theory, human psychology has evolved to keep disturbing

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information like death or the potential for cultural trauma out of our conscious mind. This ability
becomes socially constructed when two or more people jointly avoid acknowledging something
by remaining silent (Zerubavel, 2006). Mutual denial avoids acknowledgment of fear, shame, or
embarrassment. Socially constructed silence can be necessary to keep terror at bay or enable us
to ignore impending doom. Silence is also useful at times in lighter social interactions. It can
minimize friction, prevent conflict, and allow others to save face. All of these uses of socially
constructed silence come into play regarding park ranger interpreters and conversations about
anthropogenic climate change.
Understanding the strong social psychological forces acting on us to avoid thinking,
much less talking, about anthropogenic climate change, combined with our innate socialness and
the powerful influence of our groups on us as individuals, we see that many forces may be acting
on park ranger interpreters’ willingness to engage in climate change conversations. I chose the
possible impacts of staff group dynamics as the magnifying lens through which to examine staff
member’s individual willingness to talk about climate change. I decided a qualitative, interviewbased method of investigation would be the best approach to uncover the experiences of park
ranger interpretive staff on this subject.

Methods
For my research I chose to conduct interviews using phone and the Zoom online platform
due to ongoing coronavirus pandemic, as outlined below. My methods and interview questions
were approved by The Evergreen State College Institutional Review Board in December of 2020.
I broke my interviews into two sections. I first requested interviews with two experts I
thought would give me a strong foundation going into my study of the possible impacts of staff

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group dynamics on park ranger interpreters’ willingness to engage in climate change
conversations. The first expert interviewee was my improvisational theater instructor. Principles
and techniques from improvisational theater have been the basis of how I have handled climate
change conversations at public lands visitor centers. My second interviewee was a supervisor
from a public lands visitor center where I had worked for multiple seasons. I sensed he was adept
at putting together staff members each year and bringing those individuals together to form a
group. Since group structure and dynamics provide clues about staff member willingness to talk
about climate change, I wanted to interview this person at the start.
After securing these first two interviews, I sent out an email requests for interviewees to
my online climate change communication network. From this group, two supervisors expressed
interest in being interviewed for my study.
As I concluded those interviews, I realized I would have to directly solicit interviews
from frontline park ranger staff interpreters to get their perspectives. I used Facebook to contact
park ranger interpreters that I knew but had not worked with directly. I also requested an
interview with a park ranger with whom I had worked. I specifically wanted to interview her
because I remembered her saying something interesting regarding anthropogenic climate change.
I took handwritten notes during the interviews. Handwriting notes slowed down the flow
of the interview allowing me to adjust direction and to pause when I needed to gather my
thoughts. The questions focused on responses to the stories I expected respondents to tell me
about their climate change conversation experiences (Appendix A). I also asked questions
regarding staff group dynamics. During an interview, I might take several different paths
depending on their staff position and what they were telling me. It was wonderful to conduct
these interviews. In my experience, park ranger interpreters tend to be outgoing people,

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comfortable in conversation. It is a job for people who like to talk. I gleaned all kinds of
interesting information but no detailed, emotive stories of climate change conversations.
To analyze the responses from my interviews, I followed Braun and Clarke’s (2006),
Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology. I used a realist, theoretical approach with a semantic
level. A realist thematic analysis allowed me to take the participants’ experiences and responses
in a straight-forward way. I could theorize motivations for those responses and experiences from
the broad social psychology literature and, specifically, the social psychology of groups and of
anthropogenic climate change. I determined themes by coding the individual data extracts
(individually coded points of data within interview responses), then organizing the data extracts
into similar groupings based on my research interest of anthropogenic climate change
conversations and group structure.
This process involved many iterations of data review. As I wrote up the results and
discussion, I found I had to consistently re-process the data to make certain that I was
interpreting and analyzing in ways that was reinforced by the data. In other words, I ensured that
my analysis results were accurate and supported my conclusions.

Results/Discussion
This section contains the results from my interviews and personal communications
occurring between February 20th and May 12th, 2021. Direct quotes are included in my narrative
interpretation of the communications.
The first section is composed of communications about climate change conversations.
The next section is on group dynamics and includes group cohesion and interdependence. These
first two sections explore my results in terms of my research question regarding possible group

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impacts on climate change conversations. The final section is a short section remarking on my
own experience with a climate change conversation that occurred during the study.

Climate Change Conversations
I expected to listen to detailed and emotional stories of park ranger interpreters having
conversations about anthropogenic climate change as I conducted my interviews. I designed my
interview questions based on hearing climate change conversation stories. My questions included
how the conversation started, was it a genuine conversation or a rant, which techniques the
interpreter used to handle the situation, whether they felt supported or not by coworkers, etc. I
did not get the type of climate change stories I expected.
Instead, I heard of how prepared park ranger interpreters are to handle climate change
conversations and how much practice they get with other controversial subjects that come up
while engaging with visitors. I heard from a supervisor who incorporates seasonal trainings and
presentations on the climate science for her staff as well as schooling in de-escalation techniques.
Another interpretive supervisor told me how he has learned to manage climate change
conversations with trainings in metaphor, values, and causal explanations from organizations like
the National Network for Ocean and Climate Change Interpretation, Nature’s Notebook,
National Park Service, regional certified interpreter conferences, and conversational skills
utilizing the red, yellow, green concept of gauging emotional interaction (Brochu & Merriman,
PhD., 2006; National Network for Ocean and Climate Change Interpretation - NNOCCI |
Climate Interpreter, n.d.; Nature’s Notebook | USA National Phenology Network, n.d.; NPS
Climate Change Response, 2013) . He told me his mottos of, “question, rather than argue”, “keep
it personal”, and remain “non-confrontational". He focuses on “customer service”, understanding
that visitors mostly want to feel heard in their complaints. He has had lots of experience dealing

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with “touchy subjects” due to working at a government owned fish hatchery that sits in the
middle of rural ranching land, yet close enough to large cities to get a mix of visitor perspectives
and to recruit as workers environmental science students straight out of college. On top of that,
his facility hosts a salmon festival, Earth Day celebrations, and a three-day Sportsman’s Expo.
Water shortages, who gets how much, and who is to blame are the most common controversial
subjects he and his staff experience. His young environmental science educated staff live in the
reality of human-caused climate change. “Climate change colors their work; it is the lens”
through which they see environmental processes. When we broached the subject of climate
change denial in our interview, he said, “Confronting fake news, bad science – where the line is,
is really shaky…to challenge or not? How far do you go?” People have a “right to be wrong”.
A frontline employee told me that due to her extensive education in geology and
climatology, she is “not worried about messing up with the facts”. In fact, her confidence is so
indisputable, she gets a sense visitors think, “We don’t want to argue with this woman!” She can
tell which visitors are interested in “conversation versus here to fight” and has confidence in her
“conflict resolution skills” if it comes to that. The most common of the controversial subjects she
has handled are “creationist, anti-science ideas – geology versus God”, such as the age of the
earth and the age of fossils in geologic time in contrast to Biblical accounts. This interviewee
sees controversy and distrust coming from “feelings of deception” caused by the “nuances and
mutability” of the scientific process. As a park ranger interpreter, she tries to “advocate for
science transparently” showing people that they haven’t been lied to, “science was simply
changing as it often does.”
Climate change conversations are expected by interpreters working at public lands with
clear evidence of anthropogenic climate change. These sites showcase records of climate impacts

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such as photos of shrinking glaciers and decreasing snowpack levels. An interviewee who
worked in the past at a glacial park stated that changes at that site were “very evident”. “It was
visual, so people got it” she said. She told me that since the 1960’s park ranger interpreters and
visitors have had to hike further and further to reach the retreating glaciers. At the end of the
hike, park ranger interpreters traditionally gave a twenty-minute talk ending with actions visitors
could take to reduce the carbon emissions heating the planet and slow glacial melt. She felt the
program was a success and reached lots of people. Recently the park came under intense media
attention due to the removal and correction of signs in the park stating the glaciers would
disappear by the year 2020 (Bolton, 2020; CNN, 2020; Roots, 2019). The projected glacial
disappearance date was wrong. The glaciers are shrinking, but they are still there.
This interviewee felt that since the climate change denial and media uproar over the
incorrect forecast of glacial disappearance, park ranger interpreters tended to “shy away” from
bold climate change interpretive programs calling on visitors to “take action”. A ranger posted
his 2007 version of this very program on the internet (Hair, 2007). Interestingly, his conclusion
states, “One of the most important things we all can do is to start really talking about climate
change and how we play a role in it…” (Hair, 2007, p. 4).
A supervisor at a different site with evidence of anthropogenic climate change stated that
the controversy around “climate change…doesn’t come up as frequently” because they do not
provide as many programs about climate change and the programs do not have a big climate
change theme. The supervisor notes that when climate change is in the program, the program
interpreter “seems to get some negative feedback…some push-back”. One interviewee
mentioned that her visitor center displays photo evidence of climate change which leads visitors
to ask questions of park rangers, but no interaction was particularly memorable to her.

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An interpretive staff ranger at a geologic park showcasing fossils from past catastrophic
climate changes noted that today’s climate change is often “absent from other interpreters’
informal programs”. She says that she senses a “hesitancy” and “complacency” on the part of
staff even though their site is a perfect place to talk about past and current climatic changes.
Another frontline staff interpreter said she does not use the phrase “climate change until
she knows the visitor’s personality”. She has had “formal training on de-escalation” and
experience “dealing with unhappy people in college”, but the controversial topics she faces at
work are not for the faint of heart. She currently works at a historical park site where she says,
“People have strong reactions.” Historically at her park, “…the biggest controversy interpreters
run into is the Founders [of the United States] and religion. Some visitors “…assert the Founders
were much more religious than they were, assert that Christianity had a much bigger impact on
the Founding Documents than it did, and get really perturbed if rangers fail to ‘address that
role’…Bringing up slavery in any context is another one…” Historical figures revered in United
States’ history are “bigger than life” to many visitors. “They don’t think of [him] as a person.”
At the time of our interview, face masks were causing the most controversy.
One supervisor understood, as instructions “passed down from above”, that research on
public lands connected to anthropogenic climate change was to stop and that he was to tell his
staff not to talk about climate change during the Trump administration, 2017 - 2020.
The interview responses included only one I would classify as a ‘climate change
conversation story’. A supervisor spoke of conversations, both verbal and written, with her
frontline staff interpreter who had doubts about attributing climate change to human activity. The
supervisor then provided trainings and presentations on the science of climate change to the staff
“that convinced” and had a positive effect on this employee.

17

One respondent saw parallels between a different contentious issue and anthropogenic
climate change. She described the experience of working in a public lands’ facility during the
COVID pandemic as a dress-rehearsal for the job during extreme climate change events. Her
visitor center stayed open with “no central guidance for appropriate behavior during COVID”
causing conflict with “visitors who refused to wear masks” leading to health concerns for some
of the staff. This interpretive staff member stated that aspects of the COVID illness and protocols
were “contentiously discussed among the staff” at the visitor center. She saw potentially the
same situation occurring in the future as climate change impacts in the United States become
more apparent. Another interviewee said she appreciated that her visitor center closed during the
COVID-19 outbreak, but she was angry at the National Park Service for keeping Grand Canyon
National Park open so near to areas hard hit by COVID such as the Navajo Nation.
No one cited climate change as the most common controversial subject that arises at their
parks, although one supervisor said climate change was a “close second, and more heated”, no
pun intended, I am sure.
In practical terms, anthropogenic climate change should be the most important
controversial topic discussed at public lands visitor centers. Climate change impacts all people
and all public lands. Interviewees richly described the daily reality of other controversial topics
that arise at public lands visitor centers. I am inclined to attribute the lack of climate change
interaction stories to the overall reluctance of people to talk about climate change, especially in a
visitor center atmosphere. I examine aspects of the visitor center atmosphere that discourage
climate change conversations in a later section.
Extensive research describes this social and cultural phenomena (Burke, 2016; Campbell,
2018; Marshall, 2014; Norgaard, 2011; Randall, 2012). Comprehensive social psychology

18

theories such as Terror Management Theory and the notion of cultural trauma avoidance
mentioned in my literature review are two compelling perspectives regarding our general
reluctance to engage in anthropogenic climate change discussions. Psychological forces for
avoiding climate change conversations are mostly subconscious and cultural norms of attention,
emotional management, and conversation impact engagement on this crucial topic in nonrational, unproductive ways (Dickinson, 2009; Fielding et al., 2014; Norgaard, 2011;
Pyszczynski et al., 2010).
Group Dynamics
Group Cohesion
The interview with the improvisational theater instructor and the interview with the
public lands visitor center site manager were almost entirely about group dynamics. The
improvisational instructor’s responses illuminate what improvisational principles and techniques
contribute to positive, productive staff group dynamics as well as positive interpersonal
interactions between staff and visitors. Improvisational theater principles and techniques covered
in the interview responses include status flexibility to de-escalate confrontational situations;
encouraging empathy in interpersonal interactions; following the lead of the other in the
interaction; placing importance on being present with the other rather than being an authority;
and stimulating divergent thinking in organizations.
The public lands site manager detailed specific ideas of creating an interpretive staff
group capable of covering a wide selection of visitor interests, “accommodating a variety of
tours”, since exploration of his site and visitor center is based on park ranger interpreter led
tours. His response included focusing on learning and curiosity; crisis and remote location
pulling staff together; looking for and encouraging a diversity of ideas, experiences, and

19

backgrounds rather than “labels” for diversity; setting expectations with clear goals, a sense of
purpose, and clarity around how goals tie into overall mission of agency.
Positive descriptions of group structure were common in the interviews. All three
interviewees in supervisory positions revealed thoughtful efforts to build interpersonal safety, a
comfort level in speaking one’s mind (Edmondson, 1999, 2011), and cohesion amongst staff
members. Two of the three described the importance of connecting to staff members and
encouraging them to care for each other due to the remote locations of their sites. All three
described “demonstrating that it is safe to open up” with the “touchy-feely stuff” and that a
“vulnerable level” can “pull people together”. Mentions of “open dialogue” and “eliciting
conversation” describe purposeful intention to create a work environment where people feel safe
to speak up and be themselves. Phrases like “shared experience and understanding” and “finding
common ground” describe techniques of encouraging staff group cohesion. “Play to people’s
strong suits” suggests creating interdependence in the group structure as does statements like
“take care of each other”, “team effort”, “important to support each other on the basics” and
“going to others for help”.

Group Member Interdependence
Frontline staff interviewees described group structural interdependence when creating
their own “niches” in their staff groups based on their expertise, either technical, experiential, or
people management skills. One staff member spoke of proactively declaring her niche on the
team by asking fellow staff members to “please send [her] all rock questions”. She actively
defined her role as a “geology helper”.

20

A park ranger interpreter brand new to the job, but an expert through life experience,
described “feeling important--knowing stuff and relaying it to others” and learning more of her
own history as she shared her culture with many park visitors unfamiliar with her culture. She
was pleased finding the “majority of people open-minded, open to learning” and that she could
respond by being able to educate them. She filled an important niche in public lands visitor
staffing.
Another park ranger interpreter made clear throughout our interview that she focused on
relating to people. She remarked that visitor center topics in which she is not a scholar gave her
an advantage as she “better relates to visitors, especially foreign visitors” by using creative
metaphors. She has made her niche through being reliable, on time, and being able to engage
visitors waiting in long COVID restriction lines with informal interpretation of the park’s
resources.
Creating an “expert” niche on the park staff is not always easy. While one interviewee
remarked that it is “very exciting to be an expert --fun!”, she also described the dark “underbelly
of lacking respect” if one does not have the academic background to define a niche.
Off-handed remarks on the less positive aspects of group dynamics also emerged. When
asked about staff members she would trust to confide in following a difficult interchange with a
visitor, one respondent named staff in order of trust until reached a staff person she would NOT
confide in saying, “There’s always one!” Another respondent described the competition for
attention – to become the “favorites”. In a large public visitor site such as hers, this park ranger
interpreter stressed the importance of “supporting each other on the basics”. Being on time is
important. There are “real consequences” that can get you “alienated because of being
irresponsible”.

21

Group Dynamics Meets Climate Change Conversation Avoidance

I convinced myself ahead of time that I was interviewing the public lands visitor center
site manager only for information about his ability to bring together individuals and create a staff
team out of them. I planned a set of questions focused on his techniques and goals when building
and guiding staff. At the end of our interview, I asked him if there was a topic that I did not ask
him about that he would like to address. He answered, “Yes, climate change. Isn’t that in the title
of your thesis?” I was quite embarrassed! I had subconsciously avoided the topic because it
could potentially lead to a less than positive interaction! I had a sense from our past working
relationship that he and I might be on opposite sides of the fence in terms of our perspectives on
anthropogenic climate change. Because he is a leader I greatly admire, I held back from asking
him about the main subject of my thesis. This choice between a positive interaction and an
informative but potentially uncomfortable discussion is familiar for most park ranger interpreters
and greatly impacts their willingness to engage in climate change conversations.

Customer Service or Educating the Public?
The supervisors and frontline interpretive park rangers I interviewed share the idea that
the group dynamic most impacting park ranger interpreters’ willingness to engage in climate
change conversations is the dynamic that occurs between the park ranger interpreter and the
visitor or visitors. In other words, it is this small group interaction, and the fact that the
interaction is predisposed, expected, and intentionally designed to be positive that influences
whether a park ranger is going to engage in a conversation about anthropogenic climate change.

22

The interaction is predisposed simply because it involves humans, and it is human nature
to socially connect to others (Aronson & Aronson, 2018; Fiske, 2018; Lieberman, 2013;
Tomasello, 2014). It is expected to be positive because we have a set of socially appropriate
behaviors, depending on context and culture, that make up our expectation of “customer service”
(Tickle-Degnen & Rosenthal, 1990). And finally, it is intentionally designed by the job
requirements of park ranger interpreter.
Park ranger interpreters understand their role to be “visitor experience specialists” who
“provide orientation, information and inspiration in the right amounts and at the right times so
that visitors will have more enjoyable, meaningful and complete experiences” (Bacher et al.,
2011, p. 2). Interpreters I interviewed understand their job description on two fronts: to practice
good customer service, fulfilling the enjoyable interaction aspect; and to educate on, and relate
the site to the visitor, fulfilling the meaningful and complete aspect.
Customer service can be described as a positive interaction especially in a service
context, such as park ranger interpretation services, “where a high amount of customer-employee
interaction is required” (Gremler & Gwinner, 2000, p. 3). The customer’s evaluation of the
customer-employee interaction is particularly important to service encounters because of the
intangible nature of the transaction (Gremler & Gwinner, 2000). There is no tangible object
exchanged. This makes customer satisfaction more reliant upon the individual employee and the
quality of the relationship between the employee and the customer as they co-create the
experience. In the case of public lands visitor centers, the employee is the park ranger interpreter,
and the customer is the visitor. The “positive” aspect of the interaction is the “mutual friendliness
and caring” initiated by the employee interpreter and maybe continuing into a personal
connection (Tickle-Degnen & Rosenthal, 1990). This potential personal connection begins with

23

the interpreter’s genuine interest in the visitor. It goes beyond merely being attentive. Genuine
interest implies “a higher level of relational development, one that is more likely to result in a
personal connection” (Gremler & Gwinner, 2000, p. 13). Making a personal connection to the
visitor is more likely to lead to a positive service experience for the visitor (Gremler & Gwinner,
2000; Tickle-Degnen & Rosenthal, 1990). Improvisational theater principles and practice focus
heavily on the other, the partner. Thus, park ranger interpreters who practice improvisational
theater are well-prepared to be genuinely interested in visitors and able to make that personal
connection.
This does not mean that every interaction must be focused on only happy topics. Many
important public lands sites attract visitors due to their emotional and historical salience
representing tragic but meaningful stories. Being friendly and caring can mean being
compassionate and understanding when visitors experience strong emotions due to the content of
the site. For example, I worked at a visitor center close to a place where many Native Americans
were massacred by the United States Cavalry in 1890. Visitors often came straight from that
landmark to our visitor center, some of them in tears. Our interactions were not focused on
cheerful, happy topics. However, we made personal connections based on mutual friendliness,
warmth and caring resulting in a positive, meaningful experience for the visitor, even though it
was made sharing a sadness. The key was the “shared” part. Experiencing a “shared meaning” or
developing a genuine interest in the other party are ways to personally connect (Duck, 1994;
Gremler & Gwinner, 2000).
Interview comments like, “I don’t use the words, ‘climate change’ until I know the
personality” and regarding “brown grass as a climate change example: you can describe, but let
visitors interpret their own conclusion” suggest the conversation danger zone that is climate

24

change. Climate change science has become tainted with social meaning as a group identity
marker meaning it can identify if you are part of somebody’s group or part of the opposing group
(Marshall, 2014). This is a forceful aspect of human group dynamics (Aronson & Aronson,
2018; Fiske, 2018; Forsyth, 2018).
I interpret ‘knowing someone’s personality’ as possibly meaning knowing their identity
group. It might be easier to personally connect through “shared meaning” and “mutual
friendliness and caring” if you have not crossed into the other’s opposing group category. A
strategy for handling climate change conversations often suggested to park ranger interpreters is
“finding common ground” or “shared values” (Hvenegaard et al., 2016; Kenworthy, 2010). It is
easier to find shared meaning if you are within the same identity group or have “psychological
similarity” (Duck, 1994; Gremler & Gwinner, 2000). Where one stands on the veracity and
urgency of addressing anthropogenic climate change is an immediate identity marker (Marshall,
2014). If an interpreter is unsure of belonging to the same identity group as the visitor, the
interpreter might look for common ground in other human interests and values, and refrain from
discussing anthropogenic climate change outright.
Training for a park ranger interpreter stresses the importance of facilitating emotional and
intellectual connections between the visitor and the “resource” or site (Bacher et al., 2011;
Kryston, 2011). Freeman Tilden, considered to have written the first instructions on
interpretation, coined the phrase, “People will care for, what they care about” (Tilden et al.,
2009). Interviewed park ranger interpreters stated this understanding of their job’s purpose with
statements like, “Park visitors should have a good experience”, “key in our job is to make it
relate”, and “keep it personal”.

25

National Park Service Foundation Curriculum for Interpreters explains that interpretation
supports the National Park System’s mission to conserve wildlife and natural and historic places,
“by introducing visitors to meanings and ideas, while allowing them to retain and express their
own values” (Bacher et al., 2011, p. 9). The original educational objective of the National Park
Service drafted in 1918 boldly directed parks be used to “educate the public in respect to the
nature and quality of the national parks” and to “further the view of the national parks as
classrooms and museums of nature” (Pitcaithley, 2002). While not all public lands visitor centers
are part of the National Park System, they all draw interpretive staff training from the National
Association of Interpreters which aligns and shares training and principles directly with and from
the National Park System (Bacher et al., 2011; Brochu & Merriman, PhD., 2006).
There is also the “public” part of public lands. Public lands are owned and managed by
the U. S. government for all its citizens (Definition of PUBLIC LAND, n.d.; Parris, 2018). It
makes sense that visitors to public lands feel free to express their opinions and perspectives at
visitor centers that can be said, in the broadest sense, to belong to them.
One supervisor pointed out that “visitors can have opinions” while the staff must remain
neutral. At his site, visitors are encouraged through interpretive exhibits and guided tours to
consider which explanations make more sense to them and add their own thinking. This makes
this site strongly visitor centered. The interpretive tour guides are encouraged to “describe, but
let visitors make own interpretations of the descriptions”. In particular, the staff interpreters
should keep to “standards of training in customer service” and “make the visitor feel heard”.
Another supervisor remarked that visitors want to “feel like [their complaints] are heard”.
A frontline staff interpreter commented on the same thing saying visitors respond to, “I hear you.

26

I understand your concerns”. Even when those concerns are challenges to the science or
academic-based facts being presented at the visitor center.
Also, people have a “right to be wrong”. A science educated interpretive interviewee said
that to her, climate change denial is a conspiracy theory, but “you do not discriminate on
perspective. I’m here to do my job – not make a statement”. A park ranger interpreter at a
historical site spoke of the conflict between historical facts and “mythology” for many visitors.
Visitors have their cherished beliefs about the founding of the United States and the key people
in that endeavor. For many Americans, George Washington is “bigger than life” according to one
interpreter. “He is a hero – almost God-like to visitors. They don’t think of him as a real person”
so some historical facts about him can be upsetting and cause conflict with some visitors.
The decision of “where the line is, is really shaky”, especially when it comes to deciding
where that line is in the moment that the conflict occurs. A park ranger interpreter must decide if
they should push for their facts or if they should provide the listening ear in that one moment and
where along that spectrum they should fall. A statement from an interviewee sums up the
interviewees’ consensus with “Customer service trumps scientific information if the information
is controversial”.
These combined inclinations and understood job requirements mean park ranger
interpreters will determine their willingness and employ their ability to engage in climate change
conversations heavily biased towards having a positive interaction with the visitor(s). Research
tells us that conversations about anthropogenic climate change, while necessary, require us to
override our innate, cultural, and social impulses to avoid the subject (Fielding et al., 2014;
Geiger & Swim, 2016; Marshall, 2014; Randall, 2012). For park ranger interpreters tasked with
talking about and educating on climate change while providing enjoyable experiences and

27

facilitating positive emotional connections to the resource, this action is doubly daunting.
Perhaps this study contains ideas for reducing this challenge in the future. First, however, I
should state where my perspective falls in the tension between customer service and education
directives.

Positionality Statement
I am a left leaning urban liberal. I am a white woman, tail end of the Baby Boomers. My
formative years were during the late 1960’s through the 1970’s, raised by parents who thought
creativity and the arts the highest expression of being human. This affects where I lean in terms
of public lands interpretation.
The most important experiences for me working at public lands visitor centers have been
facilitating creative engagement. I see creative engagement occur when a person forms new
thoughts making new connections to their current thought structure.
Thus, the multiple perspectives sit easily with me if they involve a visitor’s genuine
creative endeavor. But as with most other people, when a perspective conflicts with my strongly
held beliefs, such as the veracity and need for action on anthropogenic climate change, it is much
harder to accept and respond with encouragement. Improvisation theater training, as exemplified
by the improvisational theater instructor interview, prepares one to accept and encourage. I have
allowed myself to “go in the direction taken” and have attempted to let myself by “altered” by
the other person. I have utilized the “imaginary tug-o-war” technique (Johnstone, 1981), intuiting
whether my conversation partners prefer to “win or lose” in our interaction. These practices have
resulted in a preference for the “way we interact, rather than level of knowledge”, as my

28

instructor says, and could be interpreted as a preference for positive interactions, or customer
service.

Conclusion
Taking a magnifying lens to the climate change conversations in public lands visitor
center scenario helps us look at what is in play when we ask public lands interpretive staff to
educate the public on anthropogenic climate change.
Interview responses answered my question of how staff group dynamics might impact
individual park ranger interpreters’ willingness to engage in climate change conversations at
public lands visitor centers. Staff group dynamics seem overall positive. Staff cohere into groups
sharing experiences and purpose. Individual staff members develop their own expertise niches
then work together to cover the wide range of visitor questions, interests, and organizational
needs. These two aspects, group coherence and interdependence, indicate healthy group
structure.
I learned from my interviews that the group dynamic that strongly influences whether
park ranger interpreters engage visitors in conversations about anthropogenic climate change is
the interpersonal dynamic between the interpreter and the visitor or visitors. Park ranger
interpreters view their job as providing positive customer service and education on the site. The
interviewees frequently mention positive customer service as the guiding principle for interacting
with visitors around potentially controversial subjects. The tensions between positive customer
service experiences for the visitor and education about anthropogenic climate change put park
ranger interpreters on the hot seat and can negatively influence interpretive staff’s willingness to
engage in climate change conversations.

29

Conversations about anthropogenic climate change can lead to feelings of distress and
impending doom. People are naturally inclined to avoid these feelings and to avoid eliciting them
in others when facilitating enjoyable experiences. People are especially likely to collaborate on
socially constructed silence around climate change when uncertain of the others’ group
ideological identities or when certain that the identities are not compatible.
The root of the problem can shed light on solutions (Forbes Expert Panel®, n.d.).
Acknowledging the general human reluctance to engage in conversations about anthropogenic
climate change seems a good starting place to begin crafting the infrastructure and support
necessary to nurture these conversations.
Nina Simon has a wonderfully clear, visitor-centered way of making welcoming public
spaces. She describes museums as having doors that metaphorically say either “Welcome” or
“Keep Out”. In her book, The Art of Relevance, (Simon, 2016) she shows us how we often
inadvertently select visitors with relevance markers that encourage some and discourage others.
If we think about the visitors that we want to invite in and think about whether we are posting
metaphorical “welcome” signs or “keep out” for them, we have a better chance of expanding the
diversity or targeting a specific audience of people we want in the door. In fact, Simon uses an
example of a Betty, an African American National Park Ranger who uses her uniform to indicate
a welcoming door for children of color to the National Parks and the park ranger career.
Future research could include exploring what elements make up a “Welcome” door for
climate change conversations. Do these conversations occur more frequently in semi-private
spaces? Around tables? Outdoors? With park rangers who are older? Younger? Male or female?
Who are the people we want to “Welcome” to these conversations? And what support, other than

30

climate science training and de-escalation techniques, do front-line interpreters need to engage in
these conversations?
Public lands visitor centers are places to have conversations about anthropogenic climate
change. People feel visitor centers are community owned, and they love their parks and lands. I
hope this research will contribute to allowing park ranger interpreters to fulfill all aspects of their
jobs: providing positive connections with visitors and education on the sites while taking
advantage of the opportunity to hold conversations about what could be the most important issue
humanity will face.

31

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Appendix A
o Was it a two-way conversation, or was it directed more in one direction?
o How important did it feel to you to have the scientific knowledge to respond
to the other person(s)?
o How comfortable did you feel if your coworkers could overhear? If your
supervisor could overhear?
o How important to you is it that other staff members share your point of view
on climate change?
o How important to you is it that the staff leader share your point of view on
climate change?
o How clear is your workplace directive in terms of handling climate change
interactions?
o Does your work group discuss climate change?
o Are there different perspectives on the topic or is everyone pretty much in
agreement?
o If anyone has a negative or disconcerting interaction around the topic, do you
discuss the incident in the work group?

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o How comfortable would it be to experiment with different types of climate
change interactions?
o How would you feel if a visitor corrected a statement you made about climate
change?

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Media

Thesis_MES_2021_Cloughley.pdf