Future matters: an exploratory investigation of the integration between future orientation and the perception of climate change
perception of climate change; future orientation; multimethods; intergenerational solidarity;
Climate change (CC), a human-environmental problem that has its consequences harmed by human action, has a character of crisis for this study. Given its urgency, measures to mitigate it need to be pondered here and now, with repercussions for the future. The environmental perception of climate change (pCC), as outside our immediate and local context, can also generate a distance from their perception of risk and an urgent need to commit to mitigation actions. Thus, we should think about the importance of future orientation (FO) as an attitudinal variable internal to individuals, which can be associated with pro-ecological commitment. It becomes important to identify whether, by taking responsibility for the generations not yet born, we are able to involve ourselves in environmental care actions or at least promote and engage our discourses in favor of sustainability. Considering this context, this study intends to investigate the relationship between the perception of climate change and future orientation in the format of intergenerational solidarity, aiming to understand the importance of future orientation to integrate the perception of climate change. The study, of an exploratory nature, will be divided into two stages organized around two different techniques - a letter and a semi-structured interview - and will be analyzed from a qualitative and abductive perspective, based on what will emerge from the participants' responses. I hope that this study generates significant and important inferences, not only from a methodological point of view by using multi-methods, but also allowing for a theoretical-scientific expansion, reinforcing the importance of the temporal perspective in investigations of the phenomenon of pCC, besides affirming the commitment of each one of us to consider that the future matters and that urgent changes are needed to guarantee an ecologically balanced environment.