Traditional moral arguments fail to persuade conservative climate sceptics. Pope Francis' gifting of his climate encyclical to President Trump prior to his leaving the Paris Agreement shows that even a religious leader's persuasive power is constrained by how his message resonates with conservative moral values.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Relevant articles
Open Access articles citing this article.
-
Understanding Personal Food Values in Social Movements: Evidence from Slow Food Germany
Food Ethics Open Access 16 December 2025
Access options
Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals
Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription
$32.99 / 30 days
cancel any time
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$259.00 per year
only $21.58 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on SpringerLink
- Instant access to the full article PDF.
USD 39.95
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
References
US Catholics View Pope Francis as a Change for the Better (Pew Research Center, 2014).
Reilly, K. Pope Francis gave President Trump a copy of his encyclical on climate change. Time (24 May 2017).
Landrum, A. R., Lull, R. B., Akin, H., Hasell, A. & Jamieson, K. H. Cognition 166, 1–12 (2017).
Li, N., Hilgard, J., Scheufele, D. A., Winneg, K. M. & Jamieson, K. H. Climatic Change 139, 367–380 (2016).
Trump, D. J. Statement by President Trump on the Paris Climate Accord (The Whitehouse, 2017).
Haidt, J. & Graham, J. Soc. Justice Res. 20, 98–116 (2007).
Graham, J., Haidt, J. & Nosek, B. A. J. Personality Soc. Psychol. 96, 1029–1046 (2009).
Feinberg, M. & Willer, R. Personality Soc. Psychol. Bull. 41, 1665–1681 (2013).
Wolsko, C., Ariceaga, H. & Seiden, J. J. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 65, 7–19 (2016).
Francis, P. Laudato Si' (Press Office of the Holy See, 2015).
Landrum, A. R., Lull, R. B., Akin, H. & Jamieson, K. H. Making it about morals: Pope Francis shifts the climate change debate. In 71st Ann. Conf. Am. Assoc. Public Opinion Res. http://doi.org/b85h (2016).
Rocca, F. X. Pope blames markets for environment's ills. Wall Street Journal (18 June 2015).
Sirico, R. The Pope's green theology. Wall Street Journal (18 June 2015).
Iyer, R., Koleva, S., Graham, J., Ditto, P. & Haidt, J. PLoS ONE 7, e42366 (2012).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Landrum, A., Lull, R. Stop preaching to the converted. Nature Clim Change 7, 538–540 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3355
Published:
Issue date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3355
