2025/11/10 by Emma Korein, Sara Swett, Tiffany Smythe +3 · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Social Acceptance of Renewable Energy #Risk Perception and Management #Climate Change Communication and Perception
paper · pdf · doi:10.1080/1523908x.2025.2583200
openalex publication_date 2025/11/10 · openalex created_date 2025/11/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/15
Renewable energy deployment has faced setbacks in part due to political pushback and social opposition. Recent research has focused on the justice dimensions of renewable energy, including fair participatory processes and the equitable distribution of benefits and burdens. Our study broadens this justice lens by focusing on how uncertainty affects perceptions of justice and risk, using offshore wind as a case study. We conducted 37 semi-structured interviews with community members, government officials, fishers, and waterfront workers in the Northeast United States. Our thematic analysis revealed eight themes, which are analyzed within the context of two social science frameworks: energy justice and the social amplification of risk framework (SARF). We found that decision-making processes and information dissemination mechanisms exacerbated participants’ uncertainty about offshore wind, leading to the amplification of risks and the amplification and attenuation of benefits, and perceptions of procedural and distributive injustice. Our discussion outlines a novel framework that integrates SARF and energy justice and explores the implications of uncertainty confounding justice, including suggestions for offshore wind communication and engagement, as well as a call for social science research to give heightened attention to the relationship between risk, uncertainty, and justice.