Do Disasters Change People’s Perceptions and Preferences about Climate Change?

• In Event: Influence of Disasters on Public Policy

Abstract

As effects from climate change are increasingly realized, concerns about the intensity and frequency of natural disasters are similarly rising. In an era of populism and persistent climate change inaction, however, whether and how tangible evidence of climate impacts influence climate change perceptions and policy preferences remains an important topic. In this paper, we study if exposure to natural catastrophes associated with global warming - such as floods, fires, and hurricanes – can change people’s risk perceptions and policy preferences about climate change. We also analyze the existence of spillovers effects, specifically, if people are updating their risk perceptions and policy preferences about climate change based on the occurrence of one or several natural disasters on a neighbor county. Finally, we examine how personal circumstances such as being a disaster victim can drive citizens’ preferences on climate change as compared with their partisan dispositions. To answer these questions, we utilize public opinion data (2014-2018) at the county level in the US, and we combine a difference-in-differences strategy with recent advances in optimal matching.

Authors

• Giancarlo Visconti, Purdue University

• Kayla Young, Purdue University