Changing climate, changing minds? The effects of natural disasters on public perceptions of climate change.

ABSTRACT: The frequency and intensity of natural disasters such as hurricanes, wildfires, and floods are predicted to change as greenhouse gas concentrations increase. These disasters may represent sources of information for individuals as they update their beliefs related to climate change. Using a dataset that includes climate beliefs of respondents, we examine the effect of natural disasters on climate change beliefs and find that hurricanes significantly increase the probability that survey respondents from a given county believe that climate change is occurring and that it is human caused. We find that past experience with certain types of natural disasters (e.g., hurricanes) impacts beliefs regarding whether climate change is occurring and if it is human caused. The research contributes to the

SUBMITTER: Sloggy MR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8542193 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature