Recent studies have suggested that people who experience the impacts of hurricanes, catastrophic flooding or other severe weather events are more likely to believe in, and be concerned about, climate change in the wake of the disaster.
Recent studies have suggested that people who experience the impacts of hurricanes, catastrophic flooding or other severe weather events are more likely to believe in, and be concerned about, climate change in the wake of the disaster.
But a new study by researchers at Duke University and the University of Colorado Denver (UCD) finds that not all severe weather impacts have the same effect.
“How our community or neighborhood fares –- the damages it suffers –- may have a stronger and more lasting effect on our climate beliefs than individual impacts do,” said Elizabeth A. Albright, assistant professor of the practice of environmental science and policy methods at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment.
“We found that damage at the zip-code level as measured by FEMA was positively associated with stronger climate change beliefs even three or four years after the extreme flooding event our study examined,” Albright said.
Read more at Duke University
Image: Community damage caused by extreme weather, such as the 2013 floods that covered parts of Colorado, may shape climate beliefs more strongly than individual storm losses, a new study finds. (Credit: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency)
