Why Americans Most Vulnerable to Climate Change Don't Always Care
Global warming is going to hit liberal cities the hardest: is the rest of the nation worried?
INTERESTING ON THE WEB:
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🤯👯 I know this isn’t really in the zone per se, but I thought it was too fascinating not to share. A new report from NASA showed that astronaut Mark Kelly was no longer an identical twin with his brother after returning from space, his DNA changed 7% - The Hill
54% of adults say ‘Yes’ global warming should be a priority for the next president and Congress. In fact, the majority of people in every country in the world worry about climate change and support policies to tackle it. However, those global and national numbers mask the reality of what is happening on the ground in America.
When looking at a county level, I found that the people who are most at risk of devastation from climate change tend to live in Democratic areas. These people generally believe that global warming should be a priority, but many of their more rural or suburban neighbors disagree. For those who disagree, this may be because these communities have concerns that feel more imminent, like housing affordability, food insecurity, and inaccessible healthcare. However, natural disasters ravage these communities at an increasingly destructive and frequent rate each year.
Climate Opinions vs. Climate Risk
Climate change can be a significant driver of inequality. Natural disasters can also decrease household incomes by 21.5% for years afterwards and they can also create “brain drains,” making it harder for regions to grow and attract or retain highly-educated civilians, like doctors, or scientists. Low-income families cannot afford to endure natural disasters because it takes them 2x - 3x longer to financially recover from natural disasters.
Alameda County, California has the largest gap between climate risk and how important residents think the issue is. NASA says the region only scores a 2 on the scale (the highest county is 22) whereas 73% of residents think that this should be a priority. Alameda is where Oakland is, right across the Bay from San Francisco. Meanwhile, Los Angeles and Miami are the two counties with the greatest risk (scores of 22 and 16 respectively), but only 60% of residents there think that climate change should be a priority.
As we’ve previously discussed in American Inequality, both the number and the magnitude of natural disasters has been increasing in America over the last decade. Floods, wildfires, tornadoes, and earthquakes are causing billions of dollars of damage as these events grow in size and occur more often. Miami-Dade has experienced two natural disasters per year for the last 20 years, a huge number in historical terms and much higher than any other region. The number of natural disasters that cost over a billion dollars in damage has increased more than 4x over the last 40 years.
Calhoun County in West Virginia has the lowest percent of residents that think climate change should be a priority for the next president or Congress. 75 miles northwest of the state’s capitol, Calhoun had flooding and mudslides in August 2023 that FEMA declared a natural disaster and that President Biden issued federal funds for support. Nonprofits say that 1 in 4 homes in the region is also at high risk of destruction from climate change.
Brandon Denison, a West Virginia native explains the main reason: "You've got several families that have mined for generations," he added, "and everywhere you look, there's coal trains, coal trucks, coal barges on the river, ads on radio, TV.” West Virginia produces 12% of the nation’s coal, second only to Wyoming. "It's almost impossible to grow up in West Virginia and not be impacted by the coal industry. It's economically, culturally, politically and socially dominant," Brandon explains. The laser focus on economic interests seems to be overpower a focus on the climate. Coal brings in money, but it can also have a dangerously negative impact on the environment, as the EPA, Union of Concern Scientists, and European Union have all shared. Despite this focus on other interests beyond the climate like a focus on the financial benefits that coal can bring, Calhoun County has no mineable coal.
When Zoe Siegel on the American Inequality team spoke with Dr. Jeffrey Shaman, Interim Dean of the Columbia Climate School, he shared why people might focus on other challenges:
"It seems that folks who prioritize addressing global warming are more likely to be at greater risk from the impacts of climate change. This suggests something sociologists have noted more generally: that people respond to threats that are personal and immediate. Unfortunately, to address climate change we can’t wait for it to affect each one of us. We need to be proactive, not reactive; we need to act now to stop the production of greenhouse gasses. If we don’t, the impacts will simply grow more extreme in the coming years."
Why Don’t More Americans Care About Climate Change?
The 10 warmest years in the 174-year record of keeping climate temperatures have all occurred during the last decade (2014–2023), but alas other issues take the spotlight. Views on climate change tend to fall along a partisan divide. While 78% of Democrats say that climate change is a major threat, only 23% of Republicans say the same.
As I dug deeper into the data about why voters might not want climate change to be a priority for the next president or Congress, three themes emerge. These explain why voters might either not care for this issue, or might find other issues more imminent.
Make the companies pay for it: Americans believe that corporations should be doing more to prevent climate change, and that this shouldn’t necessarily be a requirement for their tax dollars.
Don’t make me bear the cost for someone else's mistakes: A focus on wind and solar is important, but many Americans are also reluctant to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels because they don’t want to change their lifestyles or are concerned that prices might be higher, even though renewables are now cheaper than fossil fuels almost everywhere.
I need to go to the doctor now: Climate change is just a lower priority for some Americans because they are more focused on other issues like reducing healthcare costs or putting food on the table. For many people, this isn’t just temporal discounting, because they aren’t sure if there will be a future self to take care of.
Democrats are four times more likely to say that climate change is impacting their community ‘a great deal’ and this generally holds true in the data on areas that are most at risk. While the Gulf Coast area with Louisiana and Alabama has experienced more hurricanes each year, many of America’s liberal strongholds like New York City and Los Angeles have the greatest climate risks based on the NASA data. Floods and wildfires in these cities kill dozens each year. Only 3 of the top 20 counties with the great climate risk voted Republican in the 2020 presidential election.
The Path Forward
Global warming should unequivocally be a priority for the next president and Congress. We need to go beyond education. Knowing that smoking is bad for you does not necessarily stop people from smoking. But climate change is not a local issue. We need the entire US and the entire world to focus on it, because otherwise individual communities are left holding the bag. The first two recommendations are for what we can do as individuals, whereas the final recommendation is for the politicians and policymakers who follow along with this newsletter.
📣 Publicize your climate social norms - New research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that the most effective way to get others to care about climate change is publicizing social norms. If your neighbor knows that you are exhibiting sustainable behaviors, your neighbor is likely to want to do the same. Researchers found that this was 3-times more likely to change people’s behavior than education alone. “People judge their own behavior against what others are doing. There’s a strong tendency to conform to social norms,” says Susan Joy Hassol, director of Climate Communication, a nonprofit science and outreach project.
🗳️ Vote for climate policies and politicians - Worrying about climate change is one thing, but voting to address this is another. Data shows that people who are less likely to vote are also the ones who care far more about the environment. 8 million “low-propensity environmental voters'' skip presidential elections. This might reflect the Greta Thunberg view that politicians have failed us when it comes to saving the planet. But this type of massive change requires massive support, and this cannot happen without the backing of a well funded federal government. And if you don’t believe me, Bill Nye says the same thing.
🙏 Appeal to the midwest - The map above reveals that people in the midwest care the least about having the president or Congress address climate change. This is particularly challenging because midwest residents release 22% more greenhouse gas emissions than the average American, largely due to long drives and lots of farming. One approach that has proven to work particularly well in initial experiments in the midwest has been a focus on conservation. It may be hard to get people to acknowledge that climate change is caused by humans, but many midwesterners do want to preserve their way of life. Framing climate resilience in terms of conservation can open up the door to great care for preserving communities and keeping the land the way it is, safe from floods and fires.
Ban Ki-Moon, the former Secretary General of the United Nations said it best, “Climate change is the single greatest threat to a sustainable future, but, at the same time, addressing the climate challenge presents a golden opportunity to promote prosperity, security and a brighter future for all.” Ban Ki-Moon knew that climate change was not only about saving the planet, but also about finding justice and opportunity for all communities.
Michigan also looks pretty interesting - lots of climate risk but not a lot of people voting that way
I like the simple yet impactful idea in Path Forward to publicize our small actions - I agree, this is something everyone can do at a micro level.