Disrupting the Complacency: Disaster Experience and Emergent Environmentalism

Abstract

As climate change intensifies, scholars are beginning to ask whether firsthand experience with disaster will cause complacent people to develop greater environmental concern and engage in more proenvironmental behaviors. Will the disruption caused by experiencing a local environmental disaster be enough to motivate residents to change their values and behaviors? The aim of this study is to answer that question by analyzing qualitative interview data collected from 40 residents of Calgary, Alberta, who survived the devastating and costly 2013 southern Alberta flood. Despite normally high levels of climate change denial and complacency, findings indicate that the flood prompted residents to concern themselves more with climate change and the climate crisis and to begin adopting many household-level proenvironmental behaviors. The findings also point to important gender differences in both environmental concern and proenvironmental behaviors. Thus, the article establishes a social-psychological process of attitudinal and behavioral change, allowing us to better understand how jarring environmental events disrupt complacency.

‘Scientists don’t care about truth anymore’: the climate crisis and rejection of science in Canada’s oil country

“…As evidenced in the empirical work discussed above (Haney 2021;Haney and McDonald-Harker 2017;McDonald-Harker, Bassi, and Haney 2021), the 2013 Southern Alberta Flood left many people wondering what they did not know about environmental problems and climate change -a finding consistent with research in other geographic contexts demonstrating how first-hand experience of negative environmental events decreases things like conspiracy ideation among climate change skeptics (Sarathchandra and Haltinner 2020). The flood exposed gaps in their knowledge and changed their views.…”

“…The findings discussed above reveal how Albertans living in the economic hub of Canada's tar sands feel about the scientific consensus on climate change and about the attendant work of scientists. Though an emerging body of work suggests that flood-affected Albertans have shifted their environmental views somewhat since the 2013 flood (Haney 2021;Haney and McDonald-Harker 2017;McDonald-Harker, Bassi, and Haney 2021), prior research had not yet examined whether residents in this oil-producing region are accepting of the consensus and trusting of scientists after going through such an environmental disaster.…”

“…In the end, however, 39 out of the 40 participants had residences that flooded during the 2013 Southern Alberta Flood. In many ways, this recruitment is ideal as those who recently experienced an environmental disaster have been shown to exhibit changing environmental views (Haney 2021;Hamilton, Safford, and Ulrich 2012;Haney and McDonald-Harker 2017), and disaster-affected people might potentially be increasingly likely to accept the scientific consensus on climate change, having just gone through such an event. Twenty of these interviews were with participants who identified as being men, and 20 identified as women.…”

“…Despite living in a community where many people are dependent on fossil fuels, children (even many whose parents worked in oil) spoke emotionally and persuasively about the climate crisis and the need to mitigate it. This literature highlights how many living in Southern Alberta following the 2013 flood did indeed adapt their environmental views and practices, as a direct result of their experiences in the flood (Haney 2021), though we understand less about their post-disaster views on science, scientists, and the consensus on climate change.…”