Fear and Climate Change: How natural disasters and environmental fears shape American climate attitudes across political orientation

Abstract

Climate change remains a polarizing issue along partisan lines in the United States, with conservatives expressing greater skepticism about its risks. This research investigates how fear shapes climate change attitudes across political orientations. From a 2023 national survey, results support hypotheses that conservatives demonstrate lower climate concern relative to liberals (H1), and that fear of natural and environmental disasters increase climate concern. While evidence for the hypothesis that the effect is more pronounced among conservatives is mixed (H3), the findings suggest that fear of anthropogenic environmental disasters elicit climate attitude shifts among conservatives, consistent with threat perception literature. When respondents noted heightened ecological fear, the political divisions in attitudes diminish, as trends converge on acknowledging the climate risks and causes. This relationship highlights messaging opportunities by focusing on locally relevant environmental threats that can aid in influencing conservative climate actions, which could build collective climate action support across political divides.