Flood Realities, Perceptions and the Depth of Divisions on Climate

Abstract

Research has led to broad agreement among scientists that anthropogenic climate change is happening now and likely to worsen. In contrast to scientific agreement, US public views remain deeply divided, largely along ideological lines. Science communication has been neutralised in some arenas by intense counter-messaging, but as adverse climate impacts become manifest they might intervene more persuasively in local perceptions. We look for evidence of this occurring with regard to realities and perceptions of flooding in the northeastern US state of New Hampshire. Although precipitation and flood damage have increased, with ample news coverage, most residents do not see a trend. Nor do perceptions about past and future local flooding correlate with regional impacts or vulnerability. Instead, such perceptions follow ideological patterns resembling those of global climate change. That information about the physical world can be substantially filtered by ideology is a common finding from sociological environment/society research.

A change in the wind? US public views on renewable energy and climate compared

“…Northeast Oregon is a politically conservative region; in the 2012 presidential election, Barack Obama received only 22 to 34% of the votes from our CAFOR counties (compared with 51% nationwide or 52% in New Hampshire). County-level voting behavior correlates strongly with views on climate change [63], so there is correspondingly low agreement in this region that human activities are changing the climate (42% on our 2015 survey). Many residents concede that climate is changing but attribute it to natural forces [64].…”

“…1 Seventy-two percent of the national respondents, and 78 or 79% in the recent North Country and New Hampshire surveys, gave renewable energy higher priority. Even in northeast Oregon, which environmentally and politically tends to be much more conservative [60,63], 61% prioritized renewable energy while only 26% chose increased exploration and drilling.…”

How will climate change shape climate opinion?

“…A subset of studies focuses on how people perceive weather or climate conditions at the local level. Rather than using beliefs about global climate change as a dependent variable, these studies examine whether people perceive the climate in their local area to be getting warmer, whether recent seasons are warmer or colder than normal, or related local climate trends [25,35,36,38,39,50,60,61,71,[79][80][81].…”

Was December Warm? Family, Politics, and Recollections of Weather

“…Questions about multidecade trends more clearly evoke people's thoughts about climate change, whether the topic is global, such as Arctic sea ice, 22 or local, such as fire-season warming in eastern Oregon 23 or flood damage in New Hampshire. 24 Responses to our very short-term December/winter weather questions suggest that even on such an immediate, local, and directly experienced scale, beliefs exert some influence on perceptions. Figure 4 by taking the average each day from the stations of record, which are at Durham, Keene, Hanover, and First Connecticut Lakes.…”