Leanne S. Giordono, Muhammad Usman Amin Siddiqi, Gregory Stelmach, Chad Zanocco, June Flora, Hilary S. Boudet
{"title":"Trial by Fire: Support for Mitigation and Adaptation Policy after the 2020 Oregon Wildfires","authors":"Leanne S. Giordono, Muhammad Usman Amin Siddiqi, Gregory Stelmach, Chad Zanocco, June Flora, Hilary S. Boudet","doi":"10.1175/wcas-d-22-0075.1","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\nThe September 2020 Oregon wildfires were unprecedented in terms of their geographic scope and the number of communities affected by smoke and wildfire. Though it is difficult to directly attribute the event to climate change, scientists have noted the strong connection between warmer and drier conditions in the Western U.S. – conditions that are linked to climate change – and increasing wildfire risk. These wildfires thus had the potential to act as a “focusing event,” potentially strengthening public support for climate change policy. Political ideology is a well-known driver of public support for climate change mitigation policies in the U.S., but few studies have examined adaptation policy support. Moreover, other factors shaping post-event support for the two “pillars” of climate change policy—adaptation and mitigation—have rarely been compared. We conducted a survey of Oregonians within 6 months of the 2020 wildfires (n=1,308) to understand post-event support for climate mitigation and adaptation policies. We found that the magnitude of the association between political ideology and policy support was lower for adaptation policies than mitigation policy and there was no association with support for forest management changes. In contrast, selected socio-demographic characteristics played a more important role in support for selected adaptation policies than mitigation policy.","PeriodicalId":48971,"journal":{"name":"Weather Climate and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9000,"publicationDate":"2023-05-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Weather Climate and Society","FirstCategoryId":"89","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1175/wcas-d-22-0075.1","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
The September 2020 Oregon wildfires were unprecedented in terms of their geographic scope and the number of communities affected by smoke and wildfire. Though it is difficult to directly attribute the event to climate change, scientists have noted the strong connection between warmer and drier conditions in the Western U.S. – conditions that are linked to climate change – and increasing wildfire risk. These wildfires thus had the potential to act as a “focusing event,” potentially strengthening public support for climate change policy. Political ideology is a well-known driver of public support for climate change mitigation policies in the U.S., but few studies have examined adaptation policy support. Moreover, other factors shaping post-event support for the two “pillars” of climate change policy—adaptation and mitigation—have rarely been compared. We conducted a survey of Oregonians within 6 months of the 2020 wildfires (n=1,308) to understand post-event support for climate mitigation and adaptation policies. We found that the magnitude of the association between political ideology and policy support was lower for adaptation policies than mitigation policy and there was no association with support for forest management changes. In contrast, selected socio-demographic characteristics played a more important role in support for selected adaptation policies than mitigation policy.
期刊介绍:
Weather, Climate, and Society (WCAS) publishes research that encompasses economics, policy analysis, political science, history, and institutional, social, and behavioral scholarship relating to weather and climate, including climate change. Contributions must include original social science research, evidence-based analysis, and relevance to the interactions of weather and climate with society.