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The effects of extreme drought on climate change beliefs, risk perceptions, and adaptation attitudes

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Abstract

The role of extreme weather events in shaping people’s climate change beliefs and adaptation attitudes has been extensively studied and discussed in academic literature, the popular press, and policy circles. In this manuscript, we contribute to the debate by using data from pre- and post-extreme event surveys to examine the effects of the 2012 Midwestern US drought on agricultural advisors’ climate change beliefs, adaptation attitudes, and risk perceptions. We found that neither climate change beliefs nor attitudes toward adaptation changed significantly as a result of the drought. Risk perceptions did change, however, with advisors becoming more concerned about risks from drought and pests and less concerned about risks related to flooding and ponding. Though increased risk perceptions were significantly associated with more favorable adaptation attitudes, the effects were not large enough to cause an overall shift to more favorable attitudes toward adaptation. The results suggest that extreme climate events might not cause significant shifts in climate beliefs, at least not immediately. Additionally, the results caution that policy designs that rely on increasing risk perceptions to motivate action on climate change may be overestimating the effects of extreme events on feeling at risk, at least in the context of buffered systems such as large commercial agriculture in the US.

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Notes

  1. Note that the concern about drought variable was omitted from the dry risk perceptions model because that variable was a component of the dry risk dependent variable.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Jim Angel, J. Gordon Arbuckle, Jr., Mike Hayes, Jon Hobbs, Cosimo Matassa, Mark Svboda, and Melissa Widhalm for their help in conceptualizing and preparing this manuscript. This research was supported by Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Competitive Grant no. 2011-68002-30220 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture and by NOAA Sectoral Applications Research Program (SARP) grant number NA13OAR431012.

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Author notes

  1. J. Stuart Carlton

    Present address: Texas Sea Grant College Program, Texas A&M University, PO Box 1675, Galveston, TX, 77553, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Forestry & Natural Resources, Purdue University, 195 Marsteller St., West Lafayette, IN, 47906, USA

    J. Stuart Carlton & Linda S. Prokopy

  2. Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1630 Linden Drive, Madison, WI, 53706, USA

    Amber S. Mase

  3. National Drought Mitigation Center, School of Natural Resources, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 821 Hardin Hall, Lincoln, NE, 6858-0988, USA

    Cody L. Knutson

  4. School of Natural Resources & Environment, University of Michigan, 440 Church St., Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA

    Maria Carmen Lemos

  5. National Drought Mitigation Center, School of Natural Resources, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 810 Hardin Hall, Lincoln, NE, 68583-0988, USA

    Tonya Haigh

  6. Department of Agricultural & Biosystems Engineering, South Dakota State University, Box 2120, Brookings, SD, 57007, USA

    Dennis P. Todey

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  1. J. Stuart Carlton
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Correspondence to J. Stuart Carlton.

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Carlton, J.S., Mase, A.S., Knutson, C.L. et al. The effects of extreme drought on climate change beliefs, risk perceptions, and adaptation attitudes. Climatic Change 135, 211–226 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-015-1561-5

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