Event attribution and partisanship shape local discussion of climate change after extreme weather

Local adaptation policy responses to extreme weather events

“…These results underscore previous observations about the power of focusing events, but importantly, suggest that political polarization and avoidance of climate change talk may not prevent communities from taking adaptation-oriented policy action after an extreme weather event. Thus, while there is substantial evidence of political polarization about climate change, our work aligns with recent media coverage (Flavelle 2020 ; Smith and Schwartz 2019 ) and scholarship (Boudet et al 2019 ; Javeline et al 2019 ; Orlove et al 2019 ) highlighting the potential for communities to take action even while refraining from, or even avoiding, discussions about climate change, especially in the context of high-impact events.…”

“…We documented our analytic choices in extensive detail, as recommended by Schneider and Wagemann (2012), and in alignment with recent studies conducted by Boudet et al (2019) and van der Heijden (2017). See Online Appendix A19 for a detailed description of our analytic approach and technical information about fsQCA statistics used to assess necessity and sufficiency.…”

“…Similarly, Orlove et al (2019) find that some glacial mountain communities draw more heavily on a community frame than a climate change frame when discussing adaptation projects, perhaps allowing them to bypass politically driven objections to adaptation policy. And in some cases, using a climate change frame to promote mitigation policy may be seen as exploiting event-related suffering (Boudet et al 2019;Shepard et al 2018) As such, we expect that dialogue about climate change may offer an important path to policy change, but that it is unlikely to be the only path. Vogel and Henstra (2015) highlight comparative case study approaches as a promising method for gaining insight into local climate change adaptation and related policy change.…”

“…Despite broad evidence of political polarization on the issue of climate change (Dunlap and McCright 2008;Marquart-Pyatt et al 2014), researchers have shown that personal harm from an event can change behavioral intentions and increase support for climate change policies (Demski et al 2017;Zanocco et al 2018Zanocco et al , 2019. However, recent research also suggests that community action may not be as sensitive to climate change beliefs and discussion as previously imagined (Boudet et al 2019;Javeline et al 2019;Orlove et al 2019). 1 Extreme weather events therefore provide fruitful ground for learning more about the role of focusing events in local climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts.…”

“…While particular types of extreme weather events are not likely to be wholly novel in nature, we may expect that, as the climate changes, some types events may be either new to a specific geographic area, result in a remarkable amount of damage or affect a previously unaffected population. Furthermore, in the context of extreme weather, Sisco et al ( 2017 ) find that the “abnormality” of events, in comparison with the historical record, is a significant predictor of climate change attention, while Boudet et al ( 2019 ) find that events of unusual type or timing can lead to community climate change dialogue. Moreover, our interview findings suggested that in the cases we examined, a series of multiple extreme events in a short timeframe, especially “opposite” types of events (e.g., flood and fire; drought and flood) were connected to discussion of climate change and future risks.…”