From the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and the department of left/right politics comes this study. I suspect this mostly has to do with what news outlets these people watched, which also tends to go with political affiliation. It’s also a rather small sample size, just 1035 people. It’s worth asking these 20 questions a Journalist should ask about polls of this study. I found this statement interesting: 50% more Democrats than Republicans in the study expect to receive federal disaster relief after a major flood. I think that speaks to self-sufficiency versus dependency.
Adaptation to climate risks: Political affiliation matters
Study takes into account perceptions of New York City residents after Superstorm Sandy
A new study reveals that those who affiliate with the Democratic Party have different views than those who vote Republican on the following issues: the likelihood of floods occurring, adopting protection measures, and expectations of disaster relief from the government. The study was jointly conducted by VU University in Amsterdam, Utrecht University School of Economics in The Netherlands, and the Center for Risk Management and Decision Processes at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, USA.
The study, published today in Springer’s journal Climatic Change, focused on the flood risk in New York City. Data was collected through a telephonic survey conducted six months after Superstorm Sandy. It included a random sample of 1,035 homeowners with ground level property in flood-prone areas of New York City. Respondents’ political affiliation was determined by what political party they voted for in the November 2012 presidential election.
Key findings:
- Democrats’ perception of their probability of experiencing flood damage is significantly higher than Republicans’. They are also more likely to expect climate change to increase the flood risk they face in the future.
- Democrats are also more likely to invest in individual flood protection measures.
- Less than half of Democrats and a third of Republicans trust the government to address the flood risk posed in their area of residence.
- 50% more Democrats than Republicans in the study expect to receive federal disaster relief after a major flood.
- Interestingly, given the above, the researchers find no difference in flood insurance adoption.
“We knew Republicans and Democrats in the United States often perceive the risk of climate change differently. We now know they prepare for climate disasters differently, too. This finding has important implications,” report Wouter Botzen and Erwann Michel-Kerjan, who co-led the study.
The authors suggest that flood risk awareness campaigns and policies be aimed at encouraging people to adopt preparedness and risk reduction measures and to purchase adequate insurance coverage, irrespective of their political ideology. The strengthening of building codes in NYC after Superstorm Sandy is a good example of how cities can limit damage from future floods, become more resilient, and limit the need for government disaster relief.
Reference: W. Botzen, E. Michel-Kerjan, H. Kunreuther, H. De Moel and J. Aerts (2016). Political affiliation affects adaptation to climate risks: Evidence from New York City, Climatic Change. DOI 10.1007/s10584-016-1735-9
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Thanks, Anthony. The link you provided in the body of the article (“20 questions a Journalist should ask about polls”) should be required reading as we get into the silly season, which seems sillier and stupider than usual. I just heard that a recent Fox News poll has Secretary Clinton 10 percentage points ahead of Mr Trump. I wonder if any journalist reporting on the survey asked any of the questions.
How could Madame get such a huge lift in her popularity, you may find yourself asking.
The top story on Fox comes with not only poll results showing a sudden 10 point lead, but with an explanation for the flummoxed.
She got H>er over night 10-point lead in the flummoxing Fox poll because…
Next headline…
Wait for it…
“Both are flawed”
Other variables that parse along similar boundaries – critical thinking/gullibility, logic/rhetoric, physical science education/ mysticism, analytical skills/credulity, mendacity/truthfulness.
Years ago there was a very big hurricane that ravaged Florida. The insurance giant AIG subsequently funded a “research study” to find out how much larger and more frequent hurricanes could be expected to become.
Miraculously, the study found that hurricanes would become more powerful and more frequent.
Of course, AIG had to raise hurricane insurance rates…. Then the State of Florida mandated … guess what.
The people started screaming, and Florida backed off…. But now Florida has a state-run hurricane insurance pool….
I was able to find a report by AIG on this, but mysteriously it’s now been removed.
Gives rise to the question of politics and climate, and insurance.
Yep, it also works in earthquake insurance
The Florida hurricane insurance pool is there because nobody else would underwrite at ‘affordable’ cost after 5 hurricanes in two years 2004-2005. What has saved Florida from going bankrupt on this pool is the remarkable fact there have been zero hurricanes since. Dumb luck, not smart underwriting.
Citizens Insurance, the State run insurance pool for wind insurance was set up to be the insurance of last resort for those who needed the insurance for mortgage approval but were not eligible for private insurance due to the private insurance underwriting guidelines. It was also mandated to be the most expensive so as not to siphon off customers from the private insurers. However, it turned out that the premiums ended up lower than some private companies. Now the State of Florida is moving as many home owners out of Citizens as they can and into approved private firms, which I did last year. These new firms have popped up without the required minimum available assets in accordance with insurance law but, according to the State, they have enough reinsurance to cover their losses in the event of a hurricane. So the State has certified that these small private firms are OK to do business with and assure us that our claims will be paid when the inevitable happens. We’ll see.
“No difference in flood insurance adoption.” That is because if you want a mortgage and live in a mapped flood zone it is mandatory. Don’t these people ever get out and about in the real world?
There once was a farm in NJ. The farm had a fairly large size pond that was feed by a stream. They built a dense pack housing development on the farm. They shrank the pond to the size of a swimming pool. For the environment! Horrors of horrors…. the development flooded worse than they thought !
I’m a Fourth Turning politically “homeless” luke cooler. Not sure where I would fit in. I probably don’t fit in anywhere … love it!
How many would like to sail the Northwest Passage?
“The strengthening of building codes in NYC after Superstorm Sandy is a good example of how cities can limit damage from future floods, become more resilient, and limit the need for government disaster relief.“. Um, shouldn’t they wait for a future flood, then test the extent of damage and disaster relief before making that statement?
In the absence of evidence people will always believe what they want to believe – it can be climate and weather, it can be religion, it can be investing in the stock market. Even with hard facts staring them in the face some stick to beliefs that defy reality. The fact that say a flood and its effects are the worst that a community has ever seen to them means it is the worst ever and must be caused by bad govt planning or AGW. If it is a fact that 100 years ago the same level of flooding occurred that is irrelevant to them. Most of the time it comes down retaining belief instead of overcoming ignorance because that is the easiest course of action and because it suits their objectives.
raely post here these days but some real science here https://climateaudit.org/2016/08/03/gergis-and-law-dome/#comments
What result was required?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ZZJXw4MTA
“The U.S. coast is in an unprecedented hurricane drought — why this is terrifying”
http://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/the-us-coast-is-in-an-unprecedented-hurricane-drought-%E2%80%94-why-this-is-terrifying/ar-BBvgoBU?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp
Now even a “Hurricane drought” is something to be “terrified” of. What a bunch of total wimps scared of their own shadows we’ve produced in this country! Why not use the words ‘hiatus’ or ‘pause’, or ‘reprieve’, to describe such a blessing? If someone said to my face what is written in this headline I would think they have a serious psychological problem should be examined to determine their competency. But instead they write, edit, and produce the leading newspaper in the Capital of our nation.
“the department of left/right politics”
But Republicans/Democrats is right/right politics. No left involved.
US government insurance subsidies for high-risk areas is why storm damage is often too high and why inadequate Infrastructure exists.
If free-market principles were allowed to function, insurance rates for high-risk areas would be too expensive to allow profitable development, so there would be little development in those high-risk areas… That’s the whole point…
An option would be for MASSIVE infrastructure to be built to reduce the risk of severe-weather damage and thus lower insurance costs, but this would only make economic sense if cost-benefit analysis shows such expenditures would be warranted..
If there are no perceived risks for bad decisions, bad decisions will continued to be made.
It’s just government subsidized stupidity.
What strikes me about this is the bit of the study that’s missing: comparison with a country where flooding is a persistent and present risk. The Netherlands for instance. Why didn’t the researchers do a similar survey in the city of Rotterdam. That would have given them a excellent platform for comparison.
I just took an on-line survey from the University of Pennsylvania about global warming, and it was quite disturbing. The questions asked me whether I believed that CO2 warmed the atmosphere, a lot of questions about my political beliefs, and a number of questions about the beliefs of scientists, including whether I thought there was a consensus about global warming. What was disturbing was the way that it focused on a he-said-she-said scenario, with me as the unbiased non-expert jury member. They asked nothing about my technical background, and the questions were mostly black-and-white. I was not allowed to express my opinions in writing, which I think it quite a deficiency for a subject like this. I commented to the survey company about the poor design of the survey.
I imagine that we should expect to see the results of this survey before the election.
With all due respect, “Poll Study: Climate views and political affiliation linked” – someone actually got a taxpayer grant to do this study?
This should be good for some more award-winning journalism utilizing up down arrows and red state blue state crap.
Can we please get to the critical mass of skeptics quickly and shut down these reactionary rent seeking studies?
As a big fan of Anthony Watts and this website I was a little surprised to see him — and others — calling the sample “quite small” — any statistician should understand the relationship between sample size and error and while I know Anthony isn’t a statistician this is pretty basic stuff, really. A sample of 1,000 is actually fine, regardless of the size of the population, and should result in only minor errors.
Whether the sample is truly random is a bigger issue but in today’s world it’s almost impossible to get a truly random sample for all sorts of reasons. I haven’t seen the questionnaire so cannot comment on whether the questions are leading or not, but I’d be surprised if Wharton haven’t done it pretty well.
Climate scepticism entirely maps to a right wing/republican viewpoint: it is a right wing political viewpoint, not a scientific viewpoint. The holder’s political views condition their acceptance of the science.
(These pages are full of condemnation of lefties, socialists, allegations of Marxist viewpoints, etc, etc… which is odd to an European, from a continent where quite ‘conservative’ governments by left or socialist parties are quite normal).
The climate skeptic viewpoint also seems to embrace a belief there is no ozone hole, was no Y2k crisis, DDT shouldn’t have been banned and similar, plus a willingness to believe there is a UN21 eugenic plot, large scale scientific fraud, etc, etc.
Climate scepticism is not about the science… its a worldview and/or political opinion, from a narrow part of the left/right spectrum
griff,
You are so incredibly mis-informed, but then again, propaganda supporting the lie is the only reason climate alarmism has any support at all among the ignorant masses. Skepticism of the pseudo science supporting the fear mongering promoted by a political organization called the IPCC is driven by nothing more than the scientific method. When applied to the claims of the IPCC, actual science unambiguously falsifies everything they claim about CO2, except the fact that its increasing. Robust science works far better at divining the scientific truth then the usual alarmist approach of adhering to a false narrative and doubling down as evidence disputing it becomes more and more obvious. Sounds like far left progressive politics as usual to me …
As they say, people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
@ur momisugly Joel Snider
What’s wrong with being ‘Progressive’ (favoring or advocating progress, change, improvement, or reform, as opposed to wishing to maintain things as they are, especially in political matters) ??
If it wasn’t for ‘Progressives’ we’d still be living in caves eating raw food & dying young.
Politically; do you really want things to stay as they are today ???
If so…how quaint.
When I lived in Florida, Federal Flood Insurance was not OPTIONAL.
I did not ADOPT Federal Flood Ins because of my POLITICAL affiliation-it was REQUIRED…..that is only if I wanted general homeowners insurance…you know things like: Fire, Theft, Hurricane, Liability… REAL possible perils.
You cannot buy the one without buying the other 1st.
(And the disclosure of your political affiliation is not required in the policy.)
…Jus’ sayin’.
A lot of research has been done into how influenced people are by media stories. Perhaps surprisingly it’s not as much as you might think. Typically, media stories reinforce people’s views rather than change them, at least to any significant extent.
Griff, you’re correct that climate scepticism maps mainly to a right-wing viewpoint but totally and utterly wrong that this has anything to do with political influence; and I’m afraid you’re very much the victim of propaganda if that’s what you genuinely believe.
Man-made global warming suits the political left because it’s seen to be driven by large corporations spewing out waste with the sole aim of making money. In fact, there’s a remarkably strong link between the use of energy, typically oil and gas, and life expectancy. Quite simply, as nations become wealthier they are able to use energy to improve people’s lives very, very significantly. The end result is that people live healthier, longer and better lives the more energy they consume.
The tragedy is that while evidence for significant “man-made global warming” has become less and less, with global temperatures failing to rise at anything like the rate predicted while carbon emissions continue to grow, so trillions of dollars are being wasted on reducing greenhouse gases that will have virtually no impact on natural climate change.
What we should be doing is reducing pollutants, which are a far greater threat to people and the environment than greenhouse gases. Yet — and this just shows how ridiculous things have become — in the UK as a result of consumers being encouraged to use diesel cars to reduce carbon emissions so the volume of particulates has increased, leading to thousands more people dying from respiratory problems directly as a result.
I’m afraid this is what happens when politics gets in the way of science.