Essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Gregory Woods; Are you or have you ever been affected by a climate disaster?
The strange and persistent psychological distance between us and climate disaster
An analysis of dozens of previously published studies reveals people systematically underestimate their own vulnerability to climate threats.
By Sarah DeWeerdt
March 10, 2026Most people think climate change will primarily affect other people, a new analysis of previously published research reveals.
…
“Many people may ask themselves: how likely is it that I will suffer the consequences of extreme weather events compared to others?” says study team member Magnus Bergquist, a psychologist at Gothenburg University in Sweden. “What we found was that the vast majority of people, worldwide, expect that others are more likely to suffer from such consequences than themselves.”
Bergquist and his collaborators conducted a meta-analysis of 83 studies involving a total of more than 70,000 people from 17 countries who were surveyed about their perceptions of climate-related risks faced by themselves and other people.
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Still, the framing of these questions matters. People are more likely to say their climate risk is lower than that of others when the context is a broad comparison with fellow citizens of their country or with humanity as a whole. The tendency towards overoptimism less pronounced when people compare their own risk to that of specific others, such as neighbors or people in their city.
Read more: https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2026/03/the-strange-and-persistent-psychological-distance-between-us-and-climate-disaster/
…
The abstract of the study;
- Article
- Open access
- Published: 08 January 2026
Meta-analytical evidence of a self–other discrepancy in climate change-related risk perceptions
Nature Sustainability (2026)Cite this article
Abstract
In mitigating and adapting to climate change-related risks, unbiased risk assessments are essential. Yet individuals systematically rate their personal risks as lower than those of others, believing themselves to be less at risk than others (that is, a self–other discrepancy). In a preregistered multi-level meta-analysis, we estimate the overall effect and boundary conditions for a self–other discrepancy in climate change-related risk perceptions. The synthesis incorporated 60 datasets, comprising 83 effect sizes from 70,337 participants across 17 countries. Results revealed that in 81 of 83 datasets, participants perceived their personal climate change-related risks as lower than others (d = −0.54, 95% CI [−0.68, −0.39]). This skewness was robust across specific extreme weather-related hazards and general climate change-related risks. Notably, the self–other discrepancy was less pronounced when comparisons involved specific others (for example, neighbours) or high-risk regions (for example, Asia), and more pronounced when the referents were compatriots or humanity as a whole or when the context was low-risk regions (for example, Europe). These results highlight a critical implication for the general public and a challenge for risk communicators: a widespread misperception, where people perceive personal climate change-related risks as lower than others, may hinder public engagement in mitigation and adaptation efforts.
Read more: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-025-01717-3
The study authors offered three hypothesis to explain this cognitive bias, and concluded the data supported all three hypothesis;
From the main study;
…
Hypothesis 1
Personal climate change-related risks will be perceived as less likely and/or severe than others’ risks.
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Hypothesis 2
Climate change-related risk perceptions will be less skewed when individuals compare themselves with specific referents rather than with general referents.
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Hypothesis 3
Samples from world regions with a relatively higher level of objective climate change-related risk will exhibit a smaller self–other discrepancy than samples from regions with a relatively lower level of objective climate change-related risk.
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Read more: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-025-01717-3
There is a fairly obvious fourth hypothesis which the study authors overlooked.
Hypothesis 4
Claims we are in the midst of a climate crisis are overblown hype. People quite reasonably conclude their personal climate risk is negligible, based on a lack of bad things happening in their neighbourhood, but because of 24×7 sensationalised news coverage of weather disasters elsewhere in the world, conclude that other people are suffering the ravages of climate change.
Of course including this hypothesis might have made the study a little difficult to publish in “Nature Sustainability”, and it may not be a possibility the authors themselves considered. You’re welcome study authors.
I’d rate a Taco Bell burrito disaster to be on a more serious, somewhat less enduring scale.
Nothing beats a Taco Bell Blowout as a Disasster.
What in The Hell is a Climate Disaster?
I’ve been subjected to a number of undesirable weather events.
Even been though a King Tide Flood and a Water Rationed Drought.
I’m in California so not much opportunity for damaging hail, tornadoes or hurricanes.
The current Political Climate could be described as a disaster though likely what Climate Disaster means.
I wasn’t aware that a “Climate Disaster” was even possible or what the effects could/would be.
Rightly said! Undefined terms and nebulous scenarios allow meaningless conclusions.
“Undefined terms and nebulous scenarios allow meaningless conclusions.”
Standard operating procedure for modern Psychology.
Back in ’73 I found out that the old VW Bug really did float when I went down a creek because of the flooding from Tropical Storm Ilya.
I was also in one of the two “Blizzard of ’78”. (I was in the one that hit Ohio. The other one hit New England.)
There were no cell phones back then to record them or internet to post the recordings on, so, no, I’ve never experienced a “Climate Disaster”. Just the weather. 😎
I was in the ‘78 blizzard that hit New England. Plus several tornado near misses at my Wisconsin farm over 40plus years, plus several Fort Lauderdale hurricanes over 25 years, 3 at Cat3 or above. Never considered any of that a climate disaster. Normal weather in those parts in those seasons.
I lived through the 7-year drought in California, 1986-93. Water rationing, unflushed commodes, stressed farmers.
An unforced climate disaster that regularly recurs in that part of the world.
I lived through it as well, in San Jose. It left little impression on me.
I’ve been through a hurricane, major snow storms, including a snow thunderstorm complete with lightning, a day a few years back where I had personal encounters with 3 separate tornados.
Last night a tornado passed over my house.
Climate Disaster? What the hell is that supposed to mean?
All I have been through are weather.
Hope that you and your family, neighbors and house are OK. Closest I’ve been to a tornado was about 5 miles.
“What in The Hell is a Climate Disaster?”
Maybe overnight your home on a tropical island was destroyed ’cause the sea rose 50′ ’cause half of the ice in Greenland melted?
It would take THOUSANDS of years for Half the Ice in Greenland to melt so no sudden 50′ sea level increases possible (at the current rate of about a foot per century, 50′ would take 5,000 years). Hell, it took 10,000 years for the great Laurentide Ice Sheet to finally melt away and leave Canada to sustain life.
Any analysis of whether a risk is underestimated or overestimated requires that the ACTUAL risk is known.
One might analyze 1000 crime reports and argue that when the assailant was under 6 feet tall, shooting was more likely (I’ve invented that… maybe the conclusion would be opposite). Then one could poll peope and ask “are tall people or short people more likely to shoot?”.
What is Magnus Bergquist, a psychologist at Gothenburg University in Sweden, using as the actual risk people are mis-estimating? I have not looked for it but the only possible answer is… model outputs of the future. Of warming. In Sweden?
Nope. Went back to read carefully and no way, not reading that garbage. He’s hidden what he’s saying in a techno-babble word salad. Red flags of jargon abound
How’s that saying go? “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.” 😎
He is a psychologist, so by definition delivers a techno-babble word salad. Or, a psychobabble.
“unbiased risk assessments are essential.”
Biased cherry picked false narratives underlie climate alarm which has no empirical support in the real world. The alt reality supporting climate risk has no logical basis due to false premise’s that dominate every aspect of their ignorant blathering.
Pure Trans-Reality Activist hyperbole.
Statistics do not cause anything.
Oh…Great…something else Trans…just what we need!
Hihi there,
I just wanted to mention that you hypothesis 4 is compatible with the other hypothesis!!
Most Western civilization lives in low climate risk areas and even if there were a significant increase it has likely less effect on the average person than for example an exploding national debt.
As to how much the individual perception might play a role knowing that we are well beyond the halftime point for any expected warming by anthropogenic causes tol 2100, G. Alimonti et al. looked into antropogenic global warming driven disaster trend:
https://doi.org/10.1080/17477891.2023.2239807
“””We analyze temporal trends in the number of natural disasters reported since 1900 in the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) from the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED). Visual inspection suggests three distinct phases: first, a linear upward trend to around mid-century followed by rapid growth to the turn of the new century, and thereafter a decreasing trend to 2022. These observations are supported by piecewise regression analyses that identify three breakpoints (1922, 1975, 2002), with the most recent subperiod 2002–2022 characterized by a significant decline in number of events. A similar pattern over time is exhibited by contemporaneous number of geophysical disasters – volcanoes, earthquakes, dry landslides – which, by their nature, are not significantly influenced by climate or anthropogenic factors. We conclude that the patterns observed are largely attributable to progressively better reporting of natural disaster events, with the EM-DAT dataset now regarded as relatively complete since ∼2000.”””
Ha :-). Perhaps, but not in the way the authors intended.
If a Butterfly farts in the Amazon, and there’s no Climate Scientist there to smell it, did it really happen?
“Climate” disaster? Nope, none, never. I’ve experienced some minor weather disasters in my life, but nothing I’d consider major – once I was without electricity for 10+ days due to an ice storm, but since it was winter no food spoiled, and as an experienced winter camper it was more just a novelty than a real disaster. First world problem, right?
Mostly I refuse to take part in “climate porn”, it is a silly and pointless addiction but it obviously can destroy one’s critical thinking skills…
I’ve experienced a few earthquakes. Does that count?
Only if my 2 or 3 also count.
They do but there’s some issue if they count as two or three.
Actually they Don’t Count! Because counting is Math and Math is Racist.
I’ve experienced a few minor tremors in Colombia, thankfully small with no damage. Pretty unsettling though. I think I remember at least one climatista claim that earthquakes are linked to increased CO2, but hey isn’t everything?
Does the UK hot summer of 1976 count as a climate disaster. My lifetime favorite summer and for some reason, if it happens more frequently in the future, we are doomed.
Obama and Biden ushered in the taxes and spending and borrowing which have been a disaster for everyone except the parasites and leeches who would have been their own disasters absent other people’s money.
Michael Mann, Hansen and Greta, Al Gore, have all been inconvenient disasters and provided the psychological backing for Obama and Biden.
So, yes.
I had an OPM interview for a clearance. The agent asked if I had ever down anything that could result in the downfall of USA. I responded that I voted for Obama. He informed me he was not allowed to participate in humor. I apologized then added I could tell by his expression that he could not wait to get home to repeat my comment. He laughed.
So what is it they asked the participants to evaluate; “climate change risks” or “extreme weather risks?” They are not the same. We had an extreme weather event just last month. After 3 or 4 inches of heavy wet snow, it rained while still very cold. The rain/snow froze into a 2 or 3 inch coating of ice which endured on my driveway and lawn for about 3 weeks (or was it 30 – seemed like forever.) Such an event is rare for southern Maryland where I live. We sometimes get light snows in winter, which some years never arrive. They are usually are gone in a few days when the weather warms but not this year. Ah that damned climate change – or was it just weather?
Howdy neighbor. That was some fun. Then it snowed again. Weather.
Yesterday 85F. Last night tornado passing above my house. We just got at least 1/2 inch of snow and it is still falling.
Climate? Nah. Weather.
Don’t like it? Stick around for awhile, it will change.
Doesn’t that tell us something about climate change when everyone expects it to affect someone else? Obviously, people don’t see it as a problem in their lives. But it must be affecting someone because climate doomsayers keep harping on extreme weather and impending human extinction.
I experienced Camiile passing through Memphis in 1969. That was a whopper.
The winter of 1982-83 in Salt Lake City was a doozie. We didn’t see the sun for 81 days. Ice coated most of the streets, six inches thick except for a few kept open for emergency service, and the freeways had walls of snow piled up 15 feet high. Then it warmed quickly, and the Great Salt Lake flooded almost to the airport. City Creek was flowing down a sandbagged State Street, where I heard the fishing was good.
We had record snowfall two years ago, but the spring was mild, so little flooding occurred.
This year, the snowpack is poor, and it has been rather warmer. The Lake is shrinking.
Weather happens. Not sure what “climate” disaster is.
MW was that the year that the spillways at Hoover dam flowed? The only year I believe.
I think so. At Glen Canyon Dam/Lake Powell, they had to buy sheets of plywood from Home Depot and attach them to the top of the dam to keep the lake from flowing over the top!
HYPOTHESIS 4 – YES! Right on! EXACTLY!
Anthropocene Magazine is an independent, online and print magazine that explores how to create a sustainable human age. It covers the latest climate and sustainability science, news, and stories from around the world, with a focus on the Anthropocene epoch.
(So says Search Assist of DuckDuckGo)
April 1st is still 20 days out! 🙂
Meditating on: “how to create a sustainable human age”
Is this a magazine dedicated to stopping new ideas?
Remember, over 100 million people have been murdered by communists and socialists in just over 100 years. Mostly by starvation. So the earth is far more sustainable today than it would have been thanks to them.
After 3+ decades of CC claims it hasn’t affected me yet so “why should I be worried” seems to be the general consensus.
Whether Hypothesis 4 is proven valid or invalid, a proper analysis of alternatives mandates its inclusion. Failure to include all identifiable possibilities is, in and of itself, identifiable as bias in the analysis.
“Are you or have you ever been affected by a climate disaster?”
No … but several decades ago I got stuck at home during a snow storm.
“This skewness was robust across specific extreme weather-related hazards and general climate change-related risks.”
Oh, but did you pre-deprecate the extremity distribution and post-adjust for the spatially mapped ortho-magnetic skewness parameter? No? Then your robustitude variance across hazard class demogrifications will dupify the sample spreads and contaminate the regression. Do better next time!
jk
P.S. “Robust” – I dislike that word. This comes from decades of hearing it in corporate-speak.
That is all for now.
When I watched Don’t Look Up a few years ago, I had absolutely no interest in the climate issue. So I didn’t know the film’s underlying message, and I watched it “innocently,” so to speak. And I found it quite enjoyable! The idea of a meteor heading toward Earth, a scientist sounding the alarm in front of cynical and indifferent media, governments, and industrialists—it’s pretty fun to watch, even though it’s outrageously caricatural in many respects. But there were some great actors, and overall it’s entertaining. And the ending is rather moving.
Time passes, I fall into the throes of eco-anxiety, I eventually tell myself that it costs nothing to see what the people who oppose the prevailing catastrophism are saying, I make progress in my research, I realize that the science is far from settled, and one day I learn that Don’t Look Up was an allegory for the climate situation. And that film, which at first seemed entertaining, now strikes me as outrageously demagogic.
Who could imagine that governments would remain unmoved if a comet threatened to destroy the Earth? Who can claim with a straight face that what we are currently experiencing resembles a threat of planetary destruction? The contemporary era would rather be a disaster movie for Malthusians. Arid regions are turning green again, harvests are booming, famine has dramatically declined worldwide. What a horror! Fortunately, DiCaprio and his friends are here to bring us back to reality.
A model would probably manage to establish a link between the development of human societies, the rise of well-being indicators around the world, and an asteroid colliding with our planet. And if a model says so, you have to be a dreadful denier to contradict it.
Let the alarmists stop rolling their eyes at the sky in disdain, and instead look us in the eye and justify—data in hand—their obscene catastrophism.
The tell that ruins most action movies: Why is “the bad guy” doing this?
At some point, movie makers have to abandon “the bad guy”s motive and turn them into caracitures.
My favorite movies from childhood usually featured karate fights or laser guns applied to “bad guys” in dehumanizing outfits – best example is probably the Star Wars Storm Trooper. Masks covered their whole face so you won’t stop and think “I wonder whether that human that just got blasted knew his plastic armor suit was not-fit-for-purpose in a fight involving the exact type of weapon he was charging the rebels with?”
Darth Vader
Cobra Commander
Xylons
It’s true that we don’t really need to know why this or that villain is getting slaughtered by the hero, as long as it’s entertaining and the plot is at least reasonably well put together (I’d have a hard time enjoying a martial arts film that’s very poorly written, even if it’s extremely well choreographed).
The big problem with Don’t Look Up is that once you realize its real argument (the climate crisis we are responsible for is going to kill us all), the pleasantly grotesque side of the caricature disappears, and you end up feeling downright insulted in your intelligence by the writing of this film. At least, that was the case for me.
Since we’re talking about films related to the “climate crisis,” there’s actually a really good one: Quantum of Solace, the James Bond film that follows Casino Royale. It’s the second James Bond movie with Daniel Craig, and I really like it a lot. The villain, Dominique Greene, is played by Matthieu Amalric. Someone once told me that Quantum of Solace had been very prescient about future issues concerning water and thirst in the world, resulting from the aridification of land due to climate change. The people who say that clearly didn’t understand the film. If Bolivia is dying of thirst in the movie, it’s because good Mr. Greene arranged for dams to be built so that the land would dry out. Having arranged to buy up the land from a dictator—sorry, a local “liberator”—by using Spectre’s influence, he made it a condition to the general that he be given the plots where the dams were located. Once he had a monopoly on water in Bolivia, the game would be won, and he could resell it and become even richer. Except that James Bond shows up, causes a very “so British” massacre, briefly fights Greene—who actually manages to hit his own foot with an axe (ouch)—and presumably dies in horrible suffering, caught by the people from Spectre, who are rather annoyed by this loss of money.
So the drought was artificially created by a big villain for venal reasons (while also being involved in philanthropy and the creation of nature reserves, of course), and it’s blamed on global warming. If I were cynical (which I am), I’d say that Quantum of Solace is more critical of ruthless entrepreneurs who exploit people’s misery than of ordinary people who use their cars and take airplanes.
Obviously they needed a villain, and they found one by tying the writing to current events. It’s rather the reaction of some of my acquaintances to the plot of this James Bond that leaves me puzzled.
P.S.: I really do post very long comments under articles on WUWT, but it’s such a pleasure to talk with people who are so friendly and interesting that I tend to get carried away.
Speaking only for myself, I enjoy your posts, and hope you will continue to visit, and post, and dialog with everyone here.
Engagement is a good thing!
Thank you very much! 😊
“The villain, Dominique Greene” <-well there’s a clue
(also I agree with Hladik. Not my site, I just read it all, but you seem to be a good read)
This study is trash and everyone involved should be fired and made to clean porta potties for the rest of their lives.
What, take Kenny’s business away from him?
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0822389/
To start with –
wtf is an “Anthropocene”?
Search the site with that word. David Middleton and others have posted about this starting about 10 years ago. Read them all and tell us which you like best.
Truly, it a bastardized term, the basis being that humans are causing, ‘ … irreparable harm to the environment … ‘ and are having a significant impact on the Earth.
I say bastardized, since every geological time division has been based on fossils and the fossil content of the specified location, or on some other purely natural event. “Anthropocene” would be the only time division based on the activities of a life form, and therefore does not follow the convention on making a distinct time horizon. The proposal was to start the ‘Anthropocene’ at the year 1950. The International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) has considered the proposal, and within the past few years has tabled the idea; the backers of the proposal have promised to continue petitioning for the name, even though the basis for the distinction is tenuous, at best.
The “climate disaster” is much like Net Zero or Peak Oil: a consistently receding mirage that’s used by alarmists to convince governments to impose carbon taxes and persuade consumers to adopt green products and lifestyles. All these will do is increase living costs and reduce comforts and conveniences.
I ask myself what is a climate disaster. A multidecade drought? My tomatoes won’t ripen properly? Animals from southern US invading the area and killing indigenous animals? Mosquitoes growing to the size of bumblebees? Instead of growing corn, we have to switch to cotton? These are climate disasters.
Weather caused disasters? Everybody has experienced some types of snow blizzards, ice, flooding, high winds, hurricanes, etc. Those are weather and not even reducing the CO2 concentration will help that. These have all happened in the 300+ years that historical records exist here. Long before CO2 doubling. They will happen again because nature will make it happen without any help from humans.
I would have asked a question about being afraid of mother nature’s ability to create horrendous conditions at times.
My uncle served in New Britain during WWII. During wet summers when we were complaining about the mossies, he used to tell us about the time they pumped 2 44 gallon drums of Avgas into one before they realised it wasn’t a Beaufighter.
I am assuming the others used diesel fuel. I’ve seen that happen a few times on farms when neophytes pull up to the wrong barrel.
There is a Hexham Grey stuffed and mounted outside the Hexham Bowling Club.
We had a plague of the things during floods in the 1970s, but my uncle reckoned they were tiddlers compared to the ones in New Britain.
Look at that plunger. Should eat well.
How about a study of the Strange and Persistent Psychological Disorder of Climate Hysteria?
“Most people think climate change will primarily affect other people”. Of course, I am only one, therefore it primarily will affect other people. 😉
When the scare about AGW became prominent in the mass media several decades ago, I accepted that the dire predictions were true, because they were supported during most interviews of scientists I heard on the radio.
I had very little knowledge of climate in general at that time, so why shouldn’t I believe the news reports? I’d read there had been an ‘ice age’ around 20,000 years ago, but I later discovered that event is more correctly termed a ‘glacial maximum’, and that we are currently in a period called an ‘interglacial’, and that we are ‘technically’ still in an Ice Age which began around 2.6 million years ago.
My first experience of an extreme weather event was the category 4 cyclone that hit the city of Darwin, North Australia, in 1974, on Christmas day. I don’t recall any claims that the devastation was a result of human-caused climate change, but I do remember that religious fanatics later marched through the streets claiming the destruction was a revenge from God for naming the city after the evolutionist, Charles Darwin.
The next major weather event I experienced was massive flooding in Brisbane, and surrounding areas, in 2011. This was after the cause of the extremity of such events began to be attributed to AGW. It was described as the worst flood in the history of European settlement, or since records began.
Out of curiosity, I checked the history of flooding in the area on the internet, which provided a link to the website of the Australian BOM, which showed graphs of the height of previous floods.
I was amazed to discover that the 2011 flood was nowhere near the worst on record. The BOM graphs showed it was the 7th worst on record. In other words, going back to 1840, there were 6 flooding events which were higher than the 2011 floods, in the Brisbane area. The worst two were in 1841 and 1893. Attached is a photo of the 1893 flood, in Brisbane city, taken after flood levels began receding.
2011 was the year that my skepticism about CAGW began. Since 2011 there have been a number of floods in this area, but none as bad as the 7th worst flood in 2011.
The major questions that should be addressed is, “Why do governments continue to allow buildings to be built in floods plains, and why do so many people not bother to check the history of flooding in a particular area before buying a house in that area?”
Tangental to comment but reminded me – how the heck did anything Darwin-related survive cancel culture a few years back, when Americans were pulling down statues of founding father presidents? Someone needs to crack open a copy of “Voyage of the Beagle” and consider what that guy thought about race relations.