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Wildfire Exposure Increases Pro-Environment Voting within Democratic but Not Republican Areas

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  • HAZLETT, CHAD
  • MILDENBERGER, MATTO

Abstract

One political barrier to climate reforms is the temporal mismatch between short-term policy costs and long-term policy benefits. Will public support for climate reforms increase as climate-related disasters make the short-term costs of inaction more salient? Leveraging variation in the timing of Californian wildfires, we evaluate how exposure to a climate-related hazard influences political behavior rather than self-reported attitudes or behavioral intentions. We show that wildfires increased support for costly, climate-related ballot measures by 5 to 6 percentage points for those living within 5 kilometers of a recent wildfire, decaying to near zero beyond a distance of 15 kilometers. This effect is concentrated in Democratic-voting areas, and it is nearly zero in Republican-dominated areas. We conclude that experienced climate threats can enhance willingness-to-act but largely in places where voters are known to believe in climate change.

Suggested Citation

  • Hazlett, Chad & Mildenberger, Matto, 2020. "Wildfire Exposure Increases Pro-Environment Voting within Democratic but Not Republican Areas," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 114(4), pages 1359-1365, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:114:y:2020:i:4:p:1359-1365_28
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    Cited by:

    1. Lackner, Teresa & Fierro, Luca Eduardo & Mellacher, Patrick, 2024. "Opinion Dynamics meet Agent-based Climate Economics: An Integrated Analysis of Carbon Taxation," OSF Preprints rdfze, Center for Open Science.
    2. Mehic, Adrian, 2020. "The Electoral Consequences of Nuclear Fallout: Evidence from Chernobyl," Working Papers 2020:23, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    3. Diekert, Florian & Goeschl, Timo & König-Kersting, Christian, 2024. "The Behavioral Economics of Extreme Event Attribution," Working Papers 0741, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    4. Italo Colantone & Livio Di Donaldo & Yotam Margalit & Marco Percoco, 2022. "The Political Consequences of Green Policies: Evidence from Italy," Working Papers 2022.28, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    5. Mehic, Adrian, 2023. "The electoral consequences of environmental accidents: Evidence from Chernobyl," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 225(C).
    6. Paul M. Lohmann & Andreas Kontoleon, 2023. "Do Flood and Heatwave Experiences Shape Climate Opinion? Causal Evidence from Flooding and Heatwaves in England and Wales," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 86(1), pages 263-304, October.
    7. Hunnicutt, Patrick & Henderson, Geoffrey, 2023. "Particulates Matter: Policy Failures, Air Pollution, and Collective Political Participation in the United States," Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, Working Paper Series qt51h8846s, Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, University of California.
    8. Thomas Zeitzoff & Grace Gold, 2024. "Cyber and contentious politics: Evidence from the US radical environmental movement," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 61(1), pages 134-149, January.
    9. Sonia Akter & R. Quentin Grafton, 2021. "Do fires discriminate? Socio-economic disadvantage, wildfire hazard exposure and the Australian 2019–20 ‘Black Summer’ fires," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 165(3), pages 1-21, April.
    10. Maria Cotofan & Karlygash Kuralbayeva & Konstantinos Matakos, 2024. "Global warming cools voters down: How climate concerns affect policy preferences," CEP Discussion Papers dp1991, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    11. Jessie W. Y. Ko & Shengquan Ni & Alexander Taylor & Xiusi Chen & Yicong Huang & Avinash Kumar & Sadeem Alsudais & Zuozhi Wang & Xiaozhen Liu & Wei Wang & Chen Li & Suellen Hopfer, 2024. "How the experience of California wildfires shape Twitter climate change framings," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 177(1), pages 1-21, January.
    12. Afiq bin Oslan, 2023. "Establishing Fault: The Electoral Impact of Induced Earthquakes," Working Papers tax-mpg-rps-2023-21, Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance.
    13. Uji, Azusa & Song, Jaehyun & Dolšak, Nives & Prakash, Aseem, 2024. "Willingness to incur private costs for climate adaptation? Public support for undergrounding electricity transmission lines in California," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    14. Colantone, Italo & Di Lonardo, Livio & Margalit, Yotan & Percoco, Marco, 2022. "The Political Consequences of Green Policies: Evidence from Italy," FEEM Working Papers 327326, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    15. Matthew T. Ballew & Jennifer R. Marlon & Matthew H. Goldberg & Edward W. Maibach & Seth A. Rosenthal & Emily Aiken & Anthony Leiserowitz, 2022. "Changing minds about global warming: vicarious experience predicts self-reported opinion change in the USA," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 173(3), pages 1-25, August.
    16. Italo Colantone & Livio Di Lonardo & Yotam Margalit & Marco Percoco, 2022. "The Political Consequences of Green Policies: Evidence from Italy," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 22176, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    17. Cerqua, Augusto & Ferrante, Chiara & Letta, Marco, 2023. "Electoral earthquake: Local shocks and authoritarian voting," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    18. Italo Colantone & Livio Di Lonardo & Yotam Margalit & Marco Percoco, 2022. "The Political Consequences of Green Policies: Evidence from Italy," CESifo Working Paper Series 9599, CESifo.

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