Work in Progress
- Come Rain or Shine: Extreme Weather, Climate Attitudes and Affective Polarization
- People, Places or Houses? A Decomposition of Households' Carbon Emissions in the UK, joint with Lucie Gadenne (QMUL, IFS), Ludovica Gazze (Warwick), Peter Levell (IFS)
- The Echo of Violence: Conflict at Home and Institutional Trust Abroad, joint with Vincenzo Bove (IMT Lucca), Marco Giani (King's College London), Amélie Godefroidt (KU Leuven)
- A new Parental Time Use App, Parental Investments and Engagement, joint with Maria Bigoni, Stefania Bortolotti, Margherita Fort, Annalisa Guarini, Daniela Iorio, Chiara Monfardini, Alessandra Sansavini (University of Bologna)
Abstract
How do individuals react to extreme weather? In this paper, I explore the linkage between firsthand experiences of climate extremes, such as floods and temperature anomalies, and shifts in personal opinions about climate change. Exploiting the temporal overlap between weather shocks and survey responses, findings reveal that people react negatively to cold extremes, reducing their pro-environmental beliefs and attitudes, while they report more climate friendly views when the anomaly is particularly salient and positive (i.e. a heat shock). This suggests one possible channel for the persistence of denial beliefs: a mental model aligned with global warming, rather than climate change.The positive effect is confined to progressives, while conservatives remain more skeptical. Moreover, I show some evidence of learning; individuals in areas exposed to extremes in the past year are more likely to change their views, with progressives again driving this effect. Finally, the second part of the project, which is currently underway, explores how repeated climate experiences influence green behavior and political decisions, exploiting the longitudinal dimension of the data, and tries to understand why people fail to update, exploring the role of populist narratives and media bias.