Public Release: 16-Jun-2015
[font face=Serif][font size=5]Linking climate change to natural disasters influences charitable aid[/font]

SAGE Publications

[font size=3]June 16, 2015 - When natural disasters strike - droughts, typhoons, floods - the media, charities, and science organizations appeal to the public both for aid to the victims and to communicate the causes of these events. Increasingly, as scientists link extreme weather events to climate change, people are mixing the discussion about climate change and aid. But a new study offers caution: Researchers found that linking a natural disaster with climate change caused climate change skeptics to justify the withholding of aid from victims.

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After reading the articles, the researchers surveyed the participants about whether they felt there was a big need to help alleviate the victims' suffering, whether they believed that the victims might be partially at fault for their situation, and several other measures of their perceptions of the disaster. They also asked whether the participants thought they might donate to the relief efforts and then about their political and climate change beliefs.

As published in Social Psychological and Personality Science today, those participants who were highly skeptical of climate change reported greater justifications for not helping the victims when the disaster was attributed to climate change. And Chapman adds that: "In spite of there being a modest correlation between conservatism and skepticism, our results suggest that it is skepticism about climate change in particular, and not conservatism more generally, that drives our observed findings."

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To charities and media reaching out to the public after a natural disaster, Chapman offers caution in mixing the discussion of climate change-disaster links with appeals for aid: "Speculation about whether a disaster may or may not be caused by climate change appears to have negative rather than positive effects for some individuals' perceptions of disaster victims and willingness to help."

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