My latest piece for Maps.com investigates whether or not people in areas most affected by our changing climate have more ‘climate anxiety’ than others.
Somewhat surprisingly, they don’t. Instead, climate anxiety appears to be more about politics than geography.
“As it turns out, more than the actual risk of hazards—including those that result in the loss of life and property—climate anxiety in the US follows voter preference. This trend is not subtle. In fact, counties that favored a Democrat for president in 2024 reported higher levels of climate anxiety, independent of their actual climate risk as documented by FEMA’s National Risk Index.”
When it comes to climate anxiety, the effect size of political preference is nearly 4x greater than that of actual risk exposure or population size.
Posted by jscarto
24 comments
For more information and maps that show how worry about global warming relates to hazard exposure and how counties voted in 2024, visit: https://www.maps.com/climate-anxiety-trends-mapped/
Data sources: FEMA’s National Risk Index, Yale Program on Climate Change Communication
Tools: Python/Matplotlib, ArcGIS Pro (for maps in the article linked above.)
This is an interesting finding in a lot of ways, as it is not just about rural vs urban, or population size. When those are accounted for the effect size of voter preference is nearly 4x greater than either population size or risk exposure.
In short, how much people worry about global warming is more closely tied to how they voted in 2024 than it is about the actual risks they experience or face.
48% is pretty high for red areas
So even counties that voted so overwhelmingly for Trump as to be in the >90 point red range still only have ~50-60% not worrying about climate change?
Here in Florida I keep being told how much my life has been negatively impacted by climate change. They tell me the hurricanes are evidence.
Been dealing with the bastards all my life and don’t remember any that came even close to Andrew.
I remember when Kamala campaigned on climate change…. Oh wait
The only short-term effect climate change can have is rising sea levels, which doesn’t seem to be happening that much.
I think misuse of land needs to be a bigger priority for now.
What I find fascinating is that even in +92 Trump district the “Worry” percentage is still 48%
Can you do on where it’s average annual change in temperature rather than the presidential election
I’d like this type of graph to be relabeled as “understand climate change” instead of tip toeing around the issue.
Thee following graphs probably do too: election was stolen by Biden, vaccines cause autism, Russia is the good guys, black people are criminals, women shouldn’t vote, immigrants eat dogs, Democrats want everyone to have a sex change
Big surprise, the idiots who actively took part in destroying their own country and deny reality while believing whatever nonsense that spews from the mouth of a Cheeto with a hairpiece also refuse to believe in the Climate Crisis.
Pretending climate scientists are idiots has to be the craziest experiment humanity has ever tried.
Can you make a graph for climate anxiety vs altitude?
If only the Biden / Harris campaigns spent any amount of time discussing their most popular accomplishment and one of their strongest policy issues.
The mismanagement of democratic presidential ticket for the 2024 election is legitimately going down as one of the worst political fumbles in recent history.
I am surprised that it’s as high as 48%.
By removing the bottom 30% of the graph, it makes it appear that Republicans are far less anxious about climate change than they are. That’s important because we need to recognize that there is broad bipartisan consensus among Americans that climate change is a worrying problem, and that our media figures and political leaders are far more divided on this than “regular” Americans.
I live in Michigan, and despite my relative insulation from natural disaster, and my states lower reliance on agriculture as an economic driver, I’m nervous as hell. If I lived in a hurricane state, or any of the top ag states, I’d be shitting bricks. It’s going to affect everyone, but the brunt of the early problems will be in all those red states.
There’s also the overarching idea of NIMBY. Even the most fervent oil, gas, and environmental deregulation supporters, don’t want that in their area. It’s drill baby drill, as long as it’s far away. Its pollution standards are too high, until it’s smoggy air and poisoned water in their neighborhoods…
Ward 1 in DC? This must mean that’s the single highest concentration of liberals in the country. It’s certainly not geography driving the concern. This now makes me think this is more of a measure of political leanings by voting location than of climate concern specifically.
follow the money…….and its no one
I wonder what the breakdown is for coastal cities vs inland. Probably similar given the leanings of coastal cities, but intuitively they’d have a bigger reason to be worried
I think this does not cover the demographic that is anxious about the climate, and the impact it will have as it changes, but at the same time doesn’t believe it’s possible to change it back, regardless of how many carbon taxes (or related actions) are undertaken by government.
Member when Obama warned us about climate change and rising tides? Then when he left office he bought a house on an island in the ocean? I member.
Majority of these fckers just want to see the world crumble. Yet they’ll keep complaining about natural disasters. It’s great to know not all of them do not care about the environment.
I’m not worrying about something when we just pffshore it to China, India, Vietnam and pretend we are green
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