Live Poster Session: Zoom Link
Abstract: Does thinking about climate change influence how we contextualize recent weather events? The National Surveys on Energy and Environment contained an experiment within its survey design that allowed me to answer that question to an extent. Respondents were split into two groups, and asked a series of questions about climate change before or after being asked about the severity of last summer’s heat. This structure allows me to explore causation in addition to association. Republicans seem to recall recent events as less sever across the entire nation. There are various potential confounding variables to consider for this split and I explore one of them with limited success. My work found that priming made no significant difference, with a near miss among urban republicans, a category that warrants further investigation.
Climate-Priming