Trial by Fire: Support for Mitigation and Adaptation Policy after the 2020 Oregon Wildfires

Leanne Giordono, Muhammad Usman Amin Siddiqi, Greg Stelmach, Chad Zanocco, June Flora, Hilary Boudet

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Citations (SciVal)

Abstract

The September 2020 Oregon wildfires were unprecedented in terms of their geographic scope and the number of communities affected by smoke and wildfire. Although it is difficult to directly attribute the event to climate change, scientists have noted the strong connection between warmer and drier conditions in the western United States}conditions that are linked to climate change}and increasing wildfire risk. These wildfires thus had the potential to act as a “focusing event,” potentially strengthening public support for climate change policy. Political ideology is a well-known driver of public support for climate change mitigation policies in the United States, but few studies have examined adaptation policy support. Moreover, other factors shaping postevent support for the two “pillars” of climate change policy}adaptation and mitigation}have rarely been compared. We conducted a survey of Oregonians within 6 months of the 2020 wildfires (n 5 1308) to understand postevent support for climate mitigation and adaptation policies. We found that the magnitude of the association between political ideology and policy support was lower for adaptation policies than for mitigation policies, and there was no association with support for forest management changes. In contrast, selected sociodemographic characteristics played a more important role in support for selected adaptation policies than for mitigation policies.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)633-664
Number of pages32
JournalWeather, Climate, and Society
Volume15
Issue number3
Early online date1 Jul 2023
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 21 Jul 2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 American Meteorological Society.

Funding

Acknowledgments. We acknowledge the support of the Climate Impacts Research Consortium (CIRC) at Oregon State University for providing funding for the survey used in this study. We also thank the survey respondents for sharing their experiences.

FundersFunder number
Climate Impacts Research Consortium
Oregon State University

    Keywords

    • Extreme events
    • Policy
    • Social science
    • Wildfires
    • Adaptation and resilience
    • Adaptation
    • Community

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Global and Planetary Change
    • Social Sciences (miscellaneous)
    • Atmospheric Science

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