How Environmental Risk Perception Influences Natural Disaster

Marshall, J.

Author correspondence: healthequityimagined@gmail.com

Cite this article: Marshall, J. (2025). The Socioeconomic Drivers of Attitudes that Promote Environmental Protection. Diverse Perspectives on Wellness, 3(4), 1-5.

Abstract

Hegel once said “mankind is caught up in a drama that cannot be fully understood until it has been played out.” The widespread acceptance that natural disasters are physical phenomena that are also socially and economically driven has helped aid a gradual increase in global climate policy. Although risk perception related to the potential causes of disaster from climate change is not necessarily ideal given that much of the information related to its causes is rooted in climatology, meteorology, economics, oceanography, and agronomy, we look to cultural psychology, social psychology and political barriers to help explain the world’s arm’s length relationship with climate change (Schware, 1980). Establishing an “arm’s length” relationship with the environment to accomplish a means to an end was the prototype for 1800’s-era industrialization, as is therapizing the world’s negative relationship with the environment in order to prevent catastrophic consequences from continued neglect once the intended outcomes of industrialization have been accomplished to a reasonable extent. The psychology of re-building a relationship with the environment begins with the removal of the psychological barriers to our co-dependence that were installed in order to maximize the economic value of industrialization.

Keywords: environment, environmental issues, environmentalism, environmental impact

Background

Hegel once said “mankind is caught up in a drama that cannot be fully understood until it has been played out.” The widespread acceptance that natural disasters are physical phenomena that are also socially and economically driven has helped aid a gradual increase in global climate policy. Although risk perception related to the potential causes of disaster from climate change is not necessarily ideal given that much of the information related to its causes is rooted in climatology, meteorology, economics, oceanography, and agronomy, we look to cultural psychology, social psychology and political barriers to help explain the world’s arm’s length relationship with climate change (Schware, 1980). Establishing an “arm’s length” relationship with the environment to accomplish a means to an end was the prototype for 1800’s-era industrialization, as is therapizing the world’s negative relationship with the environment in order to prevent catastrophic consequences from continued neglect once the intended outcomes of industrialization have been accomplished to a reasonable extent. The psychology of re-building a relationship with the environment begins with the removal of the psychological barriers to our co-dependence that were installed in order to maximize the economic value of industrialization. In the 1500’s, the red-stained Brazilwood tree became a commodity in Europe, overextraction became a source of conflict across three continents, and so began the political acknowledgment of Brazil’s deforestation (de Matos Carlos, 2020).

Introduction

The Industrial Revolution, ignited by humanity’s growing inclination for economic development was the end of a predictable relationship with the Earth’s ecological systems and the beginning of a pattern of climatological variability. In the 1830’s, a steep increase in manufacturing output saw a sharp increase in regional GDP per capita. However, by the end of the 1800’s, the increase in industrialized production and consumption of cattle-related products led to Brazil becoming one of the highest emitters of greenhouse gases in Central and South America, and the realization of a centuries-long increase in rapid warming and irregular climactic patterns in industrialized nations led to the very first predictions of climate change due to anthropogenic causes and subtropical latitudes placing them at greater risk for land loss given the gradually increasing hurricane speed correlated with the warming ocean (Almeida Canova, 2023; de Matos Carlos, 2020). Today, children under 5 years old account for almost 90% of the existing global burden of disease attributable to climate change, temperature and precipitation increases have been associated with a decline in births, and as a result, pediatricians are increasingly integrating climate considerations into their health evaluations and education (Marteleto, 2023). Brazil is one of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) considered to be on the tail end of industrialization and now showing increasing support for climate change mitigation initiatives within its 5,546 municipalities and across their borders (Lo, 2016). Brazil’s climate change initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are more adapted to children than many other countries, making them one of the more interesting case studies for climate policy development.

Theoretical Underpinnings of Human Response to Climate Disaster

Theories on the psychology of human responses to the progressively changing climate vary across the academic landscape. The uneven distribution of risk perception across the globe may be an indicator of a continued inverse relationship between economic performance and environmental degradation, one that empowers climate change denial (Arshed, 2022). However, this relationship, as well as its accompanying denial is perhaps a phase for countries who are either in the midst or have just exited a period of industrialization, and the U-shaped hypothesis of economic growth and environmental pollution indicates that after a period of industrialization and economic stabilization, communities will once again adopt environmentally friendly behaviors (Disli et al., 2016). Culturally cultivated relationships with the environment inform consumption behaviors, ideals of responsibility and acknowledgement of impact, and when filtered through different cultural identities, help explain the varying levels of risk perception. IPAT (Impact, Population, Affluence per capita and Technology), a quantitative formula to estimate the impact of climate change on population and consumption helps explain the integration of climate change mitigation measures into some countries’ policies based on their capacity to do so (Swim, Clayton & Howard, 2011). The pollution haven hypothesis posits that regions with minimal environmental regulations attract large producers of CO2 emissions and greenhouse gases. However, given that enhanced climate measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide would only cost an estimated 1% of global GDP versus the annual costs of current emissions that amount to 5% of global GDP, developing countries with less infrastructure for green industry have an interesting opportunity to encourage massive inflows of foreign direct investment and replace high polluting industries with green, advanced technology to encourage economic growth at little cost to the Earth’s atmospheric composition (Caetano & Marques, 2024; Hao et al., 2020; Piabuo, 2024; Stern et al., 2006; Xie & Sun, 2020).

Post-industrialization Attitudes Towards Climate Disaster Mitigation

Somehow obscured by the industrialization-era detachment from the environment were changes in climate risk perception and risk behavior. Detachment resulting from an altered relationship with the land that went from co-existence and mutual dependence to alpha-beta domination led to altered perceptions of a deteriorating environment’s impact on human health. Industrialization introduced both economic value and a psychological burden that created a gap between the changing environment and the beneficiaries of capitalism at the expense of environmentalism. Now with most developed economies near the end of industrialization and showing increasing support for climate change mitigation initiatives, whether environmental protection is prioritized over economic growth depends heavily on the public’s knowledge, attitudes and acceptance of the preponderance of negative health events initiated by the changing climate.

Epidemiologic Implications of the Changing Climate

As compound drought-heatwaves occur at a greater frequency, duration and severity, extreme heat is causing changes in the social determinants, causal influences and genetic factors of diseases attributable to climate change. Changes in temperature variation, humidity and rainfall increase the risk of forest fires (e.g., the 2020 fires in the Pantanal) and evapotranspiration, where the loss of water from soil and plants increases, goes unreplaced and accelerates desertification, and changes in food availability, malnutrition, child development, psychosocial disorders, cardiorespiratory diseases and dermatoses. Solar radiation’s effects on fair-skinned humans presents yet another increasingly complicated medical picture with skin cancer accounting for 25% of all malignant tumors in Brazil. Wildfire smoke compounds the issue by releasing particulate matter, carbon monoxide, lead, and sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere (Eckelman & Sherman, 2016). Globally, chronic respiratory disease is the third leading cause of death, with over half of chronic respiratory diseases associated with exposure to air pollutants (Libonati et al., 2022).

As ongoing increases in the ocean’s temperature lead to more humidity in the atmosphere and a high pressure warm air mass continues to displace the cold front more and more often, hydrometeorological disasters (e.g., floods, droughts, hurricanes, etc.) are occurring across all regions of Brazil with greater frequency and intensity, and the influence of a changing ecosystem on biological, geographic and chemical cycles is both accelerating the emergence and re-emergence of new diseases and altering the epidemiologic characteristics of existing diseases (Makinde, 2024). An increase in hurricanes and floods means a higher incidence of malaria, dengue, yellow fever, leishmaniasis and diarrhea as a result of changes in the behavior of common vectors (e.g., mosquitoes) and in the quality and quantity of water. Brazil’s infant mortality risk increases by 22.4% for every 1°C increase in the minimum average daily temperature, and with temperatures warming by at least 4°C, the percentage of cardiovascular deaths attributable to heat stress is 40% in Northern Brazil, 35% inNortheastern Brazil and 25% in the Center-West capitals (Schinasi et al., 2020). More research is needed to understand how the interaction between climate change and pollution promotes heart disease given that ischemic heart disease is the leading cause of death in Brazil (Ferreira et al., 2023).

Problem Statement #1

90% of global disease attributable to climate change is experienced by children who are five years of age or younger. In utero exposure to hydrometeorological disasters (e.g., Hurricane Catarina in 2004) has been linked to decreased birth weight, increased fetal deaths, altered gene expression, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis dysfunction and altered nervous system development, conditions that sometimes impact children well through adulthood (de Oliveira, 2020; Pacheco, 2020).

Problem Statement #2

Reliance on global food trade presents the unique risk that climate-induced production shocks could lead to reduced food availability and price spikes (Anderson et al., 2023). Developing countries typically occupy low latitudes where temperatures are ideal for agricultural practices, and farmers in these regions are usually the earliest adopters of climate mitigation strategies (Cunha et al., 2015). Although 89% of farmers in one study understood that climate change would negatively impact their finances, those who believed in the harmful effects of climate change had already taken steps to adapt their farming practices via increased irrigation use, environmental conservation, change in planting and harvesting dates, and rotation and diversification of crops) (χ2 = 10.35, p < 0.016) (de Matos Carlos, 2020).

Research on determinants of environmentalism has relied on models grounded in the theories of decision making and behavior. Value expectancy theory emphasizes the importance of a behavior and the expectation of an outcome once that behavior is performed. Given that a right-sized climate risk perception is necessary to activate climate policy as an opportunistic vehicle for preventing climate-related illness, food scarcity, and the negative impacts of climate change on human wealth, this study uses a binary regression model to assess which of the following types of risk behaviors and outcomes are significant drivers of climate risk perception:

• anthropogenic (i.e., renewable energy consumption; energy use)

• environmental (i.e., greenhouse gas emissions)

• meteorological (i.e., temperature variability)

• geological (i.e., vulnerability to climate change)

• ecological (i.e., inverse crop yield)

• financial (i.e., manufacturing value added; total damage; insured damage; reconstruction costs)

• social (i.e., % population killed by disasters; % additional deaths; % population impacted by 1 m sea level rise; % population affected by drought; % population affected by wildfire; % population affected by glacial lake outburst flood)

Methods

The World Values Survey, an expansion of the European Values Survey which started in 1981, is a study of people’s cultural, economic, political, religious and social values (Kistler et al., 2015). The survey has received mainstream recognition as a cross-cultural, static instrument that facilitates country-level comparisons and trend analyses to help researchers understand the changes in each country’s values and beliefs, as well as the evolution of mass values across the globe (e.g., a time series analysis revealing the increasing development of a supranational identity across countries) (Aleman & Woods, 2016). The survey begins a new iteration every five years using a cross-national instrument distributed by fieldwork agencies. Each iteration of the survey, referred to as a wave takes about five years, including two to four years for data collection. To date, there have been seven waves, Wave 7 (2017–2022) being the most recent iteration for which there is a complete dataset available.

One-on-one interviews using the same survey across different countries allowed the researchers to compare human values, beliefs and attitudes globally. The World Values Survey Scientific Advisory Committee approved a plan for sampling each participating country based on their sampling frame, sample size inclusion probabilities, design weights, sampling stage and sample size needed to achieve an effective sample. A representative sampling strategy was used to gather data for 1000 participants for countries with less than 2 million people, 1200 participants for countries with 2 million or more people and 1500 participants for countries like Brazil, China, India, Russia and USA with great population size and diversity to adequately reflect the community’s opinions, experiences and disposition with a certain degree of accuracy (minimum threshold guidelines applied to every country with the exception of Argentina and Chile).

Mapping human values worldwide enables country-level correlations between cultural values and supportive attitudes (e.g., emancipative values highly predict larger donations to charitable organizations) and facilitates predictive analytics in favor of environmental protection (Kistler et al., 2015). Geert Hofstede’s original assessment of each country’s six cultural dimensions (individualism vs. collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity vs. femininity, long-term vs. short term orientation and indulgence vs. restraint) has become an invaluable and revelatory cross-cultural database. The likelihood of changing an attitude predictive of an illness or condition depends as much on individual and interpersonal circumstances as it does cultural, and the three cultural dimensions developed from the World Values Survey items (Exclusionism vs Universalism, Indulgence vs Restraint, and Monumentalism vs Flexumility) offer a glimpse into where enabling attitudes may or may not be culturally supported. (Hofstede, 2011; Minkov, 2007).

Binary logistic regression using independent variables of any type (continuous or categorical) to predict the binary dependent variable helps us understand which cultural values are correlated with attitudes towards environmental protection and helps us understand whether countries who identify most with these values are naturally inclined towards climate change mitigation. The opportunity to indicate one’s satisfaction with the way things are is conceptually present throughout the World Values Survey. For countries with a homogenous group of people who are unified under similar values and beliefs and more or less satisfied, aggregate statistics may have a small confidence interval. For multiethnic countries, one analysis of World Values Survey data discovered that 134 out of 259 ethnic majority and minority pairs had statistically significant between-group differences, implying an estimate with a rather large variance (Murgaš, 2023; Silver, 2000). While the confidence interval gives us as much information about what the survey intended to measure as it does the extent and nature of the measurement error, the stability of this interpretation is theoretical on social surveys where participants are asked to convey their feelings rather than provide an objective description. Individuals who have not adopted a firm stance in regards to a particular social issue may answer differently even while taking a survey with high reliability. However, responses for identical survey questions are not always comparable between countries in different stages of economic development (e.g., survival vs. self-expression scale is uniquely defined in advanced post-industrial countries) (Aleman & Woods, 2016). Still, for the purposes of our research, this circumstance was mitigated via highly specific inclusion/exclusion criteria to consider unique interpretations based on demographic indicators (Wikman, 2006). The binary dependent variable of environment-economic consideration available in the 7th wave of the World Values Survey (WVS) conducted in 49 countries between 2017–2021 is based on the following question:

“Here are two statements people sometimes make when discussing the environment and economic growth. Which of them comes closer to your own point of view? 1) Protecting the environment should be given priority, even if it causes slower economic growth and some loss of jobs. 2) Economic growth and creating jobs should be the top priority, even if the environment suffers to some extent.”

The following model prioritizes how well attitudes that promote environmental protection are supported by public’s level of political confidence and capacity for positively supported behavior (Lundquist, 2024):

Model #1: Binary logistic regression: ŷ (attitudes toward environmental protection) = β0 + β1x1 (confidence in the Environmental Protection Movement) + β2x2 (feelings of health) + β3x3 (feelings of happiness) + β4x4 (concern about a war regarding the country) + β5x5 (concern about a terrorist attack regarding the country) + β6x6 (housing) + β7x7 (attitudes towards standard of living) + β8x8 (attitudes concerning the importance of work) + β9x9 (attitudes concerning societal change) + β10x10 (being a housewife)

Results

Those with less confidence in the Environmental Protection Movement were negatively correlated with protecting the environment (p <.001). Relative to those who are very happy, those who were less happy or less healthy did not favor protecting the environment over economic growth (p <.001). Those who indicated they were less worried about a war involving the country or a terrorist attack were more likely to favor economic growth over environmental protection (p <.001). Those who reported always having shelter were positively correlated with protecting the environment (p <.001). Those whose standard of living was worse off or about the same compared to their parents were more likely to favor economic growth over environmental protection (p <.001). The less importance respondents placed in work, the more they were negatively correlated against environmental protection in favor of economic growth (p <.01). Compared to those who believe that the entire way our society is organized must be radically changed by revolutionary action, those who indicated that our society should be gradually improved by reforms or valiantly defended against all subversive forces were less likely to favor protecting the environment over economic growth (p <.001). Housewives who indicated staying at home to be just as fulfilling as working for pay strongly agreed with protecting the environment over economic growth (p <.01).

Discussion

Assessing the critical difference in actual climate danger and perceived climate danger is of paramount importance in order to ensure that both public institutions and civil society are not caught off guard. Risk appraisal and disaster risk perception influences the attitudes and emergency response decisions that prevent loss of life and property for populations living in disaster-prone areas, and threat appraisal (severity and probability of occurrence) is influenced by ability to cope, prior disaster experiences and demographic identities (Ardaya et al., 2017; de Oliveira et al., 2020). It seems that in order to be connected to policymakers who serve the health needs of entire communities, establishing a causal link between climate policies and reduced illness among those in the human and plant population who are already experiencing diseases attributable to climate change is imperative to produce strategies that make sense across the board (Almeida Canova, 2023; Swim, Clayton & Howard, 2011). The speed at which economic and social transformation has accommodated climate change mitigation depends on each country’s geographical location, adaptive capacity and the best science available.

Cities’ participation in transnational networks that support climate change initiatives has helped facilitate idea sharing to identify diseases and illnesses that have had their epidemiologic characteristics altered by recent climate shifts, evidenced by areas in the Amazon that since being placed under strict environmental protection, have a lower incidence of malaria, acute respiratory infection and diarrhea (D’Almeida Martins & da Costa Ferreira, 2011; Ferreira, Leite, Junior & Vicente, 2023). Eco-anxiety has also become a reality for those whose frequency of unfortunate climate experiences has led to decreased mental health, an irreversible upward trend of loss of local life and property and reduced access to liability insurance. Given the evolving geological landscape, re-thinking what indicators of climate change risk and readiness are predictive of health outcomes attributable to climate change will become even more critical for climatologists and epidemiologists.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by Health Analytics & Visualizations.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest or financial incentive. The authors’ relationships with the stakeholders and subject matter did not lead to unreasonable bias or compromise the objectivity of the research.

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