Severe Weather Experience and Climate Change Belief among Small Woodland Owners: A Study of Reciprocal Effects

Abstract

Climate change is threatening forest ecosystem services, but people who manage their own forestland are in a unique position to observe these threats and take steps to reduce their impacts, especially if they believe that climate change is a contributing factor. We investigate the nature of the relationship between small woodland owner experiences of drought and severe storms and climate change belief in the upper midwestern United States using survey data and structural equation modeling. We find for both events that experience has a modest, positive effect on climate change belief, but only indirectly through perceptions of changing trends in these types of events. In addition, we find that trend perception and climate change belief have an important reciprocal relationship. Our findings suggest that experience as well as cognitive biases are related to believing in climate change, and that greater attention should be given to the potential of bidirectional relationships between key concepts related to climate change belief.