Surviving a local weather catastrophe isn’t more likely to change the way you vote

This yr, elections and excessive climate occasions have collided: In India, the spring basic election was snarled by a warmth wave that killed dozens of individuals, together with ballot employees. In Germany, extreme flooding prompted evacuations simply days earlier than elections for the European Parliament. And within the U.S., individuals attending marketing campaign rallies have fallen in poor health from record-breaking warmth.

Political contests set the course for local weather coverage, because the U.S. presidential race between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump certainly will. Yet it’s unlikely that warmth waves and disasters are altering the minds of sufficient voters who expertise them to change the outcomes.

A rising physique of analysis focuses on whether or not experiencing irregular warmth and different local weather change-linked climate occasions shapes the best way individuals vote, however a transparent consensus hasn’t emerged. If persons are the truth is casting ballots primarily based on their experiences of disasters, it seems to be a small variety of them.