Issue: Climate & Health

Spurred by smoke-filled skies and fiery rivers, the first Earth Day mobilization in 1970 helped people understand the connection between environmental pollution and public health. As we commemorate 50+ years of Earth Day this week, a growing body of research documents how climate change harms our health – from heat stroke to wildfire smoke inhalation to insect-borne diseases. Indeed, last fall the World Health Organized released a new report calling climate change “the biggest health threat facing humanity,” and highlighting that, “While no one is safe from these risks, the people whose health is being harmed first and worst by the climate crisis are the people who contribute least to its causes, and who are least able to protect themselves and their families against it – people in low-income and disadvantaged countries and communities.”
When the Lab last explored climate and health in a newsletter* back in 2019, we shared that public awareness of health impacts from climate change was relatively low. Advocacy efforts at the climate/health intersection have gained a lot of traction in recent years, however, organizations (like our friends at the Medical Society Consortium on Climate & Health) have helped connect the dots for communities, policymakers, and the media.
 

Highlighting the negative health effects of using natural gas in the home may be the best way to increase opposition to gas. One recent experiment compared the potential effects of different frames about gas. Democratic and Democratic-leaning respondents who saw ads about negative health impacts from gas in homes were 11.8% less likely to say gas is a clean form of energy. Hispanic respondents, in particular, were more likely to be interested in purchasing appliances that don’t use gas, such as electric and induction stove tops, after viewing ads focused on individual consumer choice. In addition to health and consumer choice, this advertising experiment also tested the effects of other frames, such as advances in technology, safety, green jobs, industry deception, and fracking. This advertising experiment found no effects of the ads on the views of any other demographic groups.