La percepción social de los riesgos del cambio climático sobre la salud en España

Abstract

This paper highlights some features characterizing the representation of climate change by Spanish society, paying special attention to its assessment of the risk for people and its potential threat to health. A series of opinion polls conducted in Spain in 2008, 2010 and 2012 were used to learn about the assessments of the risks derived from climate change for different time (current generations – future generations), economic (rich countries - poor countries) and proximity-to-the-polled-person (Spanish society - your community - your family - you personally) scenarios. The analysis of the data collected reveals there are different “styles” of risk assessment, four characteristic groups being described: “unconcerned”, “distant”, “aware” and “alarmed”. The paper also analyses the opinions of the people who where polled on the impacts of climate change on their own health, focusing on the future likelihood of their suffering health problems. Most people thought their health could be affected at some point in the future and that climate change will increase the likelihood of suffering certain illnesses, such as allergies, asthma and respiratory diseases. Nevertheless, it is difficult to know whether an awareness of climate change risks and their effects on health will bring about in the short term new attitudes and behaviours aimed at limiting the perceived threats, given how unimportant climate change is for Spanish society in practice.