The moral hazard of disaster preparation messaging: fact or fiction?

Following the tragic Texas floods, much of the climate dialogue focused on adaptation: building better flood defenses, setting up early warning systems, avoiding flood-prone areas. These are important and essential considerations, but a common question for climate communicators is, where do conversations about preparation, adaptation, and resilience fit within the broader mission of fighting climate change? 

Some fervently believe they’re a distraction that takes our eyes off the real ball: fighting pollution. And worse, over-emphasis on resilience could create a moral hazard, encouraging us to take on more climate risk because we feel protected from it. By treating the symptom rather than the cause, we might build sea walls but continue to pollute with impunity.

Others believe adaptation and preparation conversations are a gateway to broader climate concern – an example of “meeting people where they are,” finding a message that’s timely, straightforward, and solution-oriented. It could, possibly, translate to a deeper awareness about the need to prevent these disasters in the first place.

We wanted to understand, what does the data say? Are adaptation conversations a moral hazard or a messaging gateway?

Disaster preparation messaging has emerged as a key area of focus, offering insights into how conversations about readiness can also strengthen broader climate communication.

Preparation conversations are already prevalent

After extreme weather events, there’s typically a short-term spike in climate change content and “information-seeking.” Indeed, social listening data showed that in the week following July’s Hill Country floods, extreme weather content surged 400%.

But what types of conversations are people already having? As much as 70% of the climate-supportive content centered on preparedness – what Texas should have done (or should do in the future) to better adapt to and prepare for these disasters.

Our core question becomes even more important: If the ultimate goal is to fight the root causes of climate change, are dialogues about resilience productive?

Testing the effectiveness of “disaster preparation”

Late last year, we did a message test to find out.

We started with the same core message about how extreme weather is on the rise, disasters are costing us dearly, and it’s our duty to protect the people and places we love. But we tested two variants:

• One had a paragraph about addressing the causes of climate change (“pollution reduction”) – the need to reduce fossil fuel pollution and transition to clean energy.
• The second had a paragraph about preparing for the impacts of climate change (“disaster preparation”) – the need to implement adaptive measures like better infrastructure and climate-resilient communities.

In Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs), we exposed one group of participants to each, and compared both to those in an unexposed “control group” to understand: how does exposure to these messages impact the degree of strong support for government climate action?

That’s interesting: Preparation messaging was as productive as pollution reduction messaging for broader climate goals (maybe even more productive!)

What we found surprised and energized us. Our initial results indicate that a conversation focused on preparation and resilience does not distract from but rather advances our ultimate goal, i.e. less dirty energy, more clean energy.

Preparation messages lifted support for both general climate action and, more specifically, pollution reduction. Preparation messaging lifted support for immediate government action on climate change by 9 p.p. (compared to 6 p.p. from pollution reduction messages), and it lifted support for fossil pollution reduction by 5 p.p. (versus 4 p.p.)

Message test results*

Emerging hypothesis: Preparation conversations combine reach and impact

Why do preparation messages seem to work so well? Firstly, they activate the sense that there is a problem. They often come across like reasoned, reasonable protective measures, and can serve as a straightforward bridge to the types of messages proven to have the most impact, i.e. those focused on the human consequences of climate change.

What’s more, since the preparation conversation is one that people are naturally having, then spreading messages that emphasize the need to protect the people we love by preparing our communities to survive extreme weather is a powerful way to drive distribution and amplify impact.

This research highlights how disaster preparation messaging can bring people together around shared values of safety and responsibility, opening the door to broader conversations about climate solutions.

It’s a fascinating area of research for us, so we would love to learn from you if there are any preparation messages you’ve found success with, and any results you’d like to share. We’re continuing to explore disaster preparation narratives that strengthen engagement and inspire more unified, solutions-focused climate communication.

* A reminder on what we mean by “lift” and “p.p. increase”: When we are looking to test the persuasive power of a narrative, we typically conduct “Randomized Controlled Trial” (RCT) tests that expose one group of participants to a message and compare them to those in an unexposed “control group.” The narrative “lift” analysis compares the degree of strong support for government climate action between people exposed to a particular narrative versus those in the control group.

For example, if 40% of the control group “strongly supports immediate government action on climate change,” compared to 45.2% of the group exposed to the narrative, the lift would be a 5.2 p.p. (percentage point) increase.

In short, “lift” is the percentage point increase between the exposed group and the control.