Climate Change & Violence Risk Program

For the threat assessment professional, climate change is not about politics.  It is about safety.

Rising temperatures, wildfires, and natural disasters impact human behavior.

An extensive body of empirical research confirms a direct, causal link between elevated temperatures and human aggression. Under extreme thermal stress, individuals exhibit increased interpersonal violence and diminished behavioral control. Mechanistically, heat increases physiological arousal and irritability while eroding cognitive attention and self-regulation. This shifts an individual’s cognitive baseline, accelerating hostile thoughts and driving up rates of violence. Put simply: as temperatures rise, so does the risk of violence.

Brought to you by our friends at Behavioral Science Applications, LLC, the Climate Informed Behavioral Threat Assessment and Management training reviews physiology vulnerabilities, target vulnerabilities, environmental, organizational and community threat multipliers, and the precipitants of increased violence risk and social instability.  The training includes instruction on administering the Climate Change & Violence Risk Screening Questionnaire (CC-VR-SQ), a 37-item battery designed for threat assessors and violence prevention professionals.

Developed by Steve Crimando, MA, CTM, and leading expert on climate change and behavior, the CC-VR-SQ helps collect, organize, and analyze information regarding an individual’s response to climate change and extreme heat, evaluating how thermal stress may impact their cognition, behavior, and overall risk of violence.

The questionnaire evaluates risk across four interrelated domains:

​Section 1: Subject Factors, Distresses & Physiological Vulnerabilities

Section 2: Target Vulnerabilities, Exposure & Behavioral Changes

Section 3: Environmental, Organizational & Community Threat Multipliers

Section 4: Precipitants of Increased Violence Risk & Social Instability