Pollution, severe health conditions, and extreme right-wing ideology: a tale of three contemporary challenges

By exploiting the microgeography of local air pollution at the 1km-by-1km grid-level, we link local air quality to the voting intentions of a nationally-representative sample of 27,000 UK residents. We find a causal link between air pollution and support for far-right parties: a unit increase in pollution leads to a 3% rise in the probability to support these parties. These intentions are stronger for lung disease and cancer sufferers.