Gosh, we never would have figured this out on our own. The conclusion is stunning:
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
In response to our first research question, we find a sizable political divide between
liberals/Democrats and conservatives/Republicans in the American public on the issue of global warming. Just as elites are politically divided on this issue, so too is the general public. Liberals and Democrats are more likely to hold beliefs about global warming consistent with the scientific consensus and to express concern about this environmental problem than are conservatives and Republicans. Furthermore, this divide has grown substantially over the past decade.
/sarc
Previously from the same professor: Study: Women more likely than men to accept global warming
From Michigan State University
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Despite the growing scientific consensus that global warming is real, Americans have become increasingly polarized on the environmental issue, according to a first-of-its-kind study led by a Michigan State University researcher.
The gap between Democrats and Republicans who believe global warming is happening increased 30 percent between 2001 and 2010 – a “depressing” trend that’s essentially keeping meaningful national energy policies from being considered, argues sociologist Aaron M. McCright.
“Instead of a public debate about different policies to deal with global warming, a significant percentage of the American public is still debating the science,” said McCright, MSU associate professor and primary investigator on the study. “As a result, we’re failing to significantly address one of the most serious problems of our time.”
The study is featured in the spring issue of the research journal Sociological Quarterly, online now.
McCright and Riley E. Dunlap of Oklahoma State University analyzed 10 years of data from Gallup’s environmental poll, making the study the first of its kind to use multiple years of data. The Gallup poll, conducted annually, consists of a nationally representative telephone survey of at least 1,000 people.
According to the MSU-led study, people on the right of the political spectrum increasingly deny the existence of global warming, while people on the left generally believe in global warming more now than they did 10 years ago. Among other things, the study found:
- Of those who identify as Republicans, about 49 percent said in the 2001 Gallup survey that they believe the effects of global warming have already begun – a number that dropped to 29 percent in 2010. Meanwhile, the percentage of Democrats who believe global warming has already begun increased from about 60 in 2001 to 70 in 2010. All told, the gap between these “believers” in the two parties increased from 11 percent in 2001 to 41 percent in 2010.
- A similar trend held for people who identify as either conservative or liberal. When it came to believing that global warming has already begun, the gap between conservatives and liberals increased from about 18 percent in 2001 to 44 percent in 2010.
- Among liberals and Democrats, having a college degree increases the likelihood of reporting beliefs consistent with the scientific consensus. Yet, among conservatives and Republicans, having a college degree often decreases the likelihood of reporting such beliefs.
According to McCright, these results are consistent with the prevailing theory that explains how political polarization occurs in the general public. “In the last few decades political elites have become polarized on climate change. This has driven the political divide on this topic within the American public, as regular citizens have taken cues from ideological and party leaders they trust.”
McCright said the process has been magnified over the past decade by the emergence of media outlets where citizens can seek out news and ideas that reinforce their values and beliefs. He said citizens at either end of the political spectrum can get daily information – albeit very different information – on global warming that further strengthens their opposing beliefs about what is real.
“Unfortunately, this is not a recipe for promoting a civil, science-based discussion on this very serious environmental problem,” McCright said. “Like with the national discussion on health care, we don’t even agree on what the basic facts are.”
This political polarization on climate change is not likely to go away in the near future, he added.
“Many Republican Party leaders have moved further to the right since the 2008 presidential election. We’ve also seen attacks on climate science by Tea Party activists. It seems like climate change denial has become something of a litmus test for Republican candidates,” McCright said.
“This continued elite polarization on climate change means that the general public will likely remain politically divided on climate change for a while.”
###
Michigan State University has been working to advance the common good in uncommon ways for more than 150 years. One of the top research universities in the world, MSU focuses its vast resources on creating solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges, while providing life-changing opportunities to a diverse and inclusive academic community through more than 200 programs of study in 17 degree-granting colleges.
Full paper here (PDF)
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I realize this is anecdotal and a small sample size, but: the liberals I know overwhelmingly have bachelor of arts degrees while the conservatives I know overwhelmingly have bachelor of science degrees.
Hugh Pepper says:
April 19, 2011 at 11:02 pm
As I see it the only people who are denying climate change are those who, like you appear to, have drunk too deeply from the Jim Jones KoolAid of the IPCC. Those who continuously indicate that not a breeze blows, not a raindrop or snowflake falls, not an earthquake trembles, nor a volcano belches without the intervention of the influence of humanity and our greedy rapacious behaviors. I’ve been alive for more than six decades and near as I can tell the climate has been different on each and every day of all those years. I don’t know why that is, but after a couple of decades of dumpster diving through mountains of what seems to be some of the most incompetent science that humanity has ever produced I’m unconvinced that anyone in “climate science” has any better understanding than I do. I do know that to all appearances rich and warm is infinitely superior to poor and cold. To me the only thing the Republicans have going for themselves is that they are not Democrats and that has been enough to earn my vote recently, but not much of my affection. Every year of my life has involved a range of temperatures greater than 120 degrees F and I and all the people around me have made it through even though Mother Nature has been doing her best to take us out. I would agree that if we don’t immediately stop emitting CO2 into the atmosphere at least 9 billion people will die before we get to 2100, but if we do nothing at all about it those billions will be just as dead, but at least they will have had the possibility of extracting a little joy and comfort from their all too short stints on this planet.
Guys, don’t be too hard on HP, no doubt freshly back and fired up from his Greenie Socialist pep-rally weekend at “Power Shift 2011”. He’s simply on an evangelistic mission, to spread “awareness” of “human-caused climate change”, completely unaware of his, and his cohorts’ utter folly. They have not only drunk the kool-aid; they have bathed in it.
I live in a country which is essentially communist. Here in Zimbabwe the state tries to control everything and anything it can. The controls don’t work, the economy has stopped, one third of the population has run off to live in capitalist democracies and they are not coming back.
The bits of the economy that do work are those that are the product of individuals operating in their own enlightened self interest and under the government radar.
Yes I know that we have the most incompetent government in the world but that only serves to make the point more clearly. The government puts out excellent reasons for all of their controls and yet the failure of each directive is complete except insofar as they feed the gatekeepers and the connected.Less incompetence in government would only change the speed of failure but it will not prevent failure.
This is true of the global warming crew too. Every policy sounds OK on the face of it but they are wrong and really only represent some egghead’s concept of what will work for the rest of us.
Individuals working in their own self interest will always result in the least bad outcome whether you are talking economics or climate change. Your Tea Party types calling for less and smaller government and expanding individual rights , freedoms and obligations seem to have a better view of what is needed. I live in an over controlled, inefficient and oppressive culture and it is a really bad idea. Just because this is Zimbabwe doesn’t mean it won’t happen to you, it will just take longer if you don’t take back your individual rights and freedoms and obligations.
To understand the left-right divide on so-called ‘climate change’, née ‘global warming’, you have to ask why leftist politicians, academics, bureaucrats have been so quick to jump on the completely unverified speculation that human-generated ‘greenhouse gases’ (GHGs) if unchecked will cause catastrophic warming of ‘the planet’ (CAGW), and why that speculation was promulgated by lay and scientist ‘activists’ to begin with.
For the answer you have to look at the mindset of the ideologues who believe in the primacy of the State over the individual. The ‘global warming’ scare scenario back in the ’80s offered a cause that fit right into their dream agenda, an excuse for rampant government taxation and control of industry and individual lives. It was ideal because it dragged along millions of earnest, liberal folks who dutifully send contributions to organizations like Greenpeace and the misnamed World Wildlife Fund, easily convinced that GHGs presented a mortal danger to the Earth, Lenin’s ‘useful idiots’.
The problem now is that we have government apparatchiks at every level, from city councils to nations, eagerly and greedily riding the CAGW gravy train. The BC scheme that Mr. Pierce describes is a prime example. The major exception, so far, has been the US Congress, thanks to the Republicans (and a few Democrats) in the Senate in 2009, who managed to stop the egregious ‘Cap and Trade’ bill passed in the House from becoming law, and thanks to the congressional elections of last Fall, which may even enable the Republicans to reign in the rampant EPA and stop the most statist administration in US history in its tracks.
But sensible folk and freedom lovers in the USA will not be able to rest easy until the Obama administration is history, along with its ‘czars’ and wild-eyed radicals, like Secretary of Energy Chu and Science Advisor Holdren. We are by no means out of the statist enviro-fascist woods yet.
/Mr Lynn
The quickest and most sure-fire way to judge scientific ignorance and illiteracy is to note if someone use “scientific consensus” as an argument instead of presenting facts. Alternately, those people may simply have political agendas.
The best summaries of current “science” are the IPCC reports which reflect peer reviewed studies conducted by thousands of working scientists from all over the world. These summarized reports are “signed off” by the Acadamies of Science in virtually all the developed countries of the world. You can, of course, go to the original studies, but this involves MUCH more work. You may also read any of the hundreds of books published by creditable climate scientists and others who specialize in relevant fields. Likewise you can follow the writings of working scientists on any of the large number of websites and blogs available.
On the matter of “belief”, your corespondents should be aware that science is not about belief. I believe in God. I do not “believe” in the law of gravity, or the theory of evolution. I may have ideas related to the world I share with over six billion others, but if I wish to confirm or disconfirm my “ideas”, I either have to conduct experiments to achieve this result, or rely on others who abide by the scientific protocols accepted in the scientific community.
Truth has a way of filtering to the top only after many investigators have rigorously examined the issue and reasonably presented their findings.When the discussion stops consensus has been reached.
This same topic was the subject of a 20-minute interview Tuesday on the CBC radio program “Q”. The interviewee was Andrew Hoffmann, Prof. of Sustainable Enterprise (I kid you not!) at a Michigan university. The theme was “backlash against climate change science”. It fitted in with the CBC’s continued promotion of the AGW hypothesis. I will be sending a letter of protest and correction, but I have to go out soon and it will have to wait until late afternoon. The program can be heard via the internet, though when I just checked (http://www.cbc.ca/q/) they listed only up to Monday. Probably it will be available later today (Wednesday).
IanM
Maybe this would help sway the beliefs of American females, though I’m no longer convinced that anything can cure their insanity:
German cancer lab finds that CFL’s emit an “electrical smog” full of carcinogens whenever they’re turned on, not just when you break them:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/8462626/Energy-saving-light-bulbs-contain-cancer-causing-chemicals.html
Hugh believes, and is safe and secure.
===============
HP: Are those IPCC reports the same ones that included off the cuff comments by someone about the longevity of the Himalayan glaciers, and cited popular mountaineering and travel magazines for so-called facts? Thank, but I’ll go to the original sources. My experience has shown that often, the original source is at least partially misquoted and misrepresented. If you are too lazy to go to the original source, then you deserve the criticism you are getting.
Hugh Pepper — The best summaries of current “science” are the IPCC reports which reflect peer reviewed studies conducted by thousands of working scientists from all over the world.
Someone has to believe this is true, and it may as well be you. Notes:
1. The IPCC reports are chock full of opinion pieces written by green advocates and masqueraded as science by cleverly mixing these in with any real science.
2. Meanwhile that which can be classified as real science also contains plenty of poorly done stuff. Read McIntyre and others whose eviscerations of this tripe are well known by interested readers. The proof that McIntyre et al are correct can be inferred from the reactions of those affected. In particular some journals are being *forced* to accept papers from these critics because they find themselves in the untenable position of having to do so. Until recently the “consensus” view was flogged in part by the notion of critic credibility (i.e. no credibility if not part of peer review, which wwas rigged to not allow critics.) This is SLOWLY being corrected.
3. The UN IPCC is a political body, not scientific. IPCC recommendations are almost entirely framed in terms of leftist/socialist (nanny) agenda where the presumption is that governments issue orders which are simply obeyed.
4. The politics of most countries are not how the USA works; in the USA a top down government doesn’t issue edicts regarding what the subjects will do. Rather, the USA is a republic which contains citizens. The point is that it’s unsurprising that the less inclined a country is for top down edict (i.e. citizens vs subjects) the more vocal the opposition.
5. Neither you not the idiot professor seem to have much of a handle on the notion of individual rights and how the perception of these informs one’s politics. If you believe you are free then you don’t believe the government has any right to tell you (e.g.) whether you can own a firearm. And so on. Left wingers think the government solves problems. Right wingers regard the government AS the problem. Global warming solutions as proposed by left wingers invoke massive governmental intervention.
Were the “believers” to suggest that we craft laws rewarding business and individual enterprise for solving what is stated as a “problem” then you would not see the political kerfluffle we presently have. But the “believers” aren’t going to do this; they also believe that the government solves problems. Therefore, they are actually CREATING the skeptics and deniers they hold in such low regard. The professor can’t see this. He’s an imbecile. This ain’t exactly rocket surgery.
Hugh Pepper
Just because someone has a theory and publishes papers doesn’t mean they’re right. Check how many times science has gone off the rails where the consensus was proven totally wrong. Plate Tectonics if you want an example. If you’d been following along here or at Climate Audit or any of a number of sites, you’d know of the political manipulation that has gone on in the IPCC and how anyone who did not believe in CAGW was marginalized (and we’re talking about published mainstream scientists). Look at Climategate, the hockeystick debate and others to see where politics has overtaken science. The science is only “settled” because the politics has been “settled”. Go to Lucia’s site and see how well the IPCC estimate and the models are doing doing against reality. Go to surfacestations.org and see how badly the siting is. So far the testable hypothesis have failed to be confirmed yet the consensus holds. Who are the real denialists, those who believe reality or those who treat computer models like augurs?
“Michigan State University has been working to advance the common good”
Where does that phrase take you?
Another day, another social study. I’ve read it so you don’t have to.
Similar to the Yale study that Anthony linked recently, it is another engineering project disguised as a scientific paper, i.e. it pretends to objectively study the American population but the underlying question is not a scientific “what is” but rather “we know we have a problem with the citizens and we need to find a way to fix it”. They are not very subtle about it.
It doesn’t just acknowledge “consensus climate science”. It actively promotes it.
It’s not trying to solve the problem of our limited understanding of society but rather trying to solve the problem of the erosion of support for the “right policies” that is caused by conservatives, Republicans and the Koch brothers.
The study is not much of “social science” —whatever the merits of such a thing—but rather “social engineering”.
The good thing: They acknowledge don’t know what to do.
Quotes:
“Reducing climate skepticism among this large segment of the American populace will require far more than simply providing additional information.”
“Indeed, the rise of the Tea Party and rightward drift of the Republican party created a situation in which skepticism toward climate change became a litmus test …”
“Tea Party was stimulated by some of the same political-economic elites that have directly supported climate change denial. Most notable are Charles and David Koch, of Koch Industries, who have funded organizations that actively promote the Tea Party as well as climate change denial (Greenpeace 2010; Mayer 2010).”
Typo correction:
The good thing: They acknowledge they don’t know what to do.
Obviously, this is a social problem or a political problem, not a science problem. Sheesh!
“growing scientific consensus” – I don’t think they occupy the same universe that I do..
Keith Battye says:
April 20, 2011 at 5:17 am
A cogent exposition on the most glaring example of do-gooder catastrophe in Africa. Zimbabwe was the bread basket of Africa before the British Labor Party and European socialists decided that white rule had to end. The citizens of what was then Rhodesia, black and white, enjoyed an extremely high living standard. How has anyone’s life been improved by the change to the current situation?
Mr. Battye, get out of there, please.
@Laws of Nature
Anthony has zero interest in correcting/clarifying obvious errors, sometimes even on featured posts w/ clearly faulty analysis. Anything that sows seeds of doubt on any aspect of this incredibly complex subject, accurate or not, IS his objective. WUWT provides an equal platform for the obviously inaccurate/unsupported/misinterpreted … as long as the gist supports of a very particular POV. There are some WUWT participants on the skeptical side that understand this too, and sometime they’ll actually partake in poking holes in the misinformation – I imagine them rolling their eyes on some of the content here, just as I do.
REPLY: Greer – go find another blog to hassle if you don’t like this one, really, I insist, since your entire history here has been denigration. Factual errors in posts are corrected when they are pointed out, differences of opinion on certain issues that your don’t like shall remain. Once I start trying to correct the thousands of comments every day, I enter the “no time left in my life” zone and enter the world of argumentum ad infinitum. Or I could be like your buddies, RC, Romm, and Tamino, and simply delete comments regularly – Anthony
“Women more likely than men to accept global warming.”
Hmmm…. Nobody ever asked me. And my extent of belief went something like this: “Oh? Our air conditioners will make it warmer here in Michigan? Here, let me turn it up and open the windows!”
That’s exactly how seriously I ever took it.
Even Hugh Pepper should be able to grasp this.
Then he can apologise.
Debunking the Greenhouse Gas Theory in Three Simple Steps
http://johnosullivan.livejournal.com/35681.html
Excerpts:
“A group of international scientists find that carbon dioxide is a coolant, the calculations in the greenhouse gas theory are wrong and humans are not killing the planet.”
It’s now been shown that the atmosphere acts like a coolant of Earth’s surface, which, otherwise, would have a temperature of 121 Degrees Celsius, or 394 Kelvin (K).”
Part One: Coolant Carbon Dioxide
carbon dioxide (CO2) actually works as a coolant when it interacts with water vapor in the atmosphere. “Carbon dioxide and other atmospheric gases merely serve to make the atmosphere cooler in daytime, warmer at nighttime. This is what empirical evidence tells us. ”
Step Two: How the IPCC Picked Wrong Numbers from the Get-go
“It’s quite simple. The flux of power on the top of the atmosphere is 1368 W/m^2; however, they [IPCC] say it is 341 W/m^2.”
Without an atmosphere, the Earth would be receiving a flux of 1368 W/m^2 of solar power (394K under the zenith facing the Sun). With the atmosphere, it receives and absorbs 718 W/m^2 (335K) on its surface.
a 10,000ppm increase in carbon dioxide would lower the thermal conductivity of zero grade air by 0.36 percent.
the proverbial doubling of CO2 would only contribute a change of 0.0040C at the surface”.
Step Three: Exposing the Idiocy
Groupthink is ‘Step Three’ in our explanation of how climatology got itself into such a muddle.
“Yesterday a professor tried to tell me that a blackbody (BB) would heat itself up if its radiation would shine back on it – if it was surrounded completely by a perfect mirror.
Postma then enlightened the perplexed professor that it’s impossible to make candles or insulation warm itself by its own radiation, in terms of radiation and conduction being analogous modes of heat transfer. Then it becomes plainly obvious and ridiculous.
If an object can heat itself via its own, or “colder” radiation, then it should also be able to heat itself by conducting with itself, or conducting with a cold body.
“An object conducting with itself to make itself hotter? What the heck does that even mean? An object conducting with a colder one and thereby becoming hotter? I don’t think so,” insists Postma.
Thus when we start to accept that conduction and radiation are analogous modes of heat transfer, then it dawns on us all that the laws work the same way with both of them.
Therefore, by working through this ‘Three Step Greenhouse Effect Debunk’ we are left with only one conclusion: IPCC junk (generalist) science is well and truly busted by the specialists in their fields.
Let’s not bash poor HP any more. Facts don’t matter to him anyway, so a deluge of facts he is not interested in will not change his belief system. Anyone who thinks the IPCC is a reliable source of information on climate is beyond reasoning with.
Call me when a sociology professor wins the Nobel Prize in physics or chemistry.
Do NOT call me for any old idiot who wins the Peace prize.
Mike McMillan says:
April 20, 2011 at 12:21 am
I think he meant “Notre Dame”, not “North Dakota”.
brc says:
April 19, 2011 at 9:53 pm
Couldn’t agree more. The mistaken impression these people get that it’s the politicians leading the people rather than the politicians responding to their constituents is insane. One of the right’s constant criticisms of Bill Clinton was that he went “which ever way the polls pointed”. A long time ago I was taught that this was what was called “representative democracy”. No, I’m not a Clinton fan. But at least he “got it”.
I didn’t vote for you to go in and do what you want to do. I voted for you to go in and do what I want you to do.