Even Global Warming Can’t Convince Republicans That Global Warming Exists

Polling data suggests that even when the heat is on, political ideology outweighs facts.

<a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-160502129/stock-photo-sweaty-tired-businessman-wiping-forehead.html?src=KVVU18IkVsrk8z7LZ1vo7g-1-38">Eunika Sopotnicka </a>/Shutterstock


Scientists and science journalists like to say that one of the best ways to tell that climate change is real is to take a look at the changes we can already see: This year is on track to be the hottest ever recorded, and glaciers, corn, and even grizzly bears are responding to the warming. But all those shifts won’t be enough to convince most conservative climate skeptics, a new study in Nature Climate Change finds.

A growing body of recent research suggests a person’s political ideology, economic philosophy, and religious beliefs tend to overwhelm observed facts about global warming. The new study, which was released Monday, put that hypothesis to the test by analyzing Gallup polls taken just after the unusually warm winter of 2012. It found that both Democrats’ and Republicans’ perceptions of the warmer weather in their state tracked fairly well with actual satellite temperature data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. But “for people who said their local winter was warming, the observed temperature anomalies had no effect on the tendency to attribute that to global warming,” explains Aaron McCright, a sociologist at Michigan State University who authored the study.

In other words, the actual temperature had no bearing on whether people believed in climate change. Instead, McCright says, “one of the strongest predictors” is party affiliation: Republicans were far less likely to attribute the warming they felt to man-made climate change than were Democrats. Other variables—gender, age, and level of education—were far less reliable as predictors of a person’s global warming beliefs.

The findings suggest that the political polarization of climate change has become so great that the path of least resistance for most people is to hew to their party line, McCright says. Interesting, Democrats in the polling data were guilty of a different kind of bias: Overall, they perceived local temperatures to be warmer than their Republicans neighbors did—a reminder, McCright says, that confirmation bias exists on the left, too.

An unrelated national survey taken after 2012’s record-breaking hot summer found that a growing majority of Americans are making the connection between temperature extremes and climate change. But that survey didn’t account for political affiliation. McCright’s research suggests that convincing Republicans will be a different challenge than convincing the public at large, and that references to extreme weather aren’t the best rhetorical strategy to deal with that challenge.

The political chasm on climate change is gaping—a Pew poll last year found 44 percent of Republicans believed there was “solid evidence the earth is warming” versus 87 percent of Democrats. That imbalance sets the stage for partisan gridlock on climate action in Congress; Senate Republicans have said they plan to make attacking President Obama’s climate policies a priority when they take control next year. So the stakes are high for winning more conservatives to accept the mainstream scientific consensus on climate change, and this study finds that changes in the weather might not be enough to change many minds.

“If we wait around for that to happen, we’ll be waiting for a while,” McCright says.

More Mother Jones reporting on Climate Desk

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate