Republicans Can Understand Science And Still Deny Climate Change
Climate skeptics arent generally more science illiterate than everyone else, according to a new poll. The most hopeful news in Tuesdays big Pew report on climate change and partisanship isnt particularly uplifting, honestly. The research agency found that 70 percent of Americans believe that climate scientists should have a major role in the countrys climate and energy policy. This is roughly like 70 percent of Americans saying they believe seismologists should have a say in the nations earthquake policy. And after that vote of support, confidence in the field drops off. Less than a third of Americans think climate scientists understand the causes of climate change very well. Less than a fifth think they understand the best ways to address it. But most Americans, across both parties, do credit climate scientists with at least a fair amount of confidence to act in the public interest. These were all findings of the Pew Research Centers 1,100-person poll of Americans on their feelings not just about climate change but on the whole bundle of climate and energy issues. The polls headline number is that 48 percent of Americans correctly understand the Earth to be warming due to human activity. This number has recovered to 2006 levels, when it stood at 50 percent. It fell below 40 percent following the election of Barack Obama. The report also confirms that Republicans and Democratsespecially on the parties respective right and left wingshold differing views on climate change. But it finds that, especially on the left, these views are modestly moderated by someones understanding of general science. In other words, a Democrat with a high amount of science knowledge (including on health and biological concepts) is more likely to correctly state that humans are causing climate change than a Democrat with low science knowledge. Whereas being highly educated or having a high amount of science knowledge doesnt make Republicans any more likely to say the same. Generally, Democrats and Republicans performed about the same on the studys tests of scientific literacy that did not ask about the climate. Thus, it could be the case that peoples political orientations are an anchoring point for applying their knowledgerather than the other way around, says the report. Pew is more than just a public polling firm. They generate knowledge that is relevant to scholarly opinion, said Dan Kahan, a professor of law and psychology at Yale Law School who researches how group identification shapes public understanding of risk. He praised the studys comprehensive evaluation of its respondents scientific literacy, something he said is rare for polls on climate issues. It is very striking how sharp the polarization is on climate change issues and even on some energy issues, like fracking and nuclear, but then not on things like solar, Kahan told me. That can mean that people dont really have the same level of interest in solar energy as they do on the issues that are polarizing them. The Pew study found that more than 80 percent of Americans support expanding wind and solar energy. Somewhat counterintuitively, Kahan said that this broad support may mean politicians cant build campaigns around them: Because wind and solar are so popular, support for them is unlikely to shape peoples decisions about whom to vote for. That may just mean that [the public] is not intensely interested in it, he said. People tend to fixate on issues that are really divisive. Many people support campaign-finance reform, for instance, but political-science research indicates few people make voting decisions based on it. That said, these healthy majorities havent translated into party platforms yetat least on a national level. Hillary Clintons energy plan is far more amenable to renewable energy (and also far more specific) than Donald Trumps. But some state-level Republican leaders have been praising renewable energy lately, and all 10 of the congressional districts supplying the most wind power are GOP-controlled. Here are a few more interesting factlets from the Pew study: