Conservative, white men more likely to be climate change sceptics, study shows
The demographic was more than twice as likely than other adults to say the media exaggerated seriousness of climate change
Conservative, white males are more likely to be climate change deniers, researchers say. Photograph: Getty
"The more you think you know, the more you think you're right," goes an old saying. Now comes a study of sex, skin color and political ideology that suggests it pretty much sums up how some white male conservatives in the United States respond to climate change.
"Even casual observers" of those who argue that climate change isn't a serious problem "likely notice an obvious pattern," Aaron M. McCright of Michigan State University in East Lansing and Riley E. Dunlap of Oklahoma State University in Stillwater write in Global Environmental Change: "The most prominent denialists are conservative white males" – from media pundit Rush Limbaugh to politicians like Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe. But the pair wondered: "Does a similar pattern exist in the American public?"
To find out, the researchers analyzed ten annual polls on environmental issues conducted by the Gallup Organization from 2001 to 2010. Together, they included responses from more than 10,000 adults. After slicing and dicing the numbers, the trends were clear: "Conservative white males are significantly more likely than are other Americans to endorse denialist views," they write. And "these differences are even greater for those conservative white males who self-report understanding global warming very well."
Overall, while 29.6% of conservative white males (CWMs) believed that the effects of global warming "will never happen," just 7.4% of all other adults shared that view. Similarly, 58.5% of CWMs — but only 31.5% of all other adults — denied that recent temperature increases are primarily caused by human activities. The pattern demonstrates that CWMs "are more likely than other adults to reject the scientific consensus on climate change," the authors note. So, "not surprisingly," 58.8% of CWMs "deny the existence of a scientific consensus," compared to 35.5% of other adults.
CWMs were also more than twice as likely than other adults to say the media exaggerated the seriousness of climate change (65.1% to 29.9%). Finally, 39.1% of conservative white males — but just 14.4% of all other adults – said they did not worry at all about global warming.
Notably, the researchers say that CWMs also tended to assert a stronger understanding of global warming than other adults – and those who said they understood it best were the most likely to be the strongest deniers. "This, of course, seems an untenable self-assessment," the authors write, "given that conservative white males are more likely than are other adults to reject the current scientific consensus."
Past research, however, may help explain the pattern, they speculate. Political scientists and psychologists have suggested that WCMs often identify themselves as more tolerant of risk, and less willing to support ideas that challenge existing economic, social and political hierarchies.
"The intersection of 'conservative,' 'white,' and 'male' does matter for explaining the distribution of climate change denial in the American public," the authors conclude. But "denialism is sufficiently diffuse within the American public that it obviously cannot be attributed solely to conservative white males," they note. "What is most sobering, especially for the scientific community and climate change communicators, is that climate change denial has actually increased in the U.S. general public between 2001 and 2010, although primarily due to a significant increase in the past two years which may prove abnormal in the long run." – David Malakoff
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