Question of the day, week, month, and year: why do liberals tend to be more convinced than conservatives about the threat of climate change, even though both sides have the same evidence available to them?

According to a January 2007 poll by the Pew Research Center, 77% of those polled believed that the earth was getting warmer.  However, only 54% of conservative Republicans believed this, compared to 92% of liberal Democrats.  More importantly, only 20% of conservative Republicans believed climate change is primarily caused by human activity, compared to 71% of liberal Democrats.

Does it just so happen that people on a certain side of the political spectrum evaluate facts in the same manner as those with similar political beliefs?  I don’t buy this.  If both sides have access to identical facts, yet there is statistically significant evidence that being on a certain side of the political spectrum causes one to believe a particular thing, something else has to be going on.

I believe that many people assume the answer to the climate change question before they even look at the evidence.  The average liberal looks at the evidence after affirming in his own mind that climate change is a real threat.  At the same time, the average conservative has already cemented in her mind that climate change is a falsehood when she first begins to examine climate change evidence.

Keeping these in the back of your mind might make you a better citizen.  Or depressed.  Or perhaps these tidbits aren’t true at all.  I’m just in an emo mood, I guess.

1. Statistics can be interpreted to mean almost anything.  Depending on how the survey was conducted, what context the statistics are presented in, or what manner the statistics are announced, they can mean anything.  Moreover, if you try to investigate, you might be confused because the statistics are lies or archaeic, confusing language is used to hide faults in the study.
2. Everyone is motivated by self-interest, one way or another, including the author who is writing this.  If you see a so-called unbiased article or scientific study, consider the fact that the author might just be presenting one side of the story.  Sure, there are plenty of reputable journalists and scientists out there, but it’s hard to suppress self-interested motivations.
3. Everyone can be manipulated, whether we like to admit it or not.  This is especially true in terms of advertisements on television.  Not every advertisement works on every person, but every once in a while, some corporation or political group will grab your soul and make it act in the manner they desire.  Remember, they’ve been studying the purchasing and voting psychology of people just like you and I for years.  They know how you work.
4. When in doubt, follow the money trail.  Money gets people into power, and keeps them in power, so those with power agree to do what those with money want to stay in power.

Al Gore wrote an Op-Ed yesterday in the New York Times that is worth reading.  In it he acknowledges that Kyoto will never be ratified in the US, so a new international treaty must be ratified.

To this end, we should demand that the United States join an international treaty within the next two years that cuts global warming pollution by 90 percent in developed countries and by more than half worldwide in time for the next generation to inherit a healthy Earth.

This treaty would mark a new effort. I am proud of my role during the Clinton administration in negotiating the Kyoto protocol. But I believe that the protocol has been so demonized in the United States that it probably cannot be ratified here…

What might the treaty entail?  It’s not a big surprise:

A new treaty will still have differentiated commitments, of course; countries will be asked to meet different requirements based upon their historical share or contribution to the problem and their relative ability to carry the burden of change. This precedent is well established in international law, and there is no other way to do it.