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.
This is consistent with the idea of political teams. People like to root for a political ideology much like they root for a sports team. In addition, people tend to enjoy having beliefs affirmed rather than challenged. The “hard-core” conservatives watch Fox News, while ”hard-core” liberals read the New York Times. This way, they can have their beliefs affirmed by their political teammates. If a “hard-core” conservative believes climate change is a truth, but watches Fox News where it is treated as a falsehood, he faces a bit of stress while watching TV because his beliefs are being challenged. It’s just easier to believe what your political teammates believe.
In addition, oftentimes conservatives and liberals have friends and families that share the same political beliefs. It’s a lot easier to have a conversation with someone when you agree (although often boring). A person who is mostly liberal and has a liberal family will tend to just be an “all-out” liberal and take on all the beliefs of the left (as will the family), so all will agree at the dinner table at night.
Of course there are exceptions to all of the ideas I have mentioned above. These are assertions with little proof besides everyday observation and the Pew Research Center. But I do believe that the fact that so many issues are polarized is detrimental to our making a reasoned decision on the issues.
9 Comments for Polarizing Issues
JJ | July 10, 2007 at 8:16 pm
JJ | July 10, 2007 at 8:20 pm
Here I am calling GWB a baffoon, and I can’t even spell it right. Geez…
Chris H | July 11, 2007 at 12:17 pm
I’m pretty sure the spelling is ‘buffoon’ with a u.
Author comment by George | July 11, 2007 at 12:46 pm
I totally agree with both of you (Chris on the spelling, JJ on the comment).
I would much rather have a conversation with someone who completely disagreed with me yet had reasons for why, than someone who nodded their head yes but had no idea why they were agreeing. I’ve known a few people who believe what:
(a) their mom/dad/close friend tells them what to think
(b) the popular belief is at the time (right now: GWB stinks. 8 yrs ago: Clinton stinks. 12 yrs ago: GHWB stinks.)
JJ | July 11, 2007 at 6:52 pm
Good call, Chris. I spell on about a third grade level.
jon h | July 11, 2007 at 9:42 pm
do you notice george that the “global warming” issue has been changing recently? I think the main idea here is that no one really saw the effects of “global warming” in their day to day life. If you walk up to a random guy on the street and ask them if they feel warmer, they won’t really know. Now parade some journalists and a subset of the academic community around saying that it’s an issue… some people are going to believe it sooner than others.
As you’ve noticed, the global warming crew has gotten some better PR folks, w/ some marketing concepts. Al Gore and others tried the straight up fear tactics of “the earth is going to die” or “we’ll be boiling ourselves in 20 years” but that was too vague. Again, the random dude driving the pickup in Tennessee is going to think Al’s crying wolf. It was kind of a foul start. They tried to scare the crap out of people, talk about the horsemen of the apocalypse, end of days etc. Not the first, and not the last to use this tactic.
However, people dismissed it and took it as a personal challenge from those who were the spokesmen to start. Some people will challenge anything Al Gore says, just because of first tactic. But environmentalists have gotten smarter. They tied the issue to sources of the problem… in the recent past, gasoline, which produce the CO2 when burned. Now people have an idea… the gasoline that is now expensive for them, is also bad for them as well.
I know that this ties in with your marketing statements from a couple days ago. And as you stated before, there’s a spin and feel to all of the issues, not just “facts and reason”. If everyone knew the relevant facts and was reasonable in every situation than we wouldn’t need you lawyers.
Author comment by George | July 12, 2007 at 8:07 am
Jon,
Good to see you commenting again.
There seem to be two groups on the pro-environment front when it comes to climate change: scientists and pop-culture. The scientists, consistent with Gore’s message, argue that climate change is a problem because the globe is warming and the small amount of warming is causing ice caps to melt and other ecological disequilibriums that will add up to huge problems; mainly sea-level rise / drought issues.
The second group is pop-culture, which hears the world “global warming,” and thinks that it means things are going to get too hot for humans to bear, and bring up catastrophic images of people melting, etcetera. That’s really not the issue. But pop-culture treats it as the issue, and then you get morons that say: “it’s hot out today… must be global warming.” This opens the door for anti-environmentalists to say: “it was cold today… so much for global warming.”
I believe the pop-culture environmentalists have hurt the cause more than helped it. Certainly, if we do nothing about climate change, I believe there will be some major catastrophes, mostly associated with rising sea levels. Yet talking about things like people sweating too much because it’s hot out takes things out of the realm of science and into the realm of spin and argument.
I would actually like to see more attention being paid to gasoline. I advocated in my sustainable transportation paper for an increase in the excise tax on gasoline to reflect all of the externalities associated with its consumption: resource depletion, pollution, and congestion.
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So yes, I hear you that there is spin to all of the issues out there. But why do conservatives/liberals tend to be polarized to only listen to one side of the story? Why isn’t it a virtue for most people to read both sides of the story and make a decision? Of course not all people only listen to one side, but looking at those poll numbers, such a huge % of individuals on either side of the political spectrum believe the exact same thing as people on their sides, that it just leads me to believe that people try to avoid confrontation with conflicting beliefs.
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That being said, I enjoy and think it is very beneficial for both you and I, who happen to disagree on the issue, to be able to hash things out on here. I think it’s great to be exposed to alternate viewpoints.
I’m glad that climate change has enter the national dialogue not because I want to see massive environmental regulations imposed on people. Rather, I’m just glad that it’s being talked about so that we can make an informed decision as a society so we can either act if climate change is a problem or do nothing if it’s not. Ideally, we find significant evidence climate change is not a problem, and as a society we decide not to worry about it. Second best, we find it is a problem and we do something about it. What we don’t want is to do something about nothing, or ignore the problem, because in those situations, the costs are much larger than the benefits.
Chris H | July 13, 2007 at 12:52 pm
I will comment a little bit on one of your statements, George.
“Why isn’t it a virtue for most people to read both sides of the story and make a decision?”
People don’t take this stance, because I believe it is easier for the populace to blindly follow a certain way of thinking. Most people would prefer to have their family, CNN, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Al Gore, Peyton Manning, Angelina Jolie, or their local pastor tell them what is right. It makes their decision making process simpler.
Author comment by George | July 15, 2007 at 1:56 pm
I agree with you, Chris, that one of the reasons people do that is because it is easier. I feel like psychologically, it is also rewarding to only read/hear/see one side of the story, rather than face conflict.
You’re definitely right about the “political teams” bit. I have a friend who fancies herself a hippy, gypsy type, and in all honesty that’s exactly what she is. Anyway, she hates George Bush… I mean, absolutely detests the man with every fiber of her being. And I asked her once why exactly she hated him so much, and she could not give me one reason. Not one. She rambled on about some irrelevant nonsense, but the bottom line is that she really has no clue. All she knows is that she hates George Bush because all her like-minded liberal friends do.
You know, I have no problem with people disapproving of GWB. He’s clearly a bafoon. But if a person is going to say that they absolutely hate someone, I expect them to at least have a reason other than “all my friends do”.