Americans agree climate change is real. But made by humans? Not so much.

Despite scientific near-certainty on global warming's causes, many Americans' views remain influenced by local weather trends and group norms.  

|
Nick Ut/ AP
The lawn outside the Los Angeles City Hall has dried out during California's severe drought. The drought has affected Americans' views on global warming, with over 70 percent now believing there is solid evidence of climate change.

A large majority of Americans now say there is strong evidence for global warming, according to the 2015 National Survey on Energy and the Environment (NSEE): 70 percent, just two points short of the record-setting number in 2008.

But is this the beginning of the end for climate-change denial? The start of sweeping environmental protection reforms? Support for upcoming global climate talks in Paris

Not so fast.

Like most of their senators, US voters are convinced that something’s happening to the Earth, but can’t agree who, or what, is to blame.

It is nearly 27 years now since a NASA scientist testified before the US Senate that the agency was 99 percent certain that rising global temperatures were caused by the burning of fossil fuels.

And the Senate still has not got it,

the British newspaper The Guardian lamented last January, when the Senate near-unanimously voted that global warming was indeed real, but refused to link it to human activity. Researchers at Yale University estimate that 48 percent of Americans share their refusal to pin blame on our own behavior, even if, as the NSEE found, just 16 percent reject that the climate is changing, period, the lowest percent ever. 

‘Belief’ in global warming was split along party lines, with 79 percent of Democrats finding it highly plausible while only 56 percent of Republicans agreed. The number of Republicans who flat-out deny evidence that the Earth's surface is heating up fell dramatically from just last year, from 41 percent to 26 percent.

Republican candidates’ timidity about the topic seems to reflect this uncertainty. While several acknowledge the phenomenon, and many are willing to venture that human activity plays some role, most shy away from pointing fingers. It’s “arrogant” to say we understand the causes, Jeb Bush believes, while Ted Cruz maintains “it ain’t happening.”

Feeling chilly, and annoyed, in Los Angeles in 2013, Donald Trump tweeted

His 140 characters reflect two puzzles about Americans’ views on the issue.

First, many of us rely on first-hand experience – what the thermometer says at home – to inform our opinion on a global phenomenon. Cold winter? Climate change starts to sound less convincing.

But NSEE researchers noted that just one third of those who deny climate change reported being heavily influenced by the weather in their region, a record low down from previous majorities.

So what else is shaping our views? In addition to ongoing stories like glacial melt, 61 percent of respondents said that California’s $2.74 billion drought is a major influence – a problem scientists say is due, in part, to rising temperatures around the globe

But a bigger puzzle remains.

Global warming opinions are often framed as a matter of education and scientific literacy: the reasoning that perhaps the data is just too difficult.

But it turns out that it’s not so unusual for Ivy League grads like Mr. Trump to question scientists’ consensus that human activity is driving global warming, and presents a major dilemma.

A team headed by Yale professor Dan M. Kahan found little correlation between people’s scientific knowledge and their belief that climate change is a “serious threat.” 

Intelligent people are “even better at picking out the confirming data to support your beliefs,” science writer Michael Shermer said in discussion with Dr. Kahan during a Freakonomics interview

And the motive to do so? Fitting in.

Most folks want to “maintain a view that’s consistent with the one that’s dominant within their cultural group,” Dr. Kahan said.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Americans agree climate change is real. But made by humans? Not so much.
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2015/1015/Americans-agree-climate-change-is-real.-But-made-by-humans-Not-so-much.
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe