Conservative, white men most likely climate change skeptics, study shows

Conservative, white men are more likely to be those who deny climate change, say the researchers. Photograph: Getty

"The more that you think you know more I think you're right," is an old saying. Now comes a study of sex, skin colour or political ideology which suggests that almost sums up how some white male conservatives in the United States respond to climate change.

"Even casual observers" who argue that climate change is not a serious problem "is likely to see an obvious pattern," Aaron M. McCright of the Michigan State University in East Lansing and Riley e. Dunlap, of the State University of Oklahoma at Stillwater instead write environmental Global: "the most prominent denialists are conservative white men" - of media Rush Limbaugh expert politicians as Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe. But the pair wondered: "is there a similar pattern in the American public?"

Namely, the researchers analyzed ten annual surveys on environmental issues carried out by the Gallup Organization from 2001 to 2010. Together, they include responses from more than 10,000 adults. After cut and break up the numbers, the trends are clear: "conservative white men are significantly more likely than other Americans to endorse denialist views", write. And "these differences are even greater for the conservative white men it Autoinforme global understanding of global warming very well".

In general, while 29.6% of conservative white males (CWMs) believes that the effects of global warming "will never happen", only 7.4% of all adults shared that view. Similarly, 58.5 per cent of CWMs, but only 31.5% of all adults, denied that the recent increases in temperature are primarily caused by human activities. The pattern shows that CWMs "are more likely to change for other adults to reject the scientific consensus on climate change", the authors point out. As well, "not surprisingly," 58.8% of CWMs "deny the existence of scientific consensus," compared with 35.5 per cent of other adults.

CWMs also were over twice as likely than other adults to say that the media exaggerated the seriousness of climate change (65.1% to 29.9%). Finally, 39.1% of conservative white males, but only 14.4% of all adults: not worried at all about global warming, he said.

In particular, the researchers say CWMs also used to assert a stronger global warming than other adult understanding - and who says they understand better were more likely to be the strongest deniers. "This, certainly seems untenable self-appraisal," the authors write, "as conservative white men are more likely than other adults to reject the current scientific consensus."

However, previous research, can help to explain the pattern, they speculate. Psychologists and scientists have suggested that WCMs often identify themselves as more risk tolerant and less willing to support ideas that challenge the existing economic, social and political hierarchies.

"The intersection of conservative, 'male' and 'white' is important to explain the distribution of the denial of climate change in the American public," the authors conclude. But "denialism is sufficiently diffuse in the American public that obviously cannot be attributed solely to conservative white men," they say. "What is more serious, especially by the scientific community and the climate change communicators, is the denial of climate change has increased public U.S. between 2001 and 2010, although mainly due to a significant increase in the past two years which may be abnormal in the long term." - David Malakoff

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