Why do views on climate change differ

A majority of Americans report having not too much or no trust in information from these groups about the causes of climate change. But majorities say these less germane motivations influence results at least some of the time. Throughout this report, Republicans and Democrats include independents and other non-partisans who lean toward the parties. Partisan leaners tend to have attitudes and opinions very similar to those of partisans. On questions about climate change and trust of climate scientists, there are wide differences between those who lean to the Democratic Party and those who lean to the Republican Party.

And leaners and partisans of their party have roughly the same positions on these questions. Political divides are dominant in public views about climate matters. Consistent with past Pew Research Center surveys , most liberal Democrats espouse human-caused climate change, while most conservative Republicans reject it. People on the ideological ends of either party, that is liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans, see the world through vastly different lenses across all of these judgments.

As with previous Pew Research Center surveys , there are wide differences among political party and ideology groups on whether or not human activity is responsible for warming temperatures. Pew Research Center surveys have found these kinds of wide political gaps in previous years. About six-in-ten or more of liberal Democrats say it is very likely that climate change will bring droughts, storms that are more severe, harm to animal and plant life, and damage to shorelines from rising sea levels.

There is wide gulf between liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans when it comes to beliefs about how to effectively address climate change. And, at least half of liberal Democrats say that both personal efforts to reduce the carbon footprint of everyday activities and more people driving hybrid and electric vehicles can make a big difference in addressing global warming. By contrast, conservative Republicans are largely pessimistic about the effectiveness of these options.

Most conservative Republicans say each of these actions would make a small difference or have no effect on climate change. About three-in-ten or fewer conservative Republicans say each would make a big difference. Few in either party say climate scientists should have no role in these policy decisions. But there some differences among party and ideology groups in their relative priorities about this.

Conservative Republicans give a higher comparative priority to the general public in policy decisions about climate change issues. Relative to other groups rated, fewer Americans think elected officials should have a major say in climate policy.

Conservative Republicans stand out as being disinclined to support a major role for elected officials or leaders from other nations in climate policy. Fewer in either party think climate scientists understand ways to address climate change. Much smaller shares of other groups see widespread consensus among climate scientists. Moderate or liberal Republicans and moderate or conservative Democrats fall in the middle between these two extremes in their level of trust.

Conservative Republicans are particularly skeptical about the factors influencing climate research. Not surprisingly, those who care a great deal about global climate change issues are more attentive to climate news. Those most concerned about climate issues come from all gender, age, education, race and ethnic groups. And, they are more likely to be Hispanic than the population as whole. Politically, those who care more deeply about climate issues tend to be Democrats.

People who say they care a great deal about this issue are far more likely to believe the Earth is warming because of human activities, to believe negative effects from climate change are likely, and that proposals to address climate change will be effective. This group also holds more positive views about climate scientists and their research, on average.

Differences between those more concerned and less concerned occur among both Republicans and Democrats. Differences between those who care more and less about climate change issues occur among both Republicans and Democrats.

Large majorities of those who care most about this issue think it is very likely that climate change will hurt the environment. Moreover, the theory states that higher concentrations of these gases in the atmosphere will lead to global warming increases in global average surface temperatures. According to the theory, rising global temperatures can increase the frequency of extreme weather events or conditions, such as storms, hurricanes, flooding, drought, extreme cold, and more acidic oceans.

Some scientists have argued that the theory of human-caused climate change involves scientific uncertainties about the nature of global warming and its causes. Some of these scientists, such as Judith Curry, former professor of earth and atmospheric science at the Georgia Institute of Technology, have argued that observed climate data does not show accelerating temperatures or an increased frequency of extreme weather.

Other scientists have argued that observed global temperatures have risen less than what has been projected by climate models, such as the models used by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC.

These scientists, such as Roy Spencer, a former scientist of climate studies at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration NASA , have argued that several observed temperature data, such as surface data and satellite data sets, do not show the accelerated warming that has been projected by the IPCC's models.

Other scientists have argued that climate models represent an incomplete approximation of global climate and may exclude various factors that can affect global climate. Some scientists have argued that if human-caused global warming is occurring, more cost-effective policies exist to address the potential impacts of warming rather than government regulations requiring reductions in carbon dioxide emissions.

Freeman Dyson, a former professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, has argued that while global warming may be caused by human activity, policies should focus on making renewable energy , which emits less carbon dioxide , more affordable. Bjorn Lomborg, a visiting professor at Copenhagen Business School, has argued that policies such as the Clean Power Plan and the Paris Climate Agreement will do little to reduce global temperatures and that policies should focus on lowering the costs of renewable energy sources so more individuals and businesses choose them over coal , oil , and natural gas.

The following sections contain information about the topics discussed by scientific critics of the theory of human-caused climate change. Some scientific critics of the theory of human-made global warming have argued that observed world temperature data differs from the accelerating warming projected by climate models, particularly models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC at the United States.

These scientists have argued that observed world temperatures show that warming has abated. Former NASA scientists John Christy and Roy Spencer argued that observed temperature data sets, such as data sets collected by NASA and the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration a federal agency , show less warming than climate models that have projected a larger increase in global average temperature.

These scientists have argued that the climate models projecting global temperatures from and showed more warming than observed temperatures measured by satellites and weather balloons during the same period. According to these scientists, the difference between model projects and observed temperature data suggests that models have presented an imprecise representation of temperature changes and global climate.

One focus of the debate over the theory of human-caused climate change is potential pauses in global warming. A pause in global warming can refer to a slower rate of surface temperature warming relative to previous rates of warming at certain points the past.

A report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC argued that the rate of surface warming from to was slower than the rate of warming calculated since An August study published in the Open Journal of Statistics argued that the rate of global warming slowed from to based on surface temperature records and global satellite data of the lower atmosphere.

Some scientists have argued that some global temperature data sets show that the rate of warming has slowed since In December , Judith Curry, former professor of atmospheric science at the Georgia Institute of Technology, argued that "the observed rate of warming in the early 21st century was slower than climate model predictions, relative to the rapid rate of warming in the last quarter of the 20th century.

Critics of the theory of human-caused climate change hold varied policy views. While some have supported policies aimed at reducing carbon dioxide CO 2 emissions, others have not.

Some critics have opposed government regulations, such as federal regulations aimed at reducing CO 2 and similar emissions from energy use. These critics have argued carbon dioxide regulations would reduce jobs and income without having a substantial impact on global temperatures in the present or in the future. Environmental Protection Agency. The plan's goal is to reduce carbon dioxide CO 2 emissions from coal - and oil -fired power plants known as fossil fuel-fired and natural gas -fired power plants by 32 percent from levels by the year The plan would require each state to reduce its emissions to meet a specific target.

This emissions target is based on the number of fossil fuel- and natural gas-fired plants in that state. Critics of the plan have argued that it would reduce jobs and household income without having a substantial impact on global temperatures. One thing we do know is that simply insisting on the rightful authority of science as the guide to action has failed. But the natural sciences are not the only politicized disciplines.

What do scientific findings mean in human terms? An answer is given by economics, which can attach cost estimates to the current impacts and projections of future impacts of climate change. One such set of estimates is provided in the chapter by Mendelsohn, who comes up p. Economists such as Nicholas Stern in his famous report to the government of the United Kingdom come up with much higher estimates.

A lot turns on seemingly technical factors such as the rate of discount used to calculate a present value for future costs. Depending on the discount rate chosen, we can end up with massive differences in the size of the present value of future costs, and so radically different implications for climate policy. The choice of discount rate turns out to be a major ethical issue, not just a technical economic matter see the chapters by Howarth and R.

Further contestation arises once we move beyond the confines of standard economic analysis to contemplate other ethical issues Dietz's chapter , pertaining for example to basic human needs, and the distribution of burdens and benefits of action and inaction across rich and poor, within and across national boundaries, as well as between generations.

Sagoff argues in his chapter that the asymmetry of burdens and benefits across generations means that economic thinking should not be at the core of climate policy analysis. Once we get past controversies over cost estimates and distributions, economics also provides a powerful set of analytics for thinking about the choice of policy instruments to achieve the desired level of mitigation expressed in terms of targets and timetables for total greenhouse gas emissions.

Emissions trading requires that some authority sets a cap on total emissions, then issues permits for quantities that add up to that cap. These permits can then be traded, such that companies for which reducing pollution is expensive can buy permits from those for which reductions are cheaper. The economic theory is very clear, but the politics and policy making is much murkier.

It informs many discussions of national policy instruments, and extends to global policy and emissions trading across national boundaries. The discourse affects the content of global governance arrangements, which can even be privatized as carbon traders seek to escape international governmental authority see Paterson's chapter.

Market logic extends too to offsets, whereby polluters can compensate for their greenhouse gas emissions by paying somebody else, for example, to plant trees that will absorb an equal quantity of emissions. What actually happens at ground level in countries where there is weak monitoring capacity is another matter entirely. Unlike conventional markets where one party of the transaction can complain, or at least never transact with the other party again, both parties in offset transactions have every incentive to give misleading information to the public on the real number of trees planted and their actual effectiveness in p.

Again, complexity rules. But whatever their consequences for mitigation, new kinds of climate markets present many opportunities for traders to become wealthy, becoming a constituency pushing for further marketization see Spash's chapter. National governments are embedded in market economies that constrain what they can do, and the social realm is often limited by economistic frames and discourse.

However, markets are not necessarily just a source of constraint. Markets are made up of producers and consumers who might themselves change their behavior in ways that reduce emissions. The most important producers here are large corporations. Why might they change their ways? Corporate responses to the challenge of climate change have been highly variable see Pulver's chapter , and there is little reason to suppose a significant number of corporations will play a leadership role if governments do not.

The only corporations that do have a clear financial incentive to take the risks of climate change very seriously are insurance companies. This is especially true of the big reinsurance companies with potentially high exposure to damages caused by extreme weather events. The high hopes once vested in insurance companies by some analysts Tucker on this score seem so far to have produced little in the way of comprehensive action.

A decarbonizing economy would of course have to involve changes in patterns of consumption, whether induced by government policy and price increases, or chosen by consumers through changing mores. Such basic individual and broad cultural changes that affect consumption have been promoted by a variety of social movements, religious actors, and celebrities. Many environmental organizations focus on consumer behavior—from the individual level up to the decarbonization and transition of towns and regions—both as a source of direct change and as a clear economic and political statement.

Luke also insists we understand the dangers of such forms of such behavioral control, even if it does look green. At any rate, changing consumer habits are no substitute for coordinated collective action. In a world where the legitimacy of public policies and other collective actions rests in large measure on the democratic credentials of the processes of their production, it matters a great deal what publics think, and what actions they consequently support, or are willing to p.

Initially, many climate scientists, policy makers, and activists thought that the key here was simply getting publics to understand the facts by providing information the point behind Al Gore's documentary film An Inconvenient Truth , for example. Yet as Moser and Dilling point out in their chapter, just providing information normally has little impact on behavior.

Most people get their information via the media, but as already noted there are structural features of mainstream media the reporting only of controversy, which requires two opposing sides that are problematic when it comes to communicating climate change.

Thus there remain many failures in public cognition of the complex phenomena attending climate change see Jamieson's chapter. Public opinion polls often show that people do care, and do want something to be done see Nisbet's chapter ; but there is no necessary urgency.

In practice, many issues of more immediate concern and which impose far fewer burdens of cognition trump climate change when it comes to for example voting behavior. Information, scientific or otherwise, is often processed through the lens of existing beliefs formulated in areas of life remote from climate science. Those beliefs can be very powerful, for better or for worse. Religious beliefs are particularly important in this respect see Kearns's chapter. Publics should not however be understood as simply mass publics, which are problematic when it comes to mastering complex issues simply by virtue of their mass nature.

Publics of this sort can be found at many levels: local, national, transnational, and global. They are organized in many different ways, ranging from community groups to the translocal solidarity identified by Routledge in his chapter to global networks of activists depicted by Lipschutz and McKendry in their chapter. Concerned publics almost by definition are geared for action in the way mass publics most of the time are not.

But the extent of their influence in the face of structural political forces and powerful recalcitrant actors remains highly uncertain. Increasingly, concerned publics advance a discourse of climate justice. The political philosopher John Rawls once famously proclaimed that justice should be the first virtue of social institutions. Itself disputable, that ideal remains a distant aspiration when it comes to climate change.

Considerations of justice have often been marginalized in favor of economic efficiency and aggregate welfare in public policies and intergovernmental negotiations. Yet climate justice does inform policy debates and positions taken in negotiations, as well as political activism. The debate around climate justice has revived an argument within justice theory about the adequacy of proposing principles for ideal situations of the kind Rawls himself proposed.

The alternative task for theory involves addressing major pressing and concrete social and political problems, concerning human rights, poverty, and now the changing climate.

Increasingly, justice frameworks are being used in the development of climate policy strategies. The fact is that existing vulnerabilities will be exacerbated by climate change. The costs of climate change and the unintended effects of some policy responses to it will not be evenly distributed, and we need, at the outset, some way to measure the vulnerabilities to be experienced in such an unequal way see Polsky and Eakin's chapter.

Many of the direct costs of climate change itself will, as Mendelsohn points out in his chapter, be felt by the poor in developing countries. Those costs are sufficiently severe to undermine human security in terms of rights and basic needs see Barnett's chapter.

Climate change can have many substantial direct impacts on human health, and many secondary impacts if health problems undermine the adaptive capacity of social systems see Hanna's chapter. Many indigenous communities, already living on the margins, are particularly vulnerable see Figueroa's chapter. These people are of course those with the least political power in global politics in general, and when it comes to climate change in particular.

They may have justice on their side, but that alone will not give them an effective voice. Environmental ethicists and climate justice theorists have examined the moral challenges that attend climate change, and what ought to be done in response. Beyond the science, the economic arguments, the policy differences, and the actions and frames of the various actors in the climate change drama, lies a normative dimension of the crisis.

Emerging norms of justice may play a number of roles in regulating the relationships of the whole range of human actors as they confront climate change. As Gardiner in his chapter summarizes, questions of justice concern the procedures around which decisions are made, the unfairness of the distribution of existing vulnerabilities to climate change and the fair distribution of benefits and burdens in the present and near future see also Baer's chapter , the extent and nature of our obligations to both those within and outside our own country international or cosmopolitan justice , responsibility to future generations or intergenerational justice—see Howarth's chapter , and even the potential injustice done to nature itself.

For example, the concept of international justice takes nations as its basic unit of ethical considerability—and as such, national governments can deploy this discourse when it suits their interests to do so.

So developing countries can point to the history of fossil fuel use on which developed countries built their economies, such that fairness demands that it is the developing countries that should shoulder the burden of mitigation.

The response on the part of the wealthy countries is that for most of this history, their governments had no awareness that what they were doing could change the climate, and so ought not to be held uniquely responsible for future mitigation. Effective global action on mitigation could benefit from taking a more cosmopolitan approach to justice, one in which people rather than nations are the subjects of moral considerability and responsibility see discussions in chapters by Harris, Baer, and Gardiner.

Here, obligations of justice surpass those owed only to those in our own country. Given global climate change, such nationalist limits begin to look irrelevant—as our individual actions affect people outside our own nations, our obligations exceed those borders as well. In this light, rich consumers in China have a global climate responsibility equal to that of rich consumers in the United States. Pragmatically, as Harris points out, if it introduced measures to restrict the emissions of its own rich, China would then have more credibility in international negotiations when it asked the US cut its emissions.

This is just one example of how ethical considerations could have real practical importance. The larger point is that while the discourse of climate justice can be put in the service of those most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, it can also facilitate resolution of collective problems.

Negotiating a context defined by concerned publics, experts, lobbyists, and structural limits on what they can do, governments can choose to act on climate issues. Some of them already do. Dealing with major climate change issues has however never been a part of the core priorities of any government. Of course environmental policy has been a staple of government activity especially in developed countries since the s.

But it remains the case that the environment is not core business in the same way that the economy is. Governments acted swiftly and with the expenditure of vast sums of money in response to global financial crisis in —9. They have never shown anything like this urgency or willingness to spend on any environmental issue.

The difference is easily explained: the first concern of any government in a market economy is always to maintain the conditions for economic growth, which normally also means maintaining the confidence of markets in the government's own operations Lindblom The second concern of most governments in developed countries has been to operate and finance a welfare state see Gough and Meadowcroft's chapter , which itself is predicated upon continued economic growth. The core security imperative of government—protection against external threats—has p.

Failure on one of these core priorities has the potential for swift catastrophe for any government, be it in terms of fiscal crisis and punishment by voters at the polls, or in the case of security erosion or even loss of sovereignty.

Failure when it comes to climate change, where the risks, burdens, and benefits are distributed in complex fashion across space and time, does not yet mean anything at all comparable in the immediacy of its consequences for government. While none of them performs adequately, some national governments do perform better when it comes to climate policy than others, though this variation is not easily explained see Christoff and Eckersley's chapter.