Special report | Public opinion

Groupthink

People’s views on climate change go hand in hand with their politics

FOR ALL THE torrent of scientific reports, books and television documentaries on the subject, climate change commands a good deal less public attention than Kim Kardashian, a reality-TV star. Early in 2007 Google searches for Ms Kardashian’s name overtook searches for “climate change”. She has never fallen behind since. Even Bangladeshis Google her more than they do the forces that threaten their country—in English, at least.

The rich are more concerned about climate change than the poor, who have many other things to worry about. A giant opinion-gathering exercise carried out by the United Nations finds that people in highly developed countries view climate change as the tenth most important issue out of a list of 16 that includes health care, phone and internet access, jobs, political freedom and reliable energy. In poor countries—and indeed in the world as a whole—climate change comes 16th out of 16.

Even in the rich world, interest flagged for a few years following the financial crisis of 2007. It is now recovering a little. But in America, another psephological trend is plain: attitudes to climate change have become sharply polarised along political lines (see chart).

“The partisan divide started in 1997,” says Jon Krosnick of Stanford University. That was when a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, threw his weight behind the UN effort to introduce mandatory caps for greenhouse-gas emissions. It has since widened. YouGov, a pollster, found in 2013 that 70% of Democratic voters saw evidence of man-made climate change in recent weather patterns, whereas only 19% of Republican voters did. A similar, though smaller, divide was found in Britain.

It is not that conservatives are ignorant. Knowledge of science makes little difference to people’s beliefs about climate change, except that it makes them more certain about what they believe. Republicans with a good knowledge of science are more sceptical about global warming than less knowledgeable Republicans.

The best explanation for the gap is that people’s beliefs about climate change have become determined by feelings of identification with cultural and political groups. When people are asked for their views on climate change, says Dan Kahan of Yale University, they translate this into a broader question: whose side are you on? The issue has become associated with left-wing urbanites, causing conservatives to dig in against it. The divide will probably outlive Ms Kardashian’s fame.

This article appeared in the Special report section of the print edition under the headline "Groupthink"

Clear thinking on climate change

From the November 28th 2015 edition

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