Republicans believe in 'climate change' but not 'global warming'
Democrats believe in it no matter what it's called
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The likelihood of an average American agreeing that world temperatures are rising is strongly affected by the name used for the phenomenon. Americans believe strongly in "climate change", but acceptance that "global warming" is taking place is much less common.
In a recent study carried out by psychologists in Michigan, 2,267 US adults were asked the following question, half of them hearing "climate change" and half "global warming":
You may have heard about the idea that the world's temperature may have been going up [changing] over the past 100 years, a phenomenon sometimes called 'global warming'/'climate change'. What is your personal opinion regarding whether or not this has been happening?
Some 74 per cent of those who heard "climate change" agreed that temperatures have indeed risen over the past century: only 68 per cent agreed if they heard "global warming".
"Wording matters," says Jonathon Schuldt, lead trick-cyclist on the study. "Given these different associations and the partisan nature of this issue, climate change believers and skeptics might be expected to vary in their use of these terms."
Schuldt and his colleagues also examined the connection between the two labels and US politics as part of their study. They report that the difference in belief between "climate change" and "global warming" is massive among Republicans, with just 44 per cent of those who identify themselves as such believing in global warming: but 60 per cent say that climate change is real.
By contrast, Democrats don't care what it's called, they believe in it - 86.9 per cent of them believe in "global warming" and 86.4 per cent in "climate change".
"It could be that Democrats' beliefs about global climate change might be more crystallized, and as a result, more protected from subtle manipulations," comments Schuldt's fellow trick-cyclist Sara Konrath.
The psychologists say that liberal think-tanks much prefer the term "climate change" - calculated as it is to subtly manipulate their opponents into agreeing with them. Conservative organisations prefer the term "global warming".
The study is published in the journal Public Opinion Quarterly, and can be read for free in pdf here. ®
COMMENTS
Reps vs. Dems
Just goes to show you how Republicans can easily be manipulated by the 'Talking Heads'.
Seems that way
30% of them still think Obama was born in Kenya. As if he could get into that position without someone doing a background check.
No it's not
There are a number of unstated assumptions in your model that are not self-evident. For a start "CO2" is an analogue used for all greenhouse gasses - not just CO2 so the causation you illustrate is not strictly true.
The models are not consistent in producing predictions or extrapolating current condidtions from historical data.
The historical data set is incomplete and relies on a number of different temperature proxies, which are constantly being tuned closer to reality as we better understand the history of the system.
The planet has been warming and cooling at varying rates since it's creation, extracting the impact of the anthropocene era is non-trivial.
I have university level physics and chemistry and it isn't clear to me at all - although I have a precautionary bent, am pretty much convinced by the science that our activities are influencing climate and act accordingly to limit my peronal "carbon footprint" - I know better educated people who are less convinced.
This is even before considering the complexities of whether there is a tipping point beyond which the situation becomes irrecoverable and where that tipping point may be; if we have the resources to prevent the system becoming chaotic, what state the system is likely to settle into after becoming turbulent and if it would be survivable by something that would emerge at the other side of the event and still be called "human"; whether we should be devoting scarce resources to prevention or mitigation, etc.
If the science was at all clear then decisive measures could be taken but as it stands no government can take anything other than contradictory speculation to it's electorate to argue in favour of many of the hard decisions that are sure to be required to ensure the survival of our civilisation and species in the coming centuries so all we have is half measures and prevarication at every level from the personal to the global...
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