Demographic Factors of Climate Change Skeptics

1. Demographic Factors of Climate Change Skeptics Greg Alvarez ga6460a@american.edu American University School of International Service

2. Research Question & Research hypothesis • Why do many Americans fail to view climate change as a serious problem despite overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary? • Research Hypothesis: Controlling for level of education, age, and gender, political ideology is strongly associated with concern about climate change.

3. Literature Review • Riley E. Dunlap and Aaron M. McCright, “A Widening Gap: Republican and Democratic Views on Climate Change,” Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, September/October 2008 • Theory: Political party affiliation affects whether or not individuals believe in climate change and take it seriously. • Findings: Controlling for other demographic factors, whether or not an individual identifies as a Republican or a Democrat will likely determine their climate change beliefs. • Jan C. Semenza et al., “Public Perception of Climate Change: Voluntary Mitigation and Barriers to Behavior Change,” Behavioral and Public Communications Issues Volume 35, Iss. 5, November 2008, Pages 479–487 • Theory: “Voluntary reduction in energy consumption by individuals is contingent on their state of awareness and concern about climate change, their willingness to act, and their ability to change.” • Findings: Gender and income level are the only two demographic factors likely to predict level of climate change concern. • Gaps in Existing Literature • How does political ideology affect concern over climate change? Whether an individual self-identifies as conservative or liberal implies a subtle but important difference than political party affiliation.

4. Data • Data consists of a survey of 1,501 Americans. • Source of the data: Pew Research Center for People and the Press • According to Pew, this data is a nationally representative sample with a margin of sampling error for weighted estimates of plus/minus 2.82 percentage points. • Dependent variable: Level of concern about climate change. • Data originally described in a range from “very serious” to “not a problem.” I recoded the data and broke it down into two categories, “serious” and “not a problem.” • “Serious” is represented by 0 and “not a problem is represented” by 1. • Independent Variables: Political ideology, level of education, age, and gender • Political ideology is ordinal, ranging from “very conservative” (1) to “very liberal” (5). • Level of education is ordinal and is broken down into seven categories, ranging from “less than high school” to “some postgraduate.” • Gender is categorical, where male is represented by 1 and female is represented by 2. • Age is ordinal and ranges from 18 to 96.

5. Descriptive Statistics • Central Tendencies: • Nearly 65% of people believe that climate change is a serious problem. • Most people (36%) describe themselves as moderate. • The most common level of education is completion of high school (29%). • The average is nearly 51 years old. • 52.56% of the sample is female.

6. Descriptive Statistics

7. Bivariate analysis

8. Regression Analysis Political ideology has the strongest impact on an individual’s beliefs on climate change. As one moves one unit from conservative to liberal, one becomes 18% more likely to view climate change as a problem. Age and gender have some influence, and level of education does not have a statistically significant relationship.

9. Findings & Policy Implications • My research hypothesis is confirmed • Political ideology is strongly associated with concern over global warming and this relationship is highly significant. As individuals more from conservative to liberal they are likely to become increasingly concerned about global warming. • There is no relationship between level of education and concern about global warming. • Policy Implications: • Climate change activists should seeks allies with strong conservative credentials. • Efforts must be made to re-frame climate change as a bipartisan issue that affects all Americans, regardless of political ideology. • Climate change activists must find a way to remove global warming from the arena of “wedge issues.”