PORTRAIT OF A CLIMATE DENIER: Sociologists have found that conservative white males are more likely to question the validity of climate change science.
Image: U.S. Senate Committee on Environmental and Public Works
When it comes to climate change denial, not all human beings are created equal. As a recent study shows, conservative white males are less likely to believe in climate change.
"It's not surprising," said Aaron McCright, sociology professor at Michigan State University, who is a white male himself. But anecdotal evidence is not scientific, he said. "You really don't know what's going on until you crunch the numbers and find out."
Besides the trend amongst skeptics, the study also found that conservative white men who self-report a high understanding of global warming -- dubbed "confident" conservative males -- are even more likely to express climate change denial.
McCright's study, "Cool dudes: The denial of climate change among conservative white males in the United States," was published online in July and printed in the October 2011 issue of Global Environmental Change, which ranks first out of 77 journals on environmental studies.
The study has created somewhat of a buzz, said Riley Dunlap, co-author and professor of sociology at Oklahoma State University. The paper was well received in academic circles, but he admitted he was concerned about a backlash from the conservative movement. While there have not been any major outcries, the study appears to have raised a few temperatures in Chicago.
"This paper is a transparent effort to take the focus off the actual scientific debate and instead engage in race baiting, class baiting and other sociological devices to win a science argument," said James Taylor, senior fellow for environment policy at the Chicago-based Heartland Institute.
But from McCright's perspective it was important to find out to what extent the sharp debate over climate change at the elite level had trickled down into the general public in recent decades. "Within the ranks of elites, climate change denialists are overwhelmingly conservative white males," reads the report, pointing to figures like talk show host Rush Limbaugh and Marshall Institute CEO, William O'Keefe. "Does a similar pattern exist in the American public?"
'Cool Dudes,' a bloc that stands out in the crowd
McCright and Dunlap's analysis used polling data on climate change denial from 10 Gallup surveys from 2001 to 2010. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 72.4 percent of the American population reported as white in 2010, and 77.1 percent in the year 2000. This majority made it difficult to draw conclusions about the relationship between other races and climate change, said McCright, because the Gallup survey sample size was so small.
To test for the trend amongst conservative white males, the researchers compared the demographic to "all other adults." Results showed, for instance, that 29.6 percent of conservative white males believe the effects of global warming will never happen, versus 7.4 percent of other adults. In holding for "confident" conservative white males, the study showed 48.4 percent believe global warming won't happen, versus 8.6 percent of other adults.
As a point of comparison, McCright also tested the beliefs of conservative white females. He found 14.9 percent believe the effects of global warming will never happen to 29.6 percent of their male counterparts. McCright said the finding is due more to the women's political stance than their gender or race. The data on conservative white females was not published in the "Cool dudes" study.
To understand why there is a trend amongst conservative white males, the Gallup data was cross-examined with research about the "white male effect" -- the idea that white males were either more accepting of risk or less risk averse than the rest of the public.
The white male effect could stem from the notion that, historically, white males have faced fewer obstacles in life, said McCright. But another school of thought sees the adoption of risk tied to personal values. "It has to do with their identity as an in-group," he said. "Something that would challenge the status quo is something [conservative white males] want to shun."
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117 Comments
Add CommentI think the reason climate change denial is so high amongst conservative white males is because they are not as well educated as the liberal white male. Compare President Obama's educational background with that of President Bush, where all this climate change denial started in 2000, and President bush would have the equivalent of a third grade education. President Bush was not the sharpest tool in the shed and he let everyone know it and even seemed proud of it by declaring himself The War President and not the Diplomatic President. Most deniers of climate change knows little to nothing about science and President Bush even fitted nicely into that category too.
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat's been my experience as well, your typical conservative is much less educated than your typical liberal. That would, of course, explain why conservatives typically get all wound up about know-to-have-been-made-up "scandals" like "death panels" and "Obama's birth certificate". These are the kind of people who feel that gut decisions are more valid than ones made with their heads using evidence and rational thinking...thus they follow any shiny nonsense dangled in front of them.
Now, here comes the army of deniers to trot out the point of view that's been drummed into their pointy little heads to prove my point. They'll start harping on "the climate has changed before" and "scientists are hiding data" and "Al Gore...something or another." It would be cute if it wasn't so sad.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaand, deny!
If the comments here are at all indicative of the bias built into the study, it certainly would explain the conclusion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere's a hypothesis to explore: evil white male conservatives are so entrenched in making money and playing the markets that they have developed a much better facility with statistical analysis (useful for making money and bilking the poor). Therefore, they are more able to see through the poor statistical analysis found in some of the more controversial climate studies. Maybe my daughter can use this as her thesis at MIT.
A recent study showed that the minds of conservatives and liberals are hardwired differently, and so, in that liberal and conservative minds function fundamentally differently, it is easy to see that more than race and gender considerations are needed to explain this "white male" phenomenon.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"When you start talking about climate change and the need for major changes, carbon taxes and lifestyle changes, [conservatives] see this as a threat to capitalism and future prosperity," said McCright. "So conservatives tend to be very negative towards climate change."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo true...they don't really care about the science, they just hate the solution. As a corollary, they really don't care about the message, they just hate the messenger. Since LIBRULS aren't real 'Mericans, especially Algore, they are just soooo certain that those commie-pinko-treehuggers HAVE to be wrong.
Just look at what they do to President Obama: they're for his healthcare plan (in the 90s as an alternative to Hillarycare and again in Massachusetts under Gov Romney) until they're against it as soon as he proposes it. They're for Cap-and-Trade (SO2 emissions, CFCs, even CO2 as in the McCain-Lieberman climate bill) until the Democrats endorse it, and then they're against it too. They rally behind Ronald Reagan, but when Obama uses ALMOST THE EXACT SAME WORDS (0 nuclear weapons, closing tax loopholes, having everyone pay their fair share), they say he's reckless or practicing "class warfare".
Anyway, I think as people learn that clean energy and efficiency are easy to implement and VERY profitable to society in general (coal takes $2 out of the economy in healthcare costs and other effects for every $1 it produces in electricity: http://thinkprogress.org/green/2011/09/29/332378/economists-coal-is-incredibly-costly/ ), they'll start abandoning the idea that climate change is some sort of plot to do....something, I'm not quite sure. At least we know a little more of the story on deniers from this study.
Haha, not as well educated? So now instead of proving human caused global warming it is moving to lets just focus on one race and gender and accuse them of being stupid.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell since this is the new criteria to prove global warming, how about the liberal idiots are least educated. You morons actually believe socialism works, even after a few centuries of attempts and a few hundred million dead to prove otherwise. So it is reasonable to assume that any fool who thinks socialism works, will likely believe something like human caused global warming caused specifically by too much CO2.
You people are ridiculous. You know how stupid you sound? Yeah, sure, every single Caucasian conservative is an uneducated buffoon and every single liberal male is the perfect scholar. Of course there are no other climate realists out there, just caucasian males are "deniers" no one else.
By the way, "deniers" sounds about as stupid as the old christian word for heretic or the current islamic word unbeliever.
How about the "deniers" do not see any actual scientifically proven results to back up your claim. Sorry, cherry picked data and gerry-rigged computer models have about as much legitimacy as a bible or the koran.
George Bush like Obama has an ivy league education from both Harvard and Yale. While Obama has Columbia, Harvard and Occidental. Not much difference except that one is a business man from the oil industry and baseball while the other is a leftist lawyer and community organizer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso Peter Schiff whom has been right on the money on just about everything eloquently sums up the difference between liberals and conservatives :). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zv4N5atDVQE&feature=channel_video_title
So Bush had an undergraduate degree from Yale and a Harvard MBA. Obvious marks of an uneducated person. Or not. The best part of this discussion is that we have a sociologist attacking what are usually successful businessmen. Sociologists - the Phrenologists of today's scientific age.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMan you liberals are like reading a bad novel on a corrupt and completely brainwashed society. So only newspeak works for you and only what YOU are spoon fed by Al Gore is all that is real?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGuess what the climate has changed before, are you actually going to sit there and claim it had not? It has had a lot more CO2 in the past, hotter, far more than your dumb models predict, during human existence and guess what we all survived and it wasn't caused by us.
Let me know when you have real proof or are you still looking for the "missing" heat predicted for the last decade by your models?
You all have the cart before the horse. Those that spend more time and other peoples' money on education tend to come out of that experience as Liberals, as seems to be the sole purpose of education in the past thirty years. These people spend the rest of their useful life telling us poor uneducated Conservatives what to think and how to conduct our lives. You need to take your little P. C. A$$ES home and have a long talk with yourselves. Nobody likes a know-it-all. More well educated, indeed........
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAt least your ridiculous beliefs are consistent, sault.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is a typical study consistent with liberal nonsense and their so called science. Just like your so called global warming proof, these people have a belief and they gerry mandered a study to prove their belief. The first thing not considered is if this was even relevant. You have to make a mighty leap of something to conclude race and political belief affect a scientific claim based on real data. So how many people faced with real, actual data still choose to believe something else. Then you would study the entire population and report the results.
In this study, they compared white males to every other adult, what is the point of that other than to prove their point, not show results. Also, you would ask the questions blind and then find out race, gender and etc...
Just is exactly how liberal science works. You decide global warming is human caused and create goofy computer models designed to always show this as true and use cherry picked data chosen to fit the model.
So this article and study are also consistent with liberal nonsense.
By the way sault, using a term like deniers as you libs do is exactly what those creationists morons do. to them you are a denier as well, another group with no proof of their claim and just like you warmists, instead of science you resort to claims the deniers are too stupid to exist.
If you highly educated Liberals need more evidence that climate change as we're seeing has occurred in the past, MANY TIMES, and will undoubtedly occur again, try a little light (maybe not for you all) reading: 'Doomsday Chronicle', by Anthony Dias Sousa, ISBN: 978-1-4523-3443-1. Kind of a "different" take on things, but displays an almost believeable series of events (at least as believeable as your "human-generated global warming" scenario), and might give you swell-heads something more believeable to try to foist on the poor underachieving huddled masses.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis study was already published in a peer-reviewed journal. S.A. chose to post this article on their website because it was a slow day on the blogs. It is just like articles on religion. Not necessary or scientific...just something to stimulate comments of the lowest level.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm an elite white male with a ton of education that I paid for myself. I don't believe that socialism is a viable model. I'm fiscally conservative and socially liberal. I see enough evidence to know that something is going on with our climate, but I'm not yet convinced that it is entirely man-made OR that there is anything we can do about it. The jury is still out...I could be convinced either way.
Hopefully, this means that I'm exempt from all your silly name-calling. Your mothers would be ashamed that you have forgotten the manners they taught you.
The other side of this coin is that liberals are more
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisreliant on the government to control their lives and
and supply them with welfare...education,...jobs...etc
wherease the white male conservative is more likely to
be self reliant and less reliant on the govenment for
substenance...They are also less likely to trust the
government to run and control their lives....thus they
are less likely to take the global warming claims at
face value....
No matter what study I read on here, the title is always very biased, where in the actual article, it comes to the conclusion that nothing really has been found or solved.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSure conservative white males are more likely to dismiss global warming, but the most out-spoken activists are liberal white males.
It is still a foolish way to look at the world without considering the possibility of global warming. The world was a jungle across most of the latitudes on our earth. That energy (hot, humid climate) was captured and stored in plants. We are now releasing that energy and promoting the prehistoric conditions that has jungles where there is no perma-frost.
I'm sorry, I don't give 2 sheets what your background is or what political party you are from but if you can't understand this concept you should refrain from spreading your misinformation. Liberals and conservatives will always bicker and get nothing done, while those with the intelligence to actually analyze the situation drown in the problems of the elite.
"It is still a foolish way to look at the world without considering the possibility of global warming. The world was a jungle across most of the latitudes on our earth. That energy (hot, humid climate) was captured and stored in plants. We are now releasing that energy and promoting the prehistoric conditions that has jungles where there is now* perma-frost."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this-corrected
I am a liberal scientist, and Christian; a member of the Episcopal Church. Conservative churches - the EV Free and Catholic Churches among them - have embraced the science, and have stated that their followers need to do their best to lower greenhouse gas emissions in the name of stewardship of the earth. Yet those same followers are among the most strident climate change deniers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn the history of science denial (think evoloution, gravity, shape of the planet) religion has typically been the loudest voice to be heard; this time the group that is rallying against the science are largely conservative secularists, or those whose nationalism exceeds their religious convictions.
Among conservative friends, I see the tendency to fear the change implied by acceptance of the science; when pressed most will relent on the veracity of the work done by climatoligists.
We can best accomplish change by seeking common ground, and probably the very best bet is to work to lower the cost of energy alternatives. And a little less name calling by all would be a breath of fresh air...
It's not true that EVERY climate change denier is poorly educated, any more than EVERY advocate of creationism, or intelligent design, or EVERY vaccine-o-phobe, etc., are poorly educated. BUT: when one converses with the majority of people in these categories, one quickly becomes aware of a strong correlation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou, for example. On one of the other threads you expressed concern that carbon dioxide sequestration would deplete the atmosphere of oxygen, and it was better to let plants do it naturally, since this doesn't happen when plants do it.
See what I mean? A global warming denier whose grasp of basic scientific facts is a little.....well, shaky.
WE can debate and deny all we want but the dire consequences of human-induced global warming are unfolding right in front of us. I guess debating this phenomenon gives us something to do while the global web of life unravels around us.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt reminds me of the musicians who played music on the deck of the Titanic as it was sinking---gave them something to do to take their minds off the horror in front of their eyes.
Not true. "RED" states take more from the Federal Government than they pay out to it while "BLUE" states pay out more than they get back. You need to reexamine your beliefs there.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere we go again... SciAm should be rename to something like "The Leftist Political American". They should forget about science and start to indoctrinate people.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAccording to SciaAm blogs,articles and columns, the white man is the responsible for all the evils in the world. The white man, together with Jews, Christians, conservatives and others should be eradicated from the face of the planet and treated as vermin. The world should be in the hands of non-white, non-christian, socialists, like the ones we have in Iran, Cuba, Africa, North Korea, Venezuela, China, etc. because they are pure in the heart and are truly concerned with their fellow human beings and the environment. Also, they are the true defenders of democracy, freedom, and liberty of expression....
Gimme a break! I wonder if they would have the guts to write an article about the level of scientific illiteracy among non-whites in America.
"the dire consequences of human-induced global warming are unfolding right in front of us. "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat is not a scientifically tenable position.
"When you start talking about climate change and the need for major changes, carbon taxes and lifestyle changes, [conservatives] see this as a threat to capitalism and future prosperity," said McCright.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhich, of course, it is.
The question I do not see addressed here, is why are Europeans accepting GCC, and of the European populations, who is in denial?
Oh, and you have a typo in the quotation in the last paragraph of the article: "is" instead of "it"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy not? Check out the weather all this past summer in Texas, just for one out of thousands of examples.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe above comments are absolute proof that humans on 21st century Earth are only a step on the evolutionary ladder. Politics and religion will not have a place when we evolve further. Both sides will die off through natural selection and only the middle will survive.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI really taught about subscribing to this magazine, until I read this article. this is science? For those of you attempting to use logic and reason, don't bother. Look at the first sentence: Climate change denial, that should tell you the tone. As one white male, maybe it isn't a political view, maybe I am free to examine issues without the need to attach my desire to feel superior to others into the mix. lets take a quick look: I survived the global ice age in the 1970's, the ozone hole, the death of the oceans, etc,etc. If climate change (what happened to global warming) is happening why is it necessary to manipulate information? why did Al Gore need to resort to changing facts and camera trickery? If you have to lie to manipulate others to achieve your goals, your goals probably aren't worth achieving.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere you go again, sneaking in a poorly disguised political rant as a scientific article. This racial baiting piece of trash has no scientific basis or proof, no evidence is offered other than an off-hand opinion. This approach is also being used by the doomsayers promoting global warming and the false economy of carbon taxes/credits. The true harm done by this article is the damage to the once good name of "Scientific American."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWow sault, how about you keep your beliefs and instead try facts. The Socialist blue states are a total drain on the country. Every one of them takes more money than they pay in taxes, this has been true for at least 30 years. What planet are you on? Try the treasury department for a source.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAhh my grasp on science is shaky? You do realize plants do in fact take in CO2, water and sunlight, break the CO2 chemical bond, releasing O2 back into the air and Use the carbon for itself? Not sure where this is shaky or even remotely false. Who said the plants are not doing this, they are. Given time, all the extra CO2 will in fact be taken in by a plant, it might take a million years or so but it will happen.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaybe you need to look at 5th grade earth science again. How plants work is a well established and proven fact.
AND Carbon sequestering does in fact take oxygen from the atmosphere and puts it in the ground. I agree, the Carbon came from the ground in the form of Coal, but the Oxygen did not come from the ground. My point is you warmists cant even prove your CO2 caused doom, let alone predict what will happen if you start burying Oxygen in the ground with carbon.
But I would not expect you people to bother with details anyway. You have your beliefs, I go by observation, fact and logic.
Unfolding right in front of us? Would that be the warmist's prediction of the level of heat gain from 1998 to 2010, which did not happen and now they are scrabbling like keystone cops to gerry-rig their model to say the missing heat is in the ocean?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo it is only about money, not logic or reason?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow about this, a carbon tax is only a means for politicians to obtain power and money. Since money itself, is not in anyway related to CO2, unless of course you burn money, literally. Did you ever stop to think a conservative would be against a tax that has no possibility of having the intended effect? Are you going to plug smoke stacks with wads of money you take from the tax? Just curious how a carbon tax is effective, instead of something like making a law that requires hybrid engines and electric motors because those do in fact reduce fuel use. How about a new law that requires are residences to self produce electric power from natural gas or solar? Imagine the savings on coal and natural gas use since the energy loss between transformers would now be saved.
I suppose it will never occur to you liberals that reason and logic dictate the opinions and actions of most people.
When did Europe become the standard we all live by? Last time I checked racism was still rampant compared to the US, the distance between the poor and rich is much larger, the middle class almost gone, they multitude of wars they have started, the complete lack of ability to run economies and the massive amount of environmental damage they did for centuries would seem to indicate they might not know everything.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think it is simple, conservative individuals are fundamentally irrational. That is why conservatism is the bastion of religious fundamentalist groups. Conservatism is primarily based on fear, fear of losing one's station in life, fear of "outsiders", fear of change. Fear is a powerful but irrational emotion. The reaction against climate change has nothing to do with climate change but a fear of the implications of climate change such as increased need for government intervention, increased need for public funds, and changes to our way of life. Conservatism is the dying throws of the last generation's memes. It is a desperate revolt against inevitable change. It is sad and pathetic.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAt least someone has some sense on here.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou exemplify the problem. For right-wingers the climate change argument invariably decays into ideological name calling; for so-called "liberals", the problem is that carbon dioxide (and other man-made greenhouse gases) trap heat.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am a strong believer in climate. I don't believe Al Gore. I strongly believe that a nuclear war will cool the planet soon
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMost people can agree that they want their environment clean. There is much less argument and more hope of improvement when we stop wasting time and getting cornered into an endless argument on climate. Climate change is way too complex for most people and once the visibly dirty air and visibly dirty water are cleaned up that will take care of most of the climate problems.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMost people can agree that they want their environment clean. There is much less argument and more hope of improvement when we stop wasting time and getting cornered into an endless argument on climate. Climate change is way too complex for most people and once the visibly dirty air and visibly dirty water are cleaned up that will take care of most of the climate problems.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Climate change denial has increased across all sectors of the American general public over the last decade"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo there has been increasing number of conservative white males across America? The mounting evidence and scientific consensus should result to decreasing denial. Dear sociologists, care to explain this?
The issue is not climate change - that has cycled for millions years; the issue is "mea culpa" blaming humankind for a natural cycle that has happened before humans were on the planet and will continue to happen long after humans have vanished
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think I'm skeptical because like most skeptics I was educated in the applied sciences and I am not subject to 'group think' or wishful projections of my esthetics. I went to the effort to formulate what I believe ... after a silly story about the Antarctic Ice which grabbed my attention with its blatant disregard for the facts. Before that I was an disinterested bystander. Yes personal belief follows the solar barycenter theory that we are just in another phase of a 179 year cycle nested in a longer cycle http://www.klimaskeptik.cz/news/interview-with-dr-ivanka-charvatova-csc-from-gfu/ and is a minor perterbance compared to the Milankovitch Cycle for which I believe entered another glaciation 2000 years ago judging by the behaviour of Antarctica and we only await a Heinrich event to illustrate where we are at in that cycle.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am passed this debate and have moved on to other interesting issues however sometimes it is worth a laugh and I was rewarded with such skimming through this piece. Also, having accidentally discovered this link above, I am going to have to adjust my ad hoc historical anecdotal model for paleo climate back to the rise of man just prior to the Eemian Interglacial. The super cycle I had in there was shorter than the scientist in the link above suggests ... I will have to see if it works or fits my model.
If the unScientific American wanted to do something serious they should push the subject of how Homo Sapiens evolved with a tendency to let other people think for them and how that may have helped them triumph over other hominids but leaves them susceptible to things like Astrology, AGW, and the preference for political leaders over institutional guidance.
The more vehemently people deny they're nothing more than shaved apes, the more likely that they act like shaved apes. Flinging poo at data points on a graph doesn't negate the point that the data shows global warming. Science is supposed to be self-correcting. If the future analysis shows that the trend was simply an anomaly and isn't contributed to by human factors, then it will be reported in the science journals. Until that time, not putting into place contingencies for the possibility is definitely the act of a shaved ape. No pragmatism or practicality to consider their future may be in jeopardy and can be acted upon to reduce or negate it. And even apes wouldn't be stupid enough to play political football over life and death issues.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm a retired middle school science teacher and high school biology teacher. I agree with the author of the study that anecdotally those who would be labelled climate change deniers or global warming deniers are more likely to be influenced by their political beliefs rather than by other personal attributes such as education or IQ. One of my coworkers at school was a very able biology and general science teacher who was very politically conservative and also one of the most well off teachers financially in the school district (Dick if you are reading this Hi!).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI also agree with one of the other commenters that the earth has gone through periods when the average global temperature was much higher than it now is and it certainly had nothing to do with the burning of fossil fuels by humans since we were not around then! I do not know if the CO2 levels were higher then or not. I will say though to the commenter who suggests that the temperatures have not continued to rise as significantly during the last decade as they had in the several before that they also have not gone down and I believe more significantly that the sun's solar max cycle was also missed a few years ago and that may be the reason that the temps have not continued to increase as much as they had previously. The bottom line for me is I will give more credance to the great majority of climate scientists who tell us that we have a problem then to those who would deny it. They could be wrong but I doubt it and I believe that we ignore their warnings at the peril of all of us. I certainly believe those individuals have more integrity than the corporate elite who care only about their bottom lines.
I also will add that I am a life long progressive and yes I do believe that an economy works best when it is regulated and planned at the highest level. If it is not regulated for the benefit of all in a society then shrewd greedy individuals will game the system and take advantage of those groups within the society that are not as able to control their own destinies. That is what has been happening for the past three decades. And finally to the commenter who denigrates socialism and a planned economy come take a look at the PRC; I believe it has the fastest growing GDP on the planet.
Basically looks like someone decided to do some research with a specific outcome in mind - sort of like how climate science is increasingly getting done.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt'd be interesting to see some digging into the real reasons for this alleged trend, and some comparison with other alleged trends in socio-economic group land.
The conservative view might be nothing more than 2 things , 1 religion many hold the view that the world is not in any danger or difficulty because the bible says we're safe until the end times and 2 it's simply because a Democrat agrees with or thinks that human activity is part of the problem so they must be pushing a hidden agenda .
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's really nothing more than a knee jerk reaction to the opposition something that true believers of both parties do , saying that conservatives are less intelligent is just as arrogant and wrong as any generalisation/stereotype the Right-wing makes .
"priddseren", I knew you would eventually understand and this paragraph of your comment proves it: "You people are ridiculous. You know how stupid you sound? Yeah, sure, every single Caucasian conservative is an uneducated buffoon and every single liberal male is the perfect scholar. Of course there are no other climate realists out there, just caucasian males are "deniers" no one else." How much more proof do you need? Your own comment proves the point of the article perfectly. But, if you need more proof, just read the other conservative comments about this article, they prove beyond a shadow of doubt that this article was well scientifically researched and well written, and I commend ScAm for doing a great job. Have you ever taken a class in "Political Science"? You do understand the word 'Science', don't you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSince you said that we liberal white males (and I'm Shawnee/White) have a superior intelligence above you 'uneducated conservative white males', I will correct one of your errors: "CO2 is man made and causes global warming and the Earth will take care of it." Incorrect: CO2 is Earth made and the Earth will take care of it. CO1 (carbon monoxide, caused by burning fossil fuel) is man made and man will take care of it and the dark particles in CO1 is what is causing global warming. The Earth does not do anything fast and this global warming may take a couple hundred years, but do you really want to wait until the end of the last year before you start correcting the mistakes you have made by burning fossil fuel? We can stop global warming in its tracks just by stop burning fossil fuel and the climate warming and cooling will return to its normal increasing and decreasing of CO2.
Since you conservatives have all the money, why don't you go out and buy yourself a Tesla Model S all electric car that can get 320 MPC and reach 0-60 in 4.5 seconds and do your part in returning planet Earth to its normal cycles?
DancerTiffy, Can you give us a reference on the study that you mention please?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAn idea of male toughness is deeply embedded in the gasoline culture, where the real guy would have a giant gas-devouring car to drive down to the sea with an admiring girl next to him. To find out first that petrol waste products, or the thing itself, is no more good for you than smoking is a crisis-promoting discovery in itself, and to find out next that your ideal threatens the world as a whole and should be replaced by that despicable green stuff challenges the whole worldview in which you have grown up and with which you have been loyal for so long simply must be intolerable. Especially if you lack the necessary wits and knowledge about basic things scientific.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhite males are also more likely to be successful doctors, captains of industry, Navy SEALS, and astronauts. They’re more likely to have degrees in science, engineering, and math, and actually work in those fields.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut that is surely unrelated to their race.
DancerTiffy: Could you please provide a reference so that we can take a look at this study? Thank you
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"I think the reason climate change denial is so high amongst conservative white males is because they are not as well educated as the liberal white male."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf this is true, this is because of an education system designed by liberals. Conservatives have been locked out of eduction for the last 50 years, and now our children stand far behind the industrialized worlds.
I would also prefer to suggest that having been fed line after line of "progressive" dogma over the years, that we tend to look at anything said, including Climate Change (or Global Warming, or Global Cooling, or whatever you want to call it now), with a grain of salt.
Maybe we're also unafraid of being called "stupid", when dogma needs to be challenged.
It's interesting to see just how rapidly discussions such as this one degenerate into pejoratives and name calling. The original premise of the article poses a legitimate question that has to do with the way humans think and reason. Although it involves a scientific inquiry that has become politically charged, it is not, essentially, a political question.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaybe the next question should be "Why do people become so defensive and angry so quickly and stray from inquiry to attack?"
Could it be that this trate is what prevents us from actually addressing and solving the problem at hand?
BTW, DancerTiffy, could you provide a reference for the study that you cite. I would like to read it. Thanks. CC
It’s a fact that some quick internet research will educate anyone to the fact that the debate on AGW is not over. The science is not ”settled” (whatever that means) All there is for “evidence” of AGW is output from computer models. Climate scientists call this stuff “data”.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf one is over fifty, say, he probably is less likely than a youngster to trust anything computer generated. Let alone doomsday, “The end is near“, crapola. When I was younger I saw people wearing sandwich board signs prophesying doomsday. They were doing the same thing AlGore does today only he uses powerpoint instead of the sandwich board. Same thing though.
The Man-Made Global Warming scam becomes evident when one looks at the narrative that spews from the alarmists. Only evil and suffering can come from a warmer Earth.
Why can’t it be : “Congratulations children, The Energy sources that fuel our economies and our prosperity, give us long life and comfort, these fossil fuels will also cause our planet to warm gently, about 4 degrees over the next century. What luck!
With the warmth and extra CO2 for plant life, millions of acres of tundra will become forests. Millions of acres of frozen steppe will become arable. Starvation will end. Prosperity will reach even the poorest people. We must keep searching for and burning oil and coal so we can improve our climate and prosper. Humanity will become wealthy. With this wealth we can preserve habitat for animals, protect the rain forest. We will clean the oceans and the land. Our future is bright. We are entering the age of abundance. “
The Earth is not warming of late though. Too bad.
"Scientific American", a once great institution, is now just another hack leftist web site. There appears to be almost nothing "scientific" about this article or even about SA itself any longer. Just more leftist blatering and more attempts at dividing people into classes based on skin color and gender and then attacking unfavored classes. BTW, what on earth is the relevance of one's gender and skin color to whether a scientific THEORY may be correct or not? Did it matter to the ultimate truth whether it was conservative white males supporting or opposing the prevaling theories demolished by Copernicus, Galileo, Pasteur, Lister, Priestley, Alfred Wegener, Bessemer, and a whole slew of others?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAndf, BTW, AGW is just a theory. And a not very well supported theory at that. Why doesn't SA devote a whole issue to the various evidence and measurements that support and detract from the that theory? And to make the comparison truly objective SA could select two groups of editors responsible for their respective parts: one group from the pro-AGW camp and one group from the anti-AGW camp? In fact, let the two groups propose their own sets of editors. Of course, SA would never do anything like that, because SA isn't about science and it isn't about free discussion of ideas and theories; SA has now simply become a leftist hack tool promoting whatever crackpot "science" is being promoted by the leftists de jure.
Why is it that leftist love the anthropogenic aspect of GW. The lack of SCIENTIFIC evidence is undeniable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere's some Right wing political thought:
1)CO2 is a naturally occuring trace gas essential to all life on Earth.
2) CO2 exists at a .000360 constituant portion of our atmosphere(360ppm).
3) The Earth has been warming since the end of the Little Ice Age about 250 years.
4)The Earth has been warmer and humanity flourished. The Medievel Warm Period.
5) Plants grow markedly better with increased CO2 content.
6)Man made CO2 comprises about 10 percent of the earth's entire CO2 "inventory".
7) The Earths oceans are alkaline.
8) Al Gore found it necessary to lie about CO2 & temperature correlations in his "documentary".
Stephen Henry Schneider Nobel Laureate, founder and editor of the journal Climatic Change Professor of Environmental Biology and Global Change at Stanford University, a Co-Director at the Center for Environment Science and Policy of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and a Senior Fellow in the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this“On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but — which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we'd like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This 'double ethical bind' we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both”. (Quoted in Discover, pp. 45–48, Oct. 1989.
…and you wonder why us white males don’t always listen to the “smart guys”…
It's articles like this which tarnish the entire concept of science. Just admit the obvious, that there's debate and room for skepticism, you know, like science demands you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMost of the AGW fearmongers I come across in real life are usually less well educated than myself. Since we've opened the door to identity politics, they do tend to be younger, less likely to be white and are universally lacking in any overall scientific education. Does this mean white males are smarter? If I thought like the writer of this article, I'd have to say yes.
The term "Climate Change Denier" is, as intended, a pejorative insult. Attacking the messenger helps one deny the message. Who's doing the denying here? I like the pejorative "Useful Idiot" myself. You lefties should know that one. It's been around a lot longer than "Climate Change Denier". I'm not sure how old it is, as I don't read much of Marx, Lenin or Alinsky.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDude, President Bush went to Harvard and Yale. He has a AB in History and a Masters in Business Administration. Check the facts before you make an idiot of yourself. In fact, all liberals need to follow this sage advice.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAGW is a theory - at best. Most people are willing to acknowledge that the earth is getting warmer, just not the part that says that humans are responsible.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe scientific (Hypothesis, assumptions, results) method has yet to be applied to it - in the sense that no one has independently reproduced results because the data used has never been made available. Even the folks at East Anglia (home of AGW research) agree with this as they have lost the raw data that all their work is based upon.
The computer model in current use is unable to correctly model what happened in the documented past, but we're expected to believe that it can successfully model the future. The model fails to take into account the impact of Solar radiation - and CERN (http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/Spotlight/SpotlightCloud-en.html) has recently shown that there is a huge impact on cloud formation by cosmic rays.
The other question that isn't being answered is "What is the optimal temperature?". If getting warmer is bad, and we're going to try to "cool" the earth - what is the temperature that we need to cool it to?
Interesting thought, but on what are you basing it? Just because it might be a superior position for human to be in doesn't mean it will happen. The intelligent "middle" aren't procreating while the highly religious and poor, Catholic and Muslim, multiply like rabbits and are more apt to fight than the "middle". So just why do you believe the middle will triumph? Evolutionarily?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am a conservative white male, a Ph.D. scientist, and one who thinks that man-made global warming is total bunk. We have Al Gore now trying to experimentally prove the warming effects of CO2, all the while flying around in a Gulfstream and living the good life afforded him by his ability to pay for massive amounts of energy. Then there is the Michael Mann and Phil Jones debacle that was investigated and should have concluded in dismissals, but resulted in a slight slap on the wrist along with a wink and a nod. The whole global warming issue has become politicized where if someone is a "non believer" then that person is "one of them" and likely a dullard with perhaps a bit of drool. Mr. Gore should review the scientific method before declaring that the issue is settled.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"It has to do with their identity as an in-group," he said. "Something that would challenge the status quo is something [conservative white males] want to shun."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAmazing, look at the science... how they make snap decisions about the motivations of others without data or reasons to back it up.
But it's understandable. It's just because scientists who support global warming either are fascist control freaks who want everyone to fall into a cookie-cutter mold; or they're bed-wetting panty-waists who can't manage to deal with the concept that someone disagrees with them... it hurts their little feelings.
What? Oh, it's only acceptable to make sweeping insulting statements about the motivation of a large group of others without evidence when you guys do it?
Why is that again? I'm not sure I understand the scientific method as it applies to insulting evidence-free sweeping generalizations. Can someone point me to some recommended reading on this topic?
I took Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics courses in college; I guess I missed the "sweeping generalizations without data" course... what heading was that one under?
The Liberal/Marxist comments (including this insane article) is so typical of a radical left wing paper. When threatened by sensible, intelligent people, the left will always try to discredit them anyway they can. It does go against all the rules of honesty and newsworthy print. They are grasping at straws now because they know they are failing, and their lies are being exposed. They do not care about the facts –for example the emails by the UN Climate Pushers themselves that reveal the fraud they have been pushing for political reasons; that ‘EVERY prediction the Marxist/Climate pusher have made as failed to happen; and, that Al Gores film was proven in a court of law to be nothing by lies. Yet it is the smart white guy that is deluded. – As for Obama being smart, there is no proof of that. No school records have been released; the fact that he did not even write his own books has been reveled; and, he is so inarticulate that he cannot even talk to grade school children with out a teleprompter.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisExactly, look at the partisan breakdown by education level.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://dabacon.org/pontiff/?p=539
There's a graph, clarifying where the data came from, how it is organized, and you'll see the "didn't graduate HS" Democrats have 48.8% of that, compared to 19.4% for Republicans.
Which shows liberals are the most intelligent group out there... or maybe it just shows you didn't bother to do any research before making a sweeping evidence free and inaccurate comment.
Liberals: if someone thinks they're the smartest person in the room, makes a generic statement of fact with no data, and expects everyone to agree with him without ever looking for evidence... don't be surprised if this person is a liberal.
Lot of silliness here. Consider:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this-AGW is not universally embraced because the models are flawed, incomplete, and proponents of the theory have been caught misbehaving...including .. losing data (some of which no doubt inconveniently contrary to the hypothesis proposed) that no doubt cost millions to gather. Many top scientists disagree. Scandals cause distrust. Real, solid, scientific consensus needs to be done.
-Supporters of the theory get rich off it, yet live in hypocritically. Think Al Gore's hundreds of millions and his high "carbon" lifestyle of jet planes, huge energy expenses..
-the solution for AGW is a BS scheme of "cap and trade" which most experts say will solve nothing, merely allows polluters to "buy" carbon pollution credits from those who already don't pollute or are updating systems. Conveniently, the gov't proposes to be the transactor of these trades and keeping a"piece" of the action for funding more liberal causes..
-Chinese gov't officials said the solution to AGW if it is real is to ...plant more trees! Cheap and easy! (Only Westerners could dream up something as silly as Cap and Trade in our grandest tradition of fighting ourselves first so those in the know profit before addressing the real problem)
-China and the 3rd world are building pollution capacity at a rapidly increasing rate. Whatever we do will be ineffective.
Considering the amount of money, science and politics above what thinking man would not be skeptical? Responsibly so? If you are not skeptical, you are probably participating in consensus group think. Group think is not good for science and in fact is not science.
This from commenter "James Davis": "CO1 (carbon monoxide, caused by burning fossil fuel) is man made and man will take care of it and the dark particles in CO1 is what is causing global warming."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYea, Jimbo and I'm the stupid one.
Bush's educational background lists degrees from Harvard and Yale. His transcripts and SAT scores show him scoring higher than both Al Gore and John Kerry. Since Obama has not disclosed his school records, we have only heresay and innuendo to know how bright he is. He is very articulate when reading a script which enhances the impression that he is intelligent. Considering his inability to speak his own impromptu words and reliance on other people's writings off a teleprompter, I would suspect he is not as bright as advertised.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would posit that conservative white males of the same educational background as liberal white males is about the same. Rehashing the old "Bush is dumb" mantra debunked years ago shows that liberals still don't read anything they don't agree with.
It's really sad that a once great magazine would print such an obvious piece of left wing propaganda. Calling skeptics "deniers" and conflating climate change, which everyone agrees happens all the time, and AGW are telltale signs that this article is not about facts or reasoned analysis.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI used to subscribe to Scientific American, but it has lost all credibility because of articles like this one. I hope one day it will return to being the excellent magazine it once was.
Howdy justanobody,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFirst, I think that it is the rational path to human survival in the long term, given that we already have the ability to completely destroy ourselves.
Second, it is just my hope for the future.
There is so much conflict, on large and small scales, that many Americans see life as one big battle that must be won at any cost. There is a new blog post about unscientific nations which relates that in the future we need to make policy based on rational and scientific thinking. Such a model would eliminate the far extremes of politics and focus on what really is good for the planet as a whole, and for individuals.
The article we are commenting on now, in addition to the unscientific nation article, doesn't hide the fact that religion also keeps people from thinking clearly. If we are to survive and evolve as we have been, it just seems logical that we will become more alike in our global outlook. Ants are a good example. They all function for the good of the colony.
The alternative of increased conflict in beliefs doesn't predict a very pleasant, or successful, future.
Cheers!
All you Bushies out there, please read "House of Bush, House of Saad" to get a real idea of Dubya. Also, Bush thinks that climate change is real and based on science, even though he doesn't believe in evolution.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisClinton was the last truly intelligent president. The present, and forseeable future, of our predidency is a black hole of intelligence.
Clinton wasn't smart enough to get a motel room. Bush is gone a long time now. Obama, the class warfare, race baiter is in now. He wants to "fundamentally change this country", despite that the USA is fundamentally OK. One highly educated progressive on this feed thinks the "PRC" is superior to the USA. Some education he received.I hope he paid his student loans.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll you liberal/progressives should start to "Walk the Walk".If it's powered by fossil fuels, you need to stop using it now. Come on, prove to us conservative whites that you are not threatened by a change to the status quo. Talk is cheap, blogging is cheaper.
When you refer to "Climate deniers" it is clear that you do not have either a) the scientific facts to support your argument, or b) you do not understand the scientific evidence for climate change, or c) both (a) and (b) apply to you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is insulting to apply derogatory terminology to those who are not of the same persuasion as yourself and does you and your argument no credit.
Only facts count.
I also will not be renewing by subscription - this after having been a subscriber for 41 years. If I cannot rely on unbiased reporting regarding issues with which I have some familiarity, how can I rely on the rest of the magazine's articles.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis "study" seems more like propoganda to stir up more hate between class, race, gender, whatever... It is not productive or scientific. None of this will solve any of the many issues we all face. Let's all dig our heads out of the gutter and act like neighbors and scholars. Act like someone your grandchildren will look up to and respect, because if we allow the media and political parties to continue dragging us into pointless fighting the odds of our grandchildren even existed is greatly reduced. I see the biggest issue of all being the ego. Humble yourself and your eyes will see beyond your nose. Enough of the BS!!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree my friend. This proves to be less than "Scientific" and very very very far from "American" Change the site name please, before the rest of the world sees this as a depiction of MY country.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust perhaps, SciAm should note..
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"NSIDC acknowledges that multi-year Arctic sea ice has been increasing since 2008. Cryosphere Today acknowledges that Antarctic sea ice has been increasing for 30 years. Rutgers Global Snow Lab acknowledges that winter snow is increasing. Trenberth can't find the missing heat. ENSO (SOI) has gone negative. US hurricane strikes are at historically low levels. ACE (accumulated cyclone energy) is at historically low levels. Severe tornadoes are on the decline" http://www.real-science.com/faithful-tested
On top of that we now have la Nina conditions that are likely to continue for another 6 months. So there will be no warming for at least a year. By then the trend line of actual temperature will be miles below predicted temperatures. There is no way that warming can suddenly re-start and bring actual trends up to predicted in less than 30-40 years - if ever. As we are seem to be heading for a period of reduced sunspots, cooling is the most likely option. And, for sure it will be bad. www.bryanleyland.co.nz
AGW is dead. Why do otherwise rational people still believe in it?
"...win a science argument..." That's the entire problem. Science arguments are settled by the scientific method - not by someone's liberal or conservative mindset. The science of climate change has been settled; now it's only the denial of that result that looms over the topic, and who do you think is promoting that denial?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell, if you're conservative, as an early commenter pointed out, perhaps it's the use of statistical analyses that you have manipulated to support your faulty belief.
If you're a polluting corporation, you deny climate change. If your employer is a polluting corporation who's told you that you will lose your job to climate change, you're a denier. Everyone else has NO direct reason to dispute the science.
Ad infinitum we have idiots telling us that higher levels of CO2 existed that we didn't cause, so climate change is wrong. To them there is absolutely no difference between natural CO2 and man-made CO2. There is no difference between the onset that takes hundreds of years to build up, or one that is forced out in a few decades.
Humans are adaptable; they can live in a climate ravaged world. And that is the conservative position - cons will produce the new food, housing, and unforeseen items that humans will eventually need. Because, yes, deny it all you want, climate change is real, and the needs are coming.
One unrelated thing - there is absolutely NO comparison between Bush's occasional attendance at Ivy League schools and Obama's mastery displayed there. For you to think otherwise shows how pointless it is to achieve scientific consensus.
The Gaul:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"If you're a polluting corporation, you deny climate change. If your employer is a polluting corporation who's told you that you will lose your job to climate change, you're a denier. "
Likewise if you work for a company into carbon trading, or renewable energy, or employed by a University that gets huge grants for studying AGW, or work for a government who has bought into the myth, you get told to espouse dangerous man-made global warming or lose your job. And there is heaps more of these people.
The climate changes naturally and the world is probably cooling. That's what the science tells us.
As a card carrying Liberal (I'm Canadian so that's possible) my comment is to decry the tone of this discussion - in the past I have never found that those that shout the loudest or hurl the most insults have the best insights - instead some quiet reasoning goes a long way. The word "denier" is intimately associated in our minds with the word "holocaust" and is immediately resented - just as "strident female" has been banned so should "denier" - let's agree on "sceptic" and move on.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe fact is that Bush graduated with an MBA from Harvard and recieved better grades than Obama. Not only that, but Obama has been a failure at everything he has tried to do as President.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisProgressives seek to use the government to solve problems. There solution for the "problem" of Global Warming requires that the government control almost every facet of our lives. It can't be done under the limitations imposed by the constitution.
They ignore these limitations imposed by considering the constitution a living document and interpreting it to not obstruct their goals. This philosophy will allow fascism to develop in our country. Just look what no limits on the power of government led to in Nazi Germany, and the Communist countries.
They seek to use the power of government for good, but in so doing they will do great evil.
Don't worry chicken little. There is always GLobal Cooling to counterbalance the Global Warming.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet's cut to the chase: deniers deny science itself, and that's simply irrational. Oh science is fine when it helps them make more money or helps them get well in the hospital, but when it undermines their politics, it's wrong. Being irrational is common among conservatives. Religious fundamentalism is by definition irrational - your concept of reality isn't based on reality itself, but on belief, which is based on...the beliefs of others (revealed truth). Sound familiar? It's confirmation bias plain and simple - something scientists are trained to avoid. Scientists tend to be liberals - why? Because liberals are rational, educated, open to new ideas, and less motivated by money. Saying conservatives are uneducated isn't the same thing as saying they're stupid, though to read many of posts 1-10 you might be inclined to think they are!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHave any of you deniers ever considered the fact that you think you know more about climate than the scientists, in spite of not being one yourself? The only way that is logically possible is if science itself has no intrinsic value to you as a way of understanding the world. And the U.S. is falling behind because our kids don't want to be scientists and engineers - the people who built our modern economy.
The real skeptics are the science community - that's why your argument doesn't work. Scientists have made a science of skepticism. People who disagree with evidence and rational science we call deniers because they deny the obvious.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJed Davis is a complete MORON! Talk about generalizing. I have two bachelors in science fields, two business masters, applied stats national certification, as well as owning a company and being a strategy consultant to Fortune 100 companies I am very moderate conservative (socially liberal) and can honestly say I have witnessed NO greater breadth of understanding by either end of the political spectrum. However, I have witnessed more unfounded arrogance by liberals that are clueless about real world economics.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs for global warming - yes, I do believe in main body of work however I am highly sympathetic to the notion that our Sun and its cycles maybe playing just as big of a role. BTW - I understand CERN is taking the possibility seriously and studying it now. In reality both are likely factors and arrogant bigotry will not help matters.
Let's at least get all of the facts straight: in photosynthesis, CO2 is not split up; both the carbon and oxygen are incorporated into carbohydrates. The oxygen released comes from water.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor those proclaiming the benefits of increased CO2, note that carbon is rarely the limiting factor in plant growth (look to phosphorus and nitrogen, the main ingredients in fertilizer). Plants have so little worry about the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere that the plant enzyme that uses CO2 in photosynthesis is perhaps the least efficient enzyme out there.
Just another attempt by the left to categorize a group who doesn't believe in the leftist delusions. There are three reasons that "global warming and/or climate change" are being pushed by the left. The academics and 'think tanks' make money off of it; the public figures (AlGore..et al) make money of of it; the whole argument is being used by the "control freaks" to push their agenda of statism. "Climate change and/or global warming" are political fantacies to be used.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs an aside - Stop confusing the subject. Climates change all the time. Climate change is not the same as global warming - so, stop using the terms as if there are the same. If you want to talk about Global Warming - then talk about it. If you want to talk about climate change - then talk about it. Oh - a little factoid for you - the climate has been changing for billions of years.
As far as Bush is concerned - we know his college(s) record(s). We don't know Obama's - never released.
Yes - I am a conservative, white male with two engineering degrees and am a Registered Engineer. I also wrote and used atmospheric models. So, spare me the 'lame' sophistry of this articles premise - that conservative white males are clueless and uneducated. I'll match 'wits' with you anytime and anywhere.
It does not matter if CO2 is a naturally occurring gas or that it is found in such a small percentage of the atmosphere. If you breathe it in high enough concentration (significantly above levels found now), then CO2 could kill you. We do know that its level has changed significantly since the start of the Industrial Revolution, and basic chemistry can show you where much of that CO2 comes from.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut what does matter is that we have the facts straight.
Temperatures now are well above all estimates of the Medieval Warm Period, and they continue to rise.
White males mistrust the government more than other groups because white males feel any action the government takes is more likely to hurt them than any other group.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe government creates winners and losers. With Affirmative Action, working class white males consider themselves the losers. When white males hear "Global Warming," the question arises, "What will the government take from me now?" With Bob Dole behind it, they are sure the answer is, "Plenty!"
East Coast Liberals living in an area with good public transportation want others to give up private transportation. Such simply causes resentment.
Those facts have been left out of the equation.
In reality, conservative white males are aware of global warming. They realize what is going on. They are not about to go along with a carbon tax. They are not about to give up their cars and walk. They are not about to tell some some stupid liberal pollster the truth about what they know. They will lie in order to keep their cars. They will lie to keep their taxes low.
The first reply compares Obama's totally unreported education...what, where, grades, wrote what? with George Bush...Grades are posted B.S. and M.B.A., smart enough to fly fighter planes...Give me a break!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe reason white males are suspect of global warming is because white males are smarter...earned their grades, earned their livings, more are engineers and businessmen...as there was no EEO to help them get ahead without qualifications and such.
Also, not as many are psychologists, sociologists, and other pseudo science types.
Not PC, but this old engineer has a good nose for B.S. when it appears.
Gaul and dling, real scientists are the skeptics. That is why Spencer, McIntyre, etc. wanted to see if they could recreate the alarmist conclusions of Jones and Mann. Incredibly, the "original data was lost."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFortuneately, real scientists are finding that the alarmist conclusions of Jones and Mann do not adhere to real life observations, indicating that some of the assumptions are incorrect. When Jones said he was disappointed that they were unable to explain the lack of global warming since 1995, it was clear the science wasn't "settled" and that other variables needed to be accounted for. The anti-science liberal white male needs to believe in the tainted models to further the progressive agenda and deny the science that opposes that view.
The conservitive white male that believes the earth has been warming but doesn't attibute as large a part of it to mankind and does not believe in the doomsday scenario proposed by Gore, prefers to have more replicable study that actually follows measureable real-time observations.
Remember, the liberal white males that followed Erlich's Population Bomb theory believed Britain would be a frozen rock by 2000 and millions per year would die of starvation due to man's inability to produce enough food (starvation is mainly caused by corrupt governments, not lack of the ability to produce food).
SciAm - you are showing some bias with numerous articles researching and trying to explain why conservatives think a certain way. Ask yourselves this: why do you ask why conservatives think one way, when it is an equally valid question to ask why liberals think one way. To assume that any particular mode of thought or any viewpoint is a default - call it a null hypothesis - shows a possible bias in your own way of approaching a research question.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisImprove your methodology and you might get better results. You might be seen as less biased. That might help you reach a wider audience. Right now, your research is at risk of setting up an "us vs them" reaction.
Ivtaxman, all science is founded on skepticism. Science does not, in fact, support your claims. You deny this, which is irrational, and which is why you are termed a "denier" rather than a skeptic. If you were serious about the science, you would rely, as the rest of us real scientists do, on tthe work of the National Academy of Sciences to summarize where the state of climate science really is. I dare you to educate yourself from valid, versus, political, sources. Get back to me when you've read the voluminous reports of our best scientists, and tell me what they really say.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDuring the Medieval Warm Period, Farmers grew grapes in britain. It's too cold there now. the Vikings colonized Greenland and had cattle and sheep there. They were driven away by the encroaching cold of the Little Ice Age. This is documented history. It is NOT warmer than that now. Sure, one can find graphs somewhere online that do not depict this. But those graphs are questionable The above two facts are not.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are absolutely right! An advanced law degree uniquely qualifies the commander-in-chief to understand all sciences, all scientific principles, and deep comprehension of all peer-reviewed papers. Not only that, a law degree endows all liberal thinkers with understanding of static and dynamic economic models.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would think that conservative white males are more likely to resist change in particular, therefore they are more likely to resist the climate change movement. Much like teaching grandpa how to use a cell-phone, he just knows better. That or conservative white males have a unique understanding of the Beers-Lambert Law.
Yes, it's a little shaky. Photosynthesis can basically be summed up as: 6 CO2 plus 6 H2O equals C6H12O6 (glucose) plus 6 O2. So as you can see the plant "sequesters" 6 oxygen atoms in the form of one glucose molecule. It doesn't just "sequester" carbon.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is fascinating. I'm going to save this as an amazing collection of stereotypes of white male conservatives. One thing is obvious, very few liberals who comment on Scientific American Websites have a clue about white male conservatives.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaybe the reason that white male conservatives are more likely to be CAGW deniers is because they are better educated. (For those of you who take this seriously, this is an attempt at humor.)
The whole question is absurd. The whole study is crazy. Did the authors of the study define what it means to be a white male conservative? I suppose it was self reported. If so the answer is that more white males that call themselves conservative are likely to deny CAGW.
I can't believe I'm even taking the time to respond to this garbage. It is particularly troubling that SA would find such a study worth reporting. It did get my attention. Wow!
Did it dawn on you that the President would not consider himself a liberal white male?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou're really good at beating up straw men!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't suppose you've noticed the hundreds of millions killed in imperialist (capitalist) world wars, oil wars, and US-propped death squad governments in Latin America, Asia and Africa (all very friendly to US corporations)? Why don't you subject capitalism to the same human rights acid test?
But we "liberals" aren't the straw men you're so good at attacking. We are just normal people, a little bit like you, with conservative views on some things and liberal views on others. The simplistic black and white world you see --and the simple-mindedness you accuse liberals of using against you and truth-- doesn't exist. But billions of tons of fossilized carbon being reintroduced into the carbon cycle on earth's surface will undoubtedly hold more infrared radiation and warm the overall global climate.
I'm curious if you care that the oceans are being acidified due to fossil fuels, and that this threatens huge waves of extinction throughout marine environments? Those of us who care about the world we leave to our children and to their children --well, we care about climate change very much. Maybe not having a large investment portfolio steeped in existing technologies allows us a more honest view of all the costs and benefits to the energy choices our societies face.
And yes, there really is a society.
"Why Conservative White Males Are More Likely to Be Climate Skeptics"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBecause we can READ and we've been paying attention. Plus we can smell University Grant Money and Earmark away!!!
Global Warming is probably true. My hairspray being the culprit? Not so much. Cha - Ching!!!
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Quinn: If you've been reading and paying attention, why do you think that hairspray is accused of being a cause of AGW?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is true that aerosol propellants were proven to be one of many causes of the ozone depletion, not global warming, but even that is no longer true, since the propellants were all replaced with less harmful chemicals. As a result, the Antarctic ozone hole has stopped getting bigger just this year, for the first time since it was discovered. All that research and grant money paid off, and nobody believes that it is still a danger to the planet.
So all this reading you do, have you done any in the past 40 years?
I'm confused. I thought that the definition of a conservative is someone who holds onto traditional beliefs and values. So the fact that a conservative is reluctant to embrace a new and disruptive idea is surprising? It seems like all this article is finding is that conservative white males are more conservative than "all other adults" lumped together.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe article says: "Results showed, for instance, that 29.6 percent of conservative white males believe the effects of global warming will never happen, versus 7.4 percent of other adults."
I strongly question this statistic for "all other adults." It includes women of all races and both liberal and conservative men of all non-white races. What is the breakdown for non-white conservative men? What is the breakdown for liberal white men. Without these numbers I don't see how any conclusions at all can be drawn. It is even worse considering that the "all other adults" includes women, and the statistics show that there is a large difference between conservative men and conservative women. It all comes down to the breakdown of the groups in the "all other adults" category, which the article claims is lumped together because the sample size was too low. That is not an excuse for drawing controversial conclusions on insufficient data.
By the way, I identify as a liberal, and I do believe that AGW is happening, but I don't put much credence in this research. Based on the description in this SciAm article, the "Cool Dudes" paper looks biased.
This is my first or second issue of Scientific American since on a whim I e-subscribed to it a month or so ago.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is nothing particularly scientific about this piece. The whole premise of the study is questionable as are the conclusions.
This article should not have been afforded the prestige of publication in Scientific American. Or Scientific American is not the publication ir was when I read it more regularly in the 80's and 90's.
I'm a conservative white male (teas partier, racist, terrorist, and all the other garbage labels regressives use to exclude us) who has over 300 hours from Texas A&M, Baylor, and OU. I read over a hundred political and scientifec blogs and articles daily. The AGW people can't write an article without may, could, might, possible, etc. After the claim that 50,000,000 people would need to be resettled by 2010 failed famously the dates of the predictions jumped ahead to 2050 and weather events became "proof."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think the reason white male conservatives are deniers is that they link scientific results with possible actions. They do not like the possibility of changing their life style so they attack the conclusions. Also they are less likely to pursue unbiased information on the subject and rely instead on simplistic right wing propaganda.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"It has had a lot more CO2 in the past, hotter, far more than your dumb models predict, during human existence and guess what we all survived and it wasn't caused by us."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat?? Sounds like a bizarre, uninformed claim. Please provide your references.
If you would like to go back to the time of the dinosaurs when the coast lines were inundated then go ahead and bury your head and let change happen.
Sounds like another stereotype to me. Didn't you know that all conservative white males are a bunch of crypto-fascist racist reactionaries that almost never do anything but abuse women, foul the planet, cause wars and snore?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSeriously, since this is an identifiable group you're talking about isn't this cheap attempt at stigmatizing, marginalizing and dehumanizing the very kind of thing we're supposed to not be doing now? Wait until the hate speech people find about this! Wait a long time, too.
Besides, isn't this just an attempt to try to explain differences of opinion or a different interpretation of information as "something about" the people who hold them? Isn't it a way of saying "what can you expect" of members of an identifiable group, as in why are so many African-American men in prison?
In the latter case if you said it was "something about" African-American men you would instantly be hit with charges of racial or gender stereotyping, bigotry, insensitivity or at the very least ignorance. If you want real trouble try saying they’re “wired differently.” We’re only willing to consider some possibilities if it confirms our biases. I think the same is true here.
It's possible to plead academic freedom and say that it's a legitimate question. There's some merit to that. But as you can see from some of the other comments many people respond to this question by confirming the stereotype and assigning "faults" to conservative white men by suggesting they're deficient in some way.
Think about this, and ask yourself if there isn't bigotry toward conservative white men out there. And if you're wondering why I brought this up, what do you expect from a white guy, anyway. Someone's got to stand up for us. As for the conservative part, I'm a 50-year member of the ACLU last year. Maybe I just don’t like prejudice against my ethnicity and gender.
These comments are really sad and illustrate the problem with our social and political system.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe first few comments were inflammatory, but do we all have to stoop to idiocy in this "discussion"? I agree this is a questionable article. It is meaningless considering the sample size, and it doesn't belong in Scientific American. Without civility we all look like fools, and not very nice ones. We can disagree without insulting each other.
A house divided will not stand
Me, I like to argue on a tautology platform, because it saves me lots of intellectual (and typing) effort.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. Conservatives males deny climate change. That's because ...
2. If someone doesn't deny climate change, he's not conservative.
Easy! After all, what are 'conservatives' if not recalcitrant skeptics? And that's not necessarily a bad thing. :D
This article does NOT represent us liberal/progressives. It's an embarrassing display of sexism and racism.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerhaps trash-talking The Other are not too useful. Argue the Science. If the data has been fiddled with there will be problems with replication. Then we proceed to other levels of testing. At least we should be able to agree that personal attacks lack utility in testing the science. And if we have have such flagrant disregard of the data and methodology why do we bother with this magazine?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"...Braman says a similar effect reveals itself amongst progressives when it comes to concerns about nuclear power, for instance. In the Yale Law School 'Second National Risk & Culture Study' researchers found that despite expert opinions espousing the relative safety of certain forms of nuclear energy, progressives are still concerned about it..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPhony, sleight of hand false equivalency right there.
Nuclear meltdowns are low probability events and are thus relatively rare. Progressives are concerned not with the frequency of such an event but the disastrous consequences when such events occur (same as with oil spills, mine explosions, financial metldowns and yes, global warming).
And rightly so, when you consider that the single thing that could alleviate the human and social cost of those consequences, making them 'relatively safer' - effective regulatory oversight - is the very thing that "The Industry" will speciously claim is killing their 'bottom line' and 'jaaabs' (jobs). When corporations accept regulatory oversight without attempting to demonize, undermine or capture it, you'll find progressives a lot more receptive to the idea nuclear power(then all we'll need to iron out is the outlandish government subsidies they receive).
If a too big to fail banks is too big to exist, then a too expensive to regulate nuclear power plants is too dangerous to build.
I think it is just willfull ignorance.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this“The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody has decided not to see.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
I am a Ph.D. materials physicist who daily uses many forms of radiation to analyze materials including IR, UV, and light. I have taken an interest for years in the hypothesis that man's use of fossil fuels is causing or will cause catastrophic global warming or other events that will increase human suffering. The usual simple Trenberth energy budget model of warming by man-made IR-absorbing gases is simply bad physics. The General Circulation Models of the computer models incorporate only effects thought to be understood well, ignoring many effects not well-understood. Interestingly, many of the effects incorporated have errors half the size of the supposed effect. Because the effects are complex and many, these errors mount up badly. Different models differ by factors of 3 or more and the same model run twice gives different results. There seem to be some biases built into many of the models, perhaps because funding tends to increase if the size of the effect increases. It is clear that there is no real consensus on the science in these models. To get a significant warming out of them, it has to be posited that there is a large positive feedback from increased water vapor, but many studies are now finding negative feedback instead. Increased water vapor probably causes net cooling, consistent with an analysis I posted and published years ago.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut then what would I know because I am just an uneducated Know Nothing according to the global warming fanatics. So are Prof. William Happer, Prof. Freeman Dyson, Prof. Richard Lindzen, Prof. Patrick Michaels, and many other scientists unconvinced of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. We just want scientific proof of the hypothesis and we are still waiting for it. We are not impressed by the shouting of the maddening crowds. Some of us take science and the scientific method seriously. I wish Scientific American was itself more thoughtful about this issue.
Actually, the average Republican is very slightly better educated than the average Democrat. Yes, more Democrats have stayed at universities longer and been more indoctrinated into socialist beliefs while within the Marxist infested ivied halls of academia, but Democrats also number many of the severely under-educated. Democrat policies often reflect that need to appeal to the severely under-educated. I give you their love of hurtful minimum wage laws, green energy mandates, their early support for the ethanol mandate, and their effort to kill the coal industry. Republicans tend to get out into the real world where they have to learn skills and acquire knowledge useful in making goods and services that individuals are objectively willing to pay for voluntarily in the private sector. Many studies have shown that college education adds little to a person's knowledge, while developing as a professional adds much more knowledge. Republicans get a fair bit of formal academic education and then really go at in the real world to learn much more as professionals.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisProgressive Elitism is not very becoming. You do not look very good when you look down your nose at perfectly decent people.
Although there could be some truth to this, nevertheless it's a generalization that have shaky foundations. Today thousands of papers are generated that are no little more than hot air. I am a long time reader of Scientific American and I have to say that this publication used to be more rigorous in its assertions providing sound evidence. I am no white male nor conservative but I am a confident individual, and I see no fault in that. I severely distrust climate change because it is based in flawed computer models who don't have a chance to be fitted to reality. I think Liberals have a tendency to digest this nonsense because it is the result of a "scientific" mob, who are credited on the sole basis that they form a majority who occupy high places. They seem to be oblivious to the data-twisting and outright intellectual dishonesty in their so called "papers" Any deviation from the dogma is viewed as heresy and must be shut down, reviled and ridiculed, like the proceedings of the Spanish Inquisition. Conservatives, on the other hand and despite all their flaws, are distrusting of mobs who claim absolute certainty in so complex areas as global climate and are more concerned by independent, critical thinking and "hard data".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this