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Belief in global warming appears to be fractured along gender lines, with more women than men accepting the scientific consensus on climate change, new research finds.
An analysis of eight years of data from Gallup's annual environmental poll found that greater numbers of women tend to believe the body of science on climate change and be concerned about how warming will affect the planet.
The study is the first to home in on the gender divide in climate change belief, according to author Aaron McCright, a sociologist at Michigan State University. His findings indicate that more women than men believe that global warming is happening now (59 percent to 54 percent) and that the warming is primarily caused by human activities (64 percent to 56 percent).
A greater percentage of women also reported that they believe global warming will threaten their way of life during their lifetime -- 37 percent to 28 percent.
Ed Maibach, director of George Mason University's Center of Excellence in Climate Change Communication Research, said that researchers likely haven't delved into these questions in the past because the gender gap wasn't "overwhelmingly large," so they focused instead on other factors -- like the split in climate change beliefs on political lines.
In light of the Michigan study findings, however, Maibach plans to give gender a second look.
"I will start paying more attention to gender differences in my research," he said.
More women among 'alarmed' and 'concerned'
Some of McCright's findings were consistent with those Maibach had unearthed in his own "Global Warming's Six Americas" polling work, which classifies the spectrum of concern and engagement on climate change issues into six camps ranging from "Alarmed" to "Dismissive."
In general, the two groups of Americans who are most likely to accept that global warming is happening now, and to understand that it is primarily caused by human activities -- called the "Alarmed" and the "Concerned" -- are composed of more women than men, he said. Meanwhile, men are more likely to be in the two groups least likely to accept that global warming is happening now and to believe that it is primarily caused by human activities.
Understanding how men and women view climate change could provide a window into how men and women incorporate such concerns into their daily lives and decisionmaking, according to McCright.
"Do they vote for different political candidates? Do they talk to their children differently about global warming?" McCright asked. What about how likely men or women may be to buy energy-efficient appliances and hybrid vehicles? he said.
Answers to these questions are few and far between. Although McCright didn't discuss it in his study, in at least the 2000 Gallup poll -- which probed on behavioral questions -- women were more likely than men to avoid products that harm the environment, try to use less water and reduce household energy use, he said.
Sex-linked, but still mysterious
Ultimately, McCright hopes to explore how climate beliefs are translated into action in future research. He also hopes to study if similar gendered climate change beliefs exist beyond U.S. borders.
"Of course, we know that how people think and what they believe are sometimes related to their behavior, but sometimes not," he said.
He found that the differences in what men and women believe on climate change could not be explained away by their societal roles; they were consistent regardless of whether the respondent was a homemaker, employed full-time or a parent, he found.
Maxwell Boykoff, an environmental studies professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, applauded the study but urged policymakers to be cautious about how heavily they weigh these findings. There is a "big bridge to cross" between women's saying they believe in climate change and exactly what policies they might support, he said.
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27 Comments
Add CommentI guess it is a matter of belief for some people, but to promote that approach as a science publication seems weird.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOh...so the less confidence a person has in their scientific understanding the more likely they are to buy into the hype. Interesting.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOnly women believe this article.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell SkepticalKen, it is just your sort of misreprentation of the facts, oversimplification, and poor logic skills that allows you to continue to deny what is pretty much undeniable by anyone looking at the facts and applying straightforward reasoning.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerhaps men are more eager to claim solid knowledge in an area they are actually more ignorant of then women. That is not the sort of confidence to be boastful of.
Great, now the evil commenters aren't just attacting scientists as greedy selfish money makings people contriving global warming to keep their jobs; now they are attacking women for beleiving the scientific evidence. You alienating everyone except those who agree with you. No women, -50% of the populationl; no scientists, -25% of the population. Sound familiar, can you say religious war... specifically, taliban intolerance!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEasy to explain -- women are smarter.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEasy to explain -- women are smarter.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat possible use could such a finding be? It is no more useful than measuring the difference between people with surnames beginning with A-L as opposed to M-Z.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLook around, no science needed to see that plants, vegetables and fruits are not a healthy looking as they were in the past.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBesides, smart has nothing to do with how many degrees a person has.
@Bops: "Look around, no science needed to see that plants, vegetables and fruits are not a healthy looking as they were in the past."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt almost appears as though you are being serious with this silly comment. I'll assume you do not mean that your purely subjective view of some local environment which may be experiencing a drought (as opposed to aread with are much more lush at this time because of theorized global warming effects increasing rainfall), leads you to believe that warming strictly means less plant growth. Troll?
Greedy is a personality trait. Sadly...it's also very common.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMen and women are equally as smart...they just think in different ways.
Well, tharriss, speaking of misrepresenting facts, roughly 50% of the population denies what you call undeniable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm still waiting for someone to explain why the Martian ice cap is in decline. Or since the glaciers in Norway have receded to the same levels where they were around 1000 years ago, why were they so low then?
My point was that I would like to see the link between confidence in one's own ability to understand science and one's belief in human activity as the main cause of global warming, without regard to gender.
Believing that science is so advanced that our understanding of climate change is complete and/or absolute is a far better example of poor logic skills than suggesting that the root of these "gender bias" statistics may have less to do with gender than with personal confidence.
Personally, I believe that the entire question of global warming is over-hyped on BOTH SIDES, mostly by people with agendas driven by something other than science.
The bottom line is that when compared to the life of the planet, the number of years we have been collecting data is quite tiny. The more sophisticated, complex data we collect now spans an even smaller time slice. Now we take this "mountain" of data and interpret it, and then try to pass off those interpretations as absolutes, or "proven scientific facts". Talk about oversimplification!
Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into a natural environment that causes instability, disorder, harm or discomfort to the ecosystem i.e. physical systems or living organisms.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes, I know that climate change and pollution (by mostly humans) means that something can be damaged so badly that it dies. We all need to help clean up the planet. Is that a silly problem you can not believe in?
The word aread is not really in the dictionary. Troll?..not sure which definition you mean. It's a fact, there is too much pollution. Not to see that truth is foolish. No disrespect to you, I know this is true.
This means that most women would be more effective at cleaning up the pollution problem.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou missed the point entirely. Your suggestion that "plants, vegetables and fruits are not a[s] healthy looking as they were in the past" as evidence of global warming is absurd in multiple ways. 1) Climate change can cause an increase or decrease in sunshine and rainfall in a region, which would have either a positive or negative effect on local plant life. 2) The change directly attributable to even the most extreme 'measures' of change would be unobservable in individual crop yields. 3) How could you remove your personal bias? 4) Switching your topic to pollution doesn't mislead me.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis entire discussion seems so silly in that even the very corrupt IPCC (mostly) dropped talking about global warming since the temperature of the earth started dropping after 1998. The most commonly used term is now “climate change.” This way whatever direction the much manipulated temperature recordings goes, members of the corrupt government and paid-off scientific establishment can blame carbon dioxide for the change. Maybe since most of the manipulators are men, men might better understand this whole man-caused (maybe that term is the problem with women) climate change fiasco is just a scam for leftists to obtain their dream of one-world government, huge increase in taxes (much more money for them to buy votes), and so these Marxists can control every phase of ours lives.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI will give just one example (of thousands) of why this whole climate change discussion is a scam. The Earth’s temperature has changed .7° C over 150 year period (this is what the whole climate change scam is all about) well over a 1000 times over the last 100,000 years. All but the last change was before the hugely expanded use of fossil fuels.
Well, that does it. I'm deleting this site from my bookmarks. Over the past couple of years it's just become one story like this after the next, and even all the good stories have to have some kind of 'LETS MAKE THIS INTERESTING' aspect to them. This kind of crap is not what science is about. Just looked around and found physicsworld.com, already that's a million times better. Peace out guys, and know that there are better resources if you're actually interested in the science and not someone's digested twists of what's controversial or provocative without actually presenting much science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's obvious, women, with their smaller brains, are more easily taken in by Hansen, Mann and their fellow "Bond Villains" with their nefarious scheme to create a world government and install Al Gore as the first Global Dictator. First evil scheme - a compulsory system of free basic healthcare for all global citizens. How wicked can you get?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYeah this is useless, and only adds to a discussion that is archaic at this point "Is global warming real?" I have no faith in humanity's ability to refrain from destruction at this point. We are a plague.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn other words: Study finds women more gullible than men. This has already been demonstrated as true with the timeless phrases "You're the only one who matters," "Yes, I will still love you in the morning," and the one women tell themselves: "I can change him."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is interesting, but overall it combines way too many gender identity and socialization issues with a hot button topic - a perfect breeding ground for misinformation and unnecessary comments. The issue of climate change is one thing, the issue that women express less confidence in their scientific knowledge is another. I hope, for posterity's sake, that the majority of these comments are in jest. Sadly, I really can't tell.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisathaedos...thanks for the link....just been exploring for an hour or so and i like it....not giving up on sciam though;-)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo, women are more likely to accept the concensus view. Another great scoop Scientfic American, keep up the good work.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOK.....if you people can't even believe your own eyes.....??? 50 years ago, we were surviving winters with -52F temperatures, and an average snowfall of 31ft.!! Last winter we barely had 3ft. Is that warming, or just my vivid imagination??? I don't believe it's ALL our fault, partly a natural solar cycle, but come on...7 BILLION people pump a lot of crap into the air!!! Our usable part of the atmosphere is only app. 7 mile high, and we have been contributing for about 200 years, you do the math!! This planet was not designed to support 7 BILLION humans!!! So , pooh-pooh and deny all you want. It just makes you look STOOPED, and it is getting WARMER!!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishinoon42...don't know where you live but 31ft of snow fall is alot(come to think of it , where in the world does it get -52)....other than that i agree with most of your statements...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNote that the first sentence:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Women More Likely Than Men to Believe the Science on Global Warming"
says something different than the second:
"More women than men accept the scientific consensus on climate change, new research finds"
The first implies that, following an assessment of the science, women are more likely to be persuaded that it, the science, is correct.
The second implies that women are more likely to concur with the consensus of the scientists who study climate change.
More SciAm sensationalism.
So sad.
Let's face it; most of the population, male and female, does not have enough expertise in science to make an accurate assessment of the science of climate change on their own. This article is interesting because it raises the question of if there are gender differences in our introspective ability to judge how well we know what we think we know. In other words, are men more likely than women to be sure they know something given the same amount of information, or lack thereof?
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