Cool dudes: The denial of climate change among conservative white males in the United States
Highlights
► Conservative white males are more likely than other Americans to report climate change denial. ► Conservative white males who self-report understanding global warming very well are even more likely. ► Climate change denial is an example of identity-protective cognition. ► System-justifying tendencies lead to climate change denial. ► Climate change denial increased from 2001 to 2010.
Introduction
High consequence risks such as human-induced climate change are central to the current age of advanced modernity (Beck, 2010a, Beck, 2010b, Giddens, 2009). Because of the mounting political and economic stakes of dealing with climate change, this global environmental problem has become extremely controversial in the US, and American efforts to deal with it have provoked a significant degree of denial—both of the reality of climate change and of its status as a problem deserving amelioration (Dunlap and McCright, 2010, Dunlap and McCright, 2011, McCright and Dunlap, 2010). A growing body of recent scholarship has analyzed the strategies, techniques, and effectiveness of fossil fuels (and other) industry organizations (e.g., Freudenburg et al., 2008, Lahsen, 2005, Layzer, 2007), conservative think tanks (e.g., Lahsen, 2005, McCright and Dunlap, 2000, McCright and Dunlap, 2003, Oreskes and Conway, 2008, Oreskes and Conway, 2010), contrarian scientists (e.g., Lahsen, 2008, McCright, 2007, McCright and Dunlap, 2003, Oreskes et al., 2008), and conservative Republican politicians (e.g., McCright and Dunlap, 2003, McCright and Dunlap, 2010, Oreskes and Conway, 2010) in promoting climate change denial in the United States.
Even casual observers of denialist activities likely notice an obvious pattern; with rare exceptions (e.g., Sallie Baliunas), the most prominent denialists are conservative white males.1 This is true for contrarian scientists (e.g., Patrick Michaels and Fred Singer), media pundits (e.g., Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck), think tank representatives (e.g., Joseph Bast and William O’Keefe), and politicians (e.g., Senator James Inhofe and Representative Joe Barton). Within the ranks of elites, climate change denialists are overwhelmingly conservative white males. Does a similar pattern exist in the American public?
A burgeoning body of literature on the social bases of climate change concern in the American public has emerged in recent years. Such studies have analyzed the direct effects of political ideology, race, and gender, typically finding that self-identified liberals2 (Hamilton, 2008, McCright, 2010, Wood and Vedlitz, 2007), non-whites (Malka et al., 2009, McCright, 2010, McCright and Dunlap, 2011, Wood and Vedlitz, 2007), and females (Brody et al., 2008, Hamilton, 2008, Leiserowitz, 2006, Malka et al., 2009, McCright, 2010, McCright and Dunlap, 2011, O’Connor et al., 1999) are more likely to express concern about global warming than are their conservative, white, and male counterparts, respectively. The analysis presented below is the first to (a) consider the intersection of political ideology, race, and gender and (b) explicitly examine climate change denial.
Specifically, our research question is this: Within the U.S. general public, are conservative white males more likely than other adults to espouse climate change denial? In answering this question, we engage two bodies of scholarship. We draw upon a recent theoretical argument in the risk perception literature—the identity-protective cognition thesis (Kahan et al., 2007)—that explains the “white male” effect, or the atypically high levels of technological and environmental risk acceptance among white males. We also draw upon recent work in political psychology on the system-justification tendencies of political conservatives (Jost et al., 2008), which lead them to defend the status quo and resist attempts to change it. We believe the integration of these two arguments—the latter about conservatives and the former about white males—provide theoretical justification for what we call the “conservative white male” effect.
Examining such a conservative white male effect with regard to climate change denial may help account, at least part, for the USA's intransigence in international climate policy. In the process, we extend recent climate change public opinion studies, especially those focusing on the impacts of political orientation (e.g., Dunlap and McCright, 2008, Hamilton, 2008, Hamilton, 2011, Hamilton and Keim, 2009, Malka et al., 2009, McCright and Dunlap, 2011) and gender differences (e.g., Brody et al., 2008, Hamilton, 2008, McCright, 2010). We also extend the risk perception literature on the white male effect, by offering a sociopolitical explanation of the denial of climate change, one of the most serious risks facing humanity.
Section snippets
Theoretical rationale: the white male effect, identity-protective cognition, and system-justification tendencies
Past research on perceptions of technological and environmental risks in the US has documented what has been termed the white male effect, whereby white males are found to be more accepting of a wide range of risks than are other adults. This pattern has been found in nationally representative samples of the U.S. public (Finucane et al., 2000, Flynn et al., 1994, Kahan et al., 2007, Kalof et al., 2002, Satterfield et al., 2004), in convenience samples in particular U.S. localities, such as
The study
Our data come from the Gallup Organization's annual environment poll, conducted each March in anticipation of Earth Day (April 22). The ten Gallup surveys covering 2001–2010 are based on telephone interviews with nationally representative samples of adults (age 18 years or older), ranging from 1000 to 1060, in the United States. For our multivariate statistical analyses, we combined the available data into pooled samples.5
Results and discussion
The top half of Table 2 reports the percents of conservative white males and all other adults espousing climate change denial views for each of our five indicators. Across the five items, significantly greater percentages of conservative white males than of all other American adults report denialist views. For instance, while 29.6% of conservative white males believe that the effects of global warming will never happen, only 7.4% of all other adults believe so. Also, 58.5% of conservative white
Conclusion
Integrating insights from Kahan et al.’s (2007) identity-protective cognition thesis and Jost et al., 2008, Feygina et al., 2010) empirical work on the strong system justification tendencies of conservatives, we argued that conservative white males would be more likely than other adults in the US to express climate change denial views. Further, risk perception scholars have found that white males who report atypically low environmental risk perceptions are more conservative than are other
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the Gallup Organization for making the data available for analysis; Tom Dietz, Joane Nagel, and Paul Slovic for their comments on an earlier draft; and the editors and reviewers for their constructive feedback and insights.
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