Climate Change Skeptics

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A report released by the Public Religion Research Institute in 2014 shows that more than one-quarter of American citizens are climate change skeptics. These skeptics deny that the planet’s climate is changing, despite the fact that the scientific community as a whole is as certain as it can be that global warming is very much a problem. In fact, the discussion in the scientific community is not whether climate change is occurring, but how much of an impact humans are having and how problematic any changes we are making will be. Despite this, as few as 42% of the population of the United Stated believe that the majority of scientists are in agreement on the basic facts about global warming (Leiserowitz et al., 2013). There are several reasons …show more content…

Why are people unable to see past their false ideas? And why are the majority of these deniers political conservatives? One study by McCright et al. looked at the influence different ways of framing anthropogenic climate change (ACC) affect the views of the general public. They found that although none of the four positive frames used showed any consistent effects, exposure to an ACC denial counter-frame significantly reduced participants’ belief in ACC, trust in climate scientists, awareness of the consequences of ACC, and support for reducing our country’s green house gas emissions. I believe this is a result of humans’ generally stronger reactions to negative stimuli and emotions than positive – in this case, we are more convinced by arguments against a topic than we are for it. There is also the issue of cognitive dissonance – the feeling of discomfort caused by two or more inconsistent thoughts or actions. Climate change prevention measures pose a threat to many things right-wing conservatives are in support of: free markets, private property rights, and, especially, industrial capitalism – an economic system which thrives off of the consumption of fossil fuels. Taking serious actions against climate change would require a complete overturn of how our economy, government, and the economies and governments of other nations are structured – it would, for all intents and purposes, bring an end to the free-trade market. Rather than confront that their economic view is an unfortunately large contributing factor to global warming, it is easier to deny the phenomenon altogether. This is why, for change to occur, our first steps must be to inform and persuade these global warming skeptics of the

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