Most Tea Partiers think warming is “just not happening”
Most Tea Partiers think warming is “just not happening”
How many Tea Partiers does it take to swap out an incandescent lightbulb?
Nine percent of them. The rest don’t believe in energy-efficient alternatives because they haven’t figured out that humans are warming the globe. (Also, they’re pissed about FASCIST GOVERNMENT PLOTS to control their sources of illumination.)
A Pew Research Center poll of 1,504 American adults last month found that about two-thirds of Americans understand that the climate is changing. That figure has been more-or-less unchanged during the last few years of Pew polling on the subject.
More Democrats than Republicans are clued in to the reality of climate change — 84 percent of Democrats agreed that there is “solid evidence the Earth is warming,” compared with 61 percent of Republicans. But within the Republican Party, there’s about as much agreement over climate science as there was over the Tea Party-fueled federal government shutdown.
Pew Research Center
Just 25 percent of people who identify as members of the Tea Party accept that the weather is changing — and most of those thinks it’s because of “natural patterns.” From the summary of the survey results:
Among the 26% of the public who say there is no solid evidence of global warming, about as many say “it’s just not happening” (13%) as say “we just don’t know enough yet about whether the earth is getting warmer” (12%).
Opinions of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents divide into four roughly equal size groups: 23% say there is solid evidence of global warming and it is mostly caused by human activity; 19% say warming exists but is due to natural patterns; 25% see no solid evidence and say it is just not happening; 20% say there is no solid evidence but not enough is known yet.
Among Tea Party Republicans, the largest share — 41% — says that global warming is just not happening, while another 28% say not enough is known. Among non-Tea Party Republicans, just 13% say global warming is not happening and among Democrats and Democratic leaners, just 4% express this view.
Let’s see if the Tea Partiers start seeing the folly of their ways as climate change dries up the world’s tea crop.
Source
GOP Deeply Divided Over Climate Change, Pew Research Center
John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.
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