What Americans think about climate change, by political allegiance



RESEARCHERS at Yale University have been tracking American opinion on climate change for some years now and showing how it differs according to political allegiance. It has not previously looked at the opinions of respondents who identify with the Tea Party. Tea Partiers, unsurprisingly, tend not to believe in the phenomenon (the 53% who don't believe in global warming just outnumber the 52% who don't believe humans evolved from other animals) and are the most strongly opposed to all sorts of government action on the issue (yet quite keen, like majorities in all sorts of polling, on research into new energy sources). They also distinguish themselves in their assessment of their knowledgeability, with 30% considering themselves very well informed on the issue and a majority happy that it needs no more information on the subject. Where this certainty comes from the poll does not really reveal; when asked about possible sources of information on the subject, from television weathermen to scientists to the government, Tea Partiers were much more likely to react with strong distrust than any other group. However, they were not asked about blogs, and it is interesting that they were far more likely to say they knew about "Climategate", a massive release of e-mails by climate scientists that has been a staple of the blogosphere, than any other group.