NCSE – Current Poll Statistics on Politics and Climate Change
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/10/03
The National Center for Science Education reported on a new poll on climate change action and acceptance. Both relatively correlated facets of the same undergirding issue about respect for the climate science.
“A new poll on climate change action ‘shows that the political landscape among voters appears to be shifting,’ according to the Guardian (September 23, 2020). But when it comes to opinions about the existence and causes of climate change, which the poll also investigated (PDF), a wide partisan divide is still apparent,” NCSE reported.
If asked about climate change happening or not, 14% of the respondents were unsure; 14% of the respondents denied, answered in the negative; the final 72% affirmed or accepted climate change is happening. One important part was missing from this partitioning question.
The aspect of whether or not this is anthropogenic or human-induced was probably left out to see some of the nuances of the factual state of affairs in the minds of the public. That is to state indirectly, is the civilian non-professional public informed or not? In another analysis, this also measures the degree to which the public trusts scientists as a class, in particular climate scientists, and then the research coming out of the institutions and laboratories.
When asked the reason for climate change “happening” based on the ‘assumption’ of its happening, 59% of the respondents agreed it’s mostly due to the activities of human beings. 30% think that it’s due to natural changes in the environment, while another 12% are “not sure.” Human responsibility acceptance of the fact of anthropogenic climate change different from political identification to political identification.
87% of Republicans agreed on climate change happening. 60% of Independents and 38% of Democrats. So, 62% of Republicans, 40% of Independents, and 24% of Democrats are factually incorrect, scientifically misinformed, or in denial about the facts of human-induced climate change.
NCSE concluded, “The poll was conducted online on September 8-9, 2020, among 1517 registered voters in the United States. The sample was weighted based on census data for registered voters by age, gender, race, educational attainment, census region, and Hispanic ethnicity. The 95% credibility interval for the survey is +/ 2.6%.”
With files from the NCSE.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
In-Sight Publishing 