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Sociology

The growing climate divide

Nature Climate Change volume 1, pages 195–196 (2011)Cite this article

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Climate change has reached the level of a 'scientific consensus', but is not yet a 'social consensus'. New analysis highlights that a growing divide between liberals and conservatives in the American public is a major obstacle to achieving this end.

One need only watch the debates in Washington DC over the regulation of greenhouse gases to see that climate change has become a politically charged and partisan issue. The most recent vote to ban the US Environmental Protection Agency from regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant (the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011) passed the House of Representatives by a margin of 255 to 172, with the divide falling along party lines. Every Republican supported the measure, whereas all but 19 Democrats opposed it. Does this partisan divide extend beyond political leaders in the US to the general public? Writing in The Sociological Quarterly, Aaron McCright and Riley Dunlap1 show that the answer to this question is a definitive 'yes', and that the divide is widening.

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Figure 1: Changing beliefs about climate change in the US between 2001 and 2010.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Andrew J. Hoffman is the Holcim (US) Professor of Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan, with joint appointments in the Stephen M. Ross School of Business and the School of Natural Resources and Environment, 701 Tappan Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA,

    Andrew J. Hoffman

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  1. Andrew J. Hoffman
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Correspondence to Andrew J. Hoffman.

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Hoffman, A. The growing climate divide. Nature Clim Change 1, 195–196 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1144

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