Why It Is Hard to Convince the US Public of Climate Change

The primary reason that acceptance of climate change has been opposed in America, is that climate change is mainly caused by CO2 from fossil fuel burning, and is strongly opposed by those industries, which are the richest in America.  They have also been able to have their views dominate politicians and Republicans.  In addition, the views dominate a vast conservative media empire.  Automakers also favor highly profitable large and powerful vehicles, and have worked to maintain their numbers.

We can start with the two Koch brothers that own Koch Industries, an oil company.  They  jointly are worth $68 billion dollars, and jointly would be the world’s richest person.  They are strongly conservative and fund institutes that oppose global warming, as well as the Tea Party.  They both have Chemical Engineering degrees from MIT, and with the enormous scientific resources of oil exploration companies, probably have an excellent understanding of climate change.

US oil companies in general have yearly profits exceeding $150 billion dollars, and have lots of money for political influence.  The amount that individuals and industries can contribute to campaigns through Super PACS is now unlimited, and anonymous.  To get an idea of what is at stake financially, there are supposed to be about 1,000 billion barrels of easily obtained conventional oil available.  At $100 per barrel, this amounts to $100 trillion.  Non-conventional oil has been estimated to be possibly as much as triple this.  Compare this to the US GDP of $16 billion for scale.  Recently, people have started considering what would be the effect on fossil fuel industries if so much has to be left in the ground unused.

The last President and Vice President of the US, Bush and Cheney, were both Texas oilmen.  They stifled government funding of climate change research and muffled its conclusions in government studies.  This era is in danger of returning on the congressional side, since Lamar Smith (R-Texas), the new Chair of the House Science Committee, has been discussing criteria to limit NSF funding in the social sciences study of politics, and this may well be applied to climate science.  The criteria is to only fund research which is essential to the national interest.  The topics of teaching evolution and of teaching climate change are also coming up in the the Next Generation Science Standards for K-12 schools.

The real hope in this is the appearance of natural gas by fracking.  The companies are being bought up by the major oil companies.  At some point, as they are already pushing for its adoption to replace coal, they may be advertising its great potential to slow climate change, and provide jobs and tax revenue.

It is apparent that the Republican party has taken an enforced position that climate change is wrong or to be doubted.  This is partly by financial support from fossil fuel companies, and that fossil fuel jobs are well distributed across the country.

The role of the media companies can not be under emphasized.  Rupert Murdoch controls a vast newspaper and TV station empire, which is reflected in the uniformity of their daily emphasis of the same views, topics and catch phrases.  The American public is partly polarized by political parties, and subscribes to papers and watches TV channels that reflect their views.  In these outlets, the public is rarely exposed to the views of the opposite side, and is subject to a 24/7 list of commentators and guest “experts” that trumpet those views.   Rupert owns the Wall Street Journal, and it had for decades denied or ignored climate science.  It is hard to understand how subscribers could pay hefty subscription rates, and yet not get news that is crucial to the future of fossil fuel, alternate power, and natural disaster insurance industries.

Another problem is the long range conception of climate change, and the short range appreciation of overwhelming needs elsewhere.  National security, jobs, economic recovery, recovery from natural and man-made disasters, gun violence, and threatening weather, are all real problems for which immediate action is called for, while a response to climate change is really a multi-decadal problem of restructuring our energy industry and modes of energy consumption.

Even though a majority of the public believes in climate change and in working on a response to it, a mere majority or even a 92% demand for action, as in uniform background checks for gun purchases, does not master a political system built to thwart such action.  The supporters of mitigation and adaptation to climate change must be as persistent and active as opponents are.  In the end, science will triumph, since the truth cannot be averted.

About Dennis SILVERMAN

I am a retired Professor of Physics and Astronomy at U C Irvine. For two decades I have been active in learning about energy and the environment, and in reporting on those topics for a decade. For the last four years I have added science policy. Lately, I have been reporting on the Covid-19 pandemic of our times.
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