Bridging the Partisan Divide Over Climate Change: Messenger is as Important as the Message

In the United States, fewer than one-third of Republicans believe that climate change is driven significantly by burning fossil fuels. This despite unprecedented worldwide scientific consensus that it is. Over 13,000 peer reviewed scientific papers affirm it. Twenty-four deny it. Yet the Republican “disbelief” persists in part because of ideological bubbles that, according to analysis by the Marquette Law School, are deeper and more geographically based than ever before. More and more Americans are living in politically one-sided counties, with 51% of voters in the 2012 presidential race living in a county that was “partisan” – or 10 points redder or bluer than the U.S. as a whole. One in five lived in a county that was “extreme” – or 20 points redder or bluer than the country.

With mainstream media contracting, opinion media exploding and the Internet increasingly giving us only what we want to hear, ideological bubbles are becoming more isolated and insulated than ever. Dan Kahan at Yale has discovered that these bubbles – the values and groups that hold them – have a greater impact on our perception of certain issues than scientific understanding. In fact, the more individuals become scientifically literate, the more they tend to use that information to confirm the view of their group. So the more conservative and more knowledgeable you are about climate change, the less convinced you will be that it is a problem.

Countless scientific studies confirm people rely on those they trust. And conversely, they reject information coming from those they do not. To bridge the partisan divide, and break the ideological barriers to climate science, trusted leaders within conservative circles must engage and speak out. The conservative leaders I work with have transcended their ideological boundaries, understand the science largely because they have learned from people they trust, recognize the risk and have identified solutions that protect their conservative values.