Conservative ideologies and coal mining dependence:
Mechanisms impacting trust in climate scientists and opposition to limits on carbon emissions
Research Problem
This research proposal seeks to further explore the effect personal political ideology and economic reliance on the coal mining industry has on participants’ trust in climate change scientists and opposition to limits on carbon dioxide emissions. Specifically, I seek to understand which factor (conservative political ideologies or employment stability in relation to coal mining economies) is the dominant factor leading to distrust in climate scientists and opposition to carbon regulations.
Hypothesis
I hypothesize that as the self-reported percentage of participants with conservative political ideologies increases and as the employment reliance on the coal mining industries increases, then distrust of climate scientists will increase due to the anti-reflexivity theory where conservatives distrust impact science in comparison to production science (McCright et al., 2013). The tendency for impact science to increase regulatory policies that could harm the coal mining industry is in opposition to politically conservative ideologies.
Alternatively, as the self-reported percentage of participants with conservative political ideologies increases and as employment reliance on the coal mining industries increases, then distrust of climate scientists will not change due to shifting economic and cultural attitudes about climate change and alternative energy economies. An increasing recognition by financial agencies that climate change will have significant economic impact (Litterman et al., 2020) indicates that shifting conservative economic institutions are acknowledging the impact of climate change. Whether this translates to the conservative citizen is yet to be seen.
Lastly, distrust in scientists could logically decrease but given the current polarized political climate and the politicization of science (Gauchat, 2012), this author doesn’t predict this outcome as highly probable.
Rationale
An initial exploration of state by state climate data (Howe et al., 2015) reveals that as the percentage of state participants that oppose limits to Carbon Dioxide (Co2) emissions increases, the associated distrust in climate scientists also increases (Fig. 1). With 86.3% of the change in limits carbon dioxide emissions being explained by a change in the distrust of climate scientists there is a strong correlation between the two.
Fig. 1. As the percentage of participants that distrust climate scientists increase, the associated change in opposition to carbon dioxide emissions also increases.
Fig 1. also reveals that the states with the top mining economies (Morris, 2016) are some of the highest on the spectrum of distrust and opposition to carbon dioxide emission limits. The variance in distrust of climate scientists seen in Fig 2. also varies across the United States in association with the dominant political affiliations - where dominant is defined by the political party whose percentage is greater than all other parties within that state (Smith et al., 2015).
Fig. 2. Distrust in climate scientists varies by the dominant political affiliation by state, with states that have a dominant conservative political affiliation generally having greater distrust in comparison to states whose dominant political affiliations are moderate or liberal.
A key gap in this data is which of the two factors identified above, political affiliation or reliance on mining economies has more explanatory power in the observed distrust of climate scientists and opposition to limits on carbon dioxide emissions. Secondarily, some of the above data analysis is aggregated at the state level whereas individual participant relationships to mining economies and political affiliations are not revealed in the above figures. In Fig. 1, the top nine mining economies (Morris, 2016) are identified at the state level whereas the associated distrust of climate scientists and associated opposition to carbon limits were compiled from individual responses (Howe et al., 2015). Whereas, this proposal seeks to explore the economic and political characteristics of individuals in relation to individual distrust of climate scientists and the carbon limits opposition, to delineate whether political or economic factors might better explain the above analysis.
Methodology
Datasets:
There will be two forms of data collection. One will seek data from the most recent economic and political affiliations at the state level of all fifty states to control for any fluctuations from the data analyzed in this proposal.
Our second dataset will be observations from a statistically significant number of participants that are randomly selected from each of the fifty states within the United States. All participants will receive a survey regarding their political affiliation, if their current employment benefits from the success of the coal mining industry, their degree of trust with climate scientists, and their opinion on limits to carbon dioxide emissions.
Questionnaire
The following questions will be asked of participants:
“In general, would you describe your political views as…” (Smith et al., 2015)
Very conservative
Conservative
Moderate
Liberal
Very liberal
“In general, how would you describe the stability of your employment in relation to the coal mining industry:”
Strongly dependent upon the success of coal mining industry
Moderately dependent upon the success of the coal mining industry
Not dependent upon the success of the coal mining industry
Moderately dependent upon the decline of the coal mining industry
Strong dependent upon the decline of the coal mining industry
“In general, how would you describe your degree of trust in climate scientists”
Strong trust
Moderate trust
Neither trust nor distrust
Moderate distrust
Strong distrust
“In general how would you describe your opinion of limits to carbon dioxide emissions”
Strongly Opposed
Moderately Opposed
No opinion
Moderately in favor
Strongly in favor
Justification:
Despite a majority of scientists supporting the hypothesis that anthropogenic climate change is a real effect and carbon emissions as a key contributed to that effect, a large proportion of United States citizens continue to distrust scientists and object to any measures that might curb the emission of carbon dioxide (Ripple, et al., 2020). This research proposal is a necessary step in furthering our understanding of which mechanisms are most strongly correlated with distrust and opposition. Appropriate prioritization of causal mechanisms can inform policy makers in how to better understand the motivations of those that distrust and oppose changes.
References:
Gauchat, G. (2012). Politicization of science in the public sphere: A study of public trust in the United States, 1974 to 2010. American sociological review, 77(2), 167-187.
Lee, T. M., Markowitz, E. M., Howe, P. D., Ko, C. Y., & Leiserowitz, A. A. (2015). Predictors of public climate change awareness and risk perception around the world. Nature climate change, 5(11), 1014-1020.
Litterman, R., Anderson, C. E., Bullard, N., Caldecott, B., Cheung, M. L., Colas, J. T., ... & Eastwood, A. (2020). Managing Climate Risk in the US Financial System.
McCright, A. M., Dentzman, K., Charters, M., & Dietz, T. (2013). The influence of political ideology on trust in science. Environmental Research Letters, 8(4), 044029.
Morris, A. (2016). The challenge of state reliance on revenue from fossil fuel production. Brooking Institution, Climate and Energy Economics Discussion Paper.
Ripple, W. J., Wolf, C., Newsome, T. M., Barnard, P., & Moomaw, W. R. (2020). Corrigendum: World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency. BioScience.
Smith, G., Cooperman, A., Mohamed, B., Martinez, J., Alper, B., Sciupac, E., & Ochoa, J. (2015). America’s changing religious landscape. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center.