Warmed Over Religious Groups’ Views on Global Warming
Warmed Over Religious Groups’ Views on Global Warming
Richard B. Norgaard, Professor of Energy and Resources, UC Berkeley; RPGP Board Member
April 17, 2009
For our contemplation during Earth Week, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has provided us with poll findings of Americans’ views on whether global warming is caused by human activity. The findings, broken down by religious groupings and race, are from a poll conducted a year ago that was released at that time with an analysis of views by political affiliation. In my judgment, the original analysis was informative while the newly released analysis by religion of now one-year old data is considerably less so.
In April 2008, respondents were asked, based on what they had read and heard, whether there is solid evidence that the average temperature of the earth over the past few decades has been getting warmer and, if so, whether this was caused by human activity. Answering yes to both questions would be consistent with the findings of the fourth assessment by scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released in 2007.
The original analysis released a year ago May found that 58% of Democrats agreed with the scientific consensus while only 27% of Republicans agreed. This release noted that 51% of college graduates agreed while the percentage of those with a high school education and less was only 43%. Closely related to views with respect to the scientific consensus, 57% of Democrats felt climate change was a very serious problem while only 22% of Republicans thought it was very serious. These differences strike me as pretty serious, and they are consistent with a similar poll taken by Pew in January 2007.
While this week’s release of the analysis by religion is recent, the data are now a year old, American political dynamics have changed significantly, and the ties between politics and religion have loosened. Perhaps more importantly, the evidence of global warming is now considerably stronger; people understand melting ice. With these caveats, the poll indicates that people without religious affiliation (though perhaps still religious or spiritual) were more likely (58%) to agree with the scientific consensus while white evangelical Protestants were least likely (34%).
While the attacks on climate science from right wing commentators have not abated, my own sense of the situation is that there has been a significant shift in understanding. Both Obama and McCain openly addressed climate change and an energy transition during their campaigns and significant shifts in climate and energy policies, in spite of the economic crisis, are underway. While Richard Cizek, was removed as Vice President for Government Affairs at the National Association of Evangelicals for leading evangelicals toward greater concern over climate, the idea of “creation care” and the Evangelical Environmental Network, as well as the environmental efforts by mainline Protestants and Catholics, appear to be gaining ground. A new poll could be quite interesting.
