Education Increases Belief in Climate Change — Everywhere Except in the U.S.

In China, people are more likely to understand the risks of climate change if they live in the city instead of the countryside.  Almost everyone in Japan knows about climate change.  In Egypt, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and India, more than 65 percent of people do.  In Burundi, Benin, and Liberia, almost nobody has heard of it.

All of this is according to a study published this week in Nature Climate Change.  In the study, a group of researchers took a close look at data collected in 2007 and 2008 by the Gallup World Poll.  Research on public perceptions of climate change is a new field, and until this point has been dominated by studies in Australia, the United States, and Europe.  One standout finding is that, on this topic at least, there’s strong evidence to back American exceptionalism.

Specifically, in the U.S. — unlike everywhere else — being better educated doesn’t guarantee that you are more likely to believe that climate change is a real thing that is actually happening.  Instead, education seems to polarize in the United States.  More education is correlated with greater concern about climate change among liberals and Democrats, and less concern from conservatives and Republicans.  It seems that being better educated just means you have more ammo for defending the belief that your existing partisan identification bequeaths to you.

So while in most of the world, education is the strongest predictor of a belief that climate change is real, in the U.S., it’s something called “civic engagement” — which Gallup defines as having donated money, volunteered time, or helped a stranger in the last week.  People with high levels of civic engagement are almost always aware of climate change, while those with the lowest levels have no clue it’s even happening.

Read more at Education Increases Belief in Climate Change — Everywhere Except in the U.S.