It’s Not the Science, Stupid!

THE SOURCE: “Climate Science as Culture War” by Andrew J. Hoffman, in Stanford Social Innovation Review, Fall 2012.

Republicans and Democrats live on the same planet. But you could be forgiven for thinking they don’t. Polls taken in 2010 found that nearly 70 percent of Democrats believed that global warming was occurring. Only 30 percent of Republicans agreed. The gap between the two groups was wider than it was in 2001. 

The debate over whether greenhouse-gas emissions are raising global temperatures—and whether humans are to blame—has exited the realm of science and become an issue of “culture, worldviews, and ideology,” according to Andrew J. Hoffman, a professor of sustainable enterprise at the University of Michigan. That’s not entirely a bad thing. But it means that those who want to forge a national consensus to address climate change must learn to think in different terms. 

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