Are Pro-Democracy People More Likely to Accept Climate Change?

The amazing research news website Science Daily had a fascinating post about a new study linking support for democracy to acceptance of climate change science. Based on polling, the study raises interesting questions about science and education across the world. According to the Science Daily article:

Commitment to democratic values is the strongest predictor of climate change concern globally, Georgia State University faculty have found in a new study comparing climate change attitudes across 36 countries, including the U.S.

The article, published this month in Environmental Politics, was based on an analysis of the Pew Research Center’s 2015 Global Attitudes Survey by professor Gregory Lewis, chair of the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies’ Department of Public Management and Policy; Risa Palm, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Georgia State; and Bo Feng with IMPAQ International.

The original research article by Gregory Lewis had a great summary of the findings in the introduction (you can read the full article online):

Using the Pew Research Center’s 2015 Global Attitudes Survey, we compare determinants of climate change concern across 36 countries. We focus on political variables, but also examine the effects of gender, education, age, income, and religiosity. Regression analyses show that patterns are far from universal. Political divides are widespread, but they revolve around different axes than in the USA. Commitment to democratic values, however, proves to be a surprisingly strong predictor of climate change concern globally. Demographic patterns in English-speaking Western democracies diverge widely from much of the world. The findings suggest the need for more cross-national studies to understand which factors determine climate change attitudes.