Changing Minds or Changing Samples? Disentangling Microlevel Stability and Macrolevel Growth in Anthropogenic Climate Change Beliefs

Abstract

Over the past decade, Americans have become increasingly likely to believe that climate change is anthropogenic, or caused by human activities (e.g., Funk & Kennedy, 2019; Gallup, 2019; Leiserowitz et al., 2019). For example, recent Gallup surveys find that while just 50% of Americans expressed belief in anthropogenic climate change (ACC) in March 2010, that number had grown by 16 percentage points (to 66%) by the end of the decade (March 2019). Macro-opinion (aggregate) growth in ACC acceptance has potentially important policy consequences. People who believe that climate change is human caused tend to be more supportive of policy efforts to slow global warming, and to address its potential social, economic, and environmental consequences (Ding, Maibach, Zhao, Roser-Renouf, & Leiserowitz, 2011; Ehret, Van Boven, & Sherman, 2018; Marquart-Pyatt et al., 2011). Consequently, we might expect the public to become more receptive to climate policy action in the coming years. Although macro-opinion research has convincingly documented changing views on ACC, the individual-level microfoundations of why this is the case are substantially less clear. Some argue that increased support for ACC is the result of individual-level change in climate beliefs (Meyer, 2019; Milman, 2019; Nace, 2019). According to this view, which I call the Changing Minds Model (CMM), change in Americans’ acceptance of climate science over time, and/or personal experiences with the effects of climate change, may be increasing belief in ACC.