While Republican candidates for president champion far right causes to try to capture the tea party vote in the primary, each will have to worry about moving back to the center should they win the nomination. On issues like entitlement reform, this may cause trouble. But when it comes to global warming, they might not have to scramble back to the middle: They may already be there.
According to a poll by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, while most Americans agree global warming is taking place, many are still badly misinformed about the scientific consensus surrounding its causes. From the study, only 29% of Republicans and 10% of Tea Partiers think most scientists believe global warming is taking place. While Democrats (55%) and independents (46%) do better on the question, they’re still way off.
Surveys of top climate scientists have demonstrated that practically 100% of them believe the earth is warming — because, well, it is — and that around 98% of them believe it is at least in part caused by humans.
Of course, Republican presidential nominees have been happy to encourage misconceptions about global warming’s causes.
“We’re seeing almost weekly or even daily scientists who are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change,” current GOP frontrunner Rick Perry said in August.
Or take Michele Bachmann in 2008: “It’s all voodoo, nonsense, hokum, a hoax.”
Even Mitt Romney, who in the past professed his belief in human-made climate change, has sounded pretty noncommittal lately.
“I don’t know if it’s mostly caused by humans,” he said in August.
The economy will almost certainly be the overriding issue in the coming presidential election. Issues such as global warming are likely to get sidelined. Indeed President Obama himself has placed economic concerns over the threats of climate change, recently scrapping plans to have the EPA tighten ozone standards, saying the regulations would cost money and jobs.
So for now, it seems that misconceptions about climate science will persist. And as Republican candidates continue to reinforce those misconceptions without being sufficiently challenged, the question on climate change may not be whether the far right is winning the war on public perception. It may be, have they already won?
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