Warmer Weather Makes People More Sure About Global Warming
This is one of the coolest — I mean, hottest — findings I’ve seen in a while:
For each three degrees that local temperature rises above normal, Americans become one percentage point more likely to agree that there is “solid evidence” that the earth is getting warmer.
The paper is by Patrick Egan and Megan Mullin, and their money graph is above. They linked Pew survey data to the local temperatures in each respondent’s zip code in the week before the survey.
Of course, the weather isn’t the most important factor; party identification and ideology have a much larger effect on attitudes. But the effect of the weather is still noteworthy. Egan and Mullin argue that its effects are particularly noteworthy among those who pay less attention to politics.
Find the paper here.
Comments
Wow. Do we think this works on elites, too? I propose we randomly disable the A/C units in half the state legislatures and see if they become more supportive of climate change legislation than the control states.
Posted by: Seth Masket | April 30, 2009 12:53 PM
I would like them to control for “odd” weather in the region over recent years, like the drought in the Rockies.
More importantly, I’ll file this in my “Berkeley PhDs show something both true and funny” file, right next to Bartels telling us that shark attacks hurt incumbent vote shares and Steen’s paper predicting incumbent deaths.
Posted by: Matt Jarvis | April 30, 2009 06:37 PM
Seth—
I like your idea. In fact, having moved to a place where man’s greatest invention (central air conditioning) is no longer a staple, but a quirky purchase, I can only justify this if it’s part of an experimental test of the effects of air conditioning on social behavior. Experimental groups in California & Texas get air conditioning. Control groups in New York & New Jersey do not.
Posted by: Brian Arbour | May 1, 2009 09:05 AM
This is why I have never understood why they’ve held climate change hearings during the Winter.
Posted by: doug | May 1, 2009 10:17 PM
hey Matt - I resemble that remark! - Pat
Posted by: Pat Egan | May 1, 2009 10:17 PM