CARSEY I N S T I T U T E ISSUE BRIEF NO. 26 SPRING 2011 Key Findings A series of regional surveys conducted by Carsey Institute researchers in 2010 and early 2011 asked nearly 9,500 individuals about climate change. Key indings include: • Most people say that they understand either a moderate amount or a great deal about the issue of global warming or climate change. • Large majorities agree that climate change is happening now, although they split on whether this is attributed mainly to human or natural causes. • The level of understanding and speciic beliefs about climate change vary from region to region. • Beliefs about climate change are strongly related to political party. Republicans most often believe either that climate is not changing now or that it is changing but from mainly natural causes. Democrats most often believe that the climate is changing now due mainly to human activities. • Political polarization is greatest among the Republicans and Democrats who are most conident that they understand this issue. Republicans and Democrats less sure about their understanding also tend to be less far apart in their beliefs. • People who express lower conidence also might be more likely to change their views in response to weather. Climate Change Partisanship, Understanding, and Public Opinion LAWRENCE C. HAMILTON hree Questions, Ten Surveys I n 2010, Carsey Institute researchers began including three new questions about climate change on a series of regional surveys. We asked how much people understand about the issue of global warming or climate change; whether they think that most scientists agree that climate change is happening now as a result of human activities; and what they believe personally about the topic. he questions are neutrally worded, concern beliefs about present facts rather than pos- sible future events, and address the main point of statements made by scientists. An earlier Carsey brief presented results from our irst sur- vey using these questions, a statewide New Hampshire poll of about 500 people conducted in April 2010. 1 Further New Hampshire polls took place in July and September 2010, and in February 2011. 2 We also included the same climate ques- tions on six other surveys conducted in rural areas around the country, under the Carsey Institute’s Community and En- vironment in Rural America (CERA) initiative. 3 Together, the four New Hampshire and six CERA surveys involved 9,489 interviews in seven diferent regions of the United States. hey provide a wealth of information on people’s views con- cerning topics from politics to environment, community and family. In this brief, we focus on what the surveys uncovered about climate-change beliefs, and their relationship with self- assessed understanding. How Much Do You Understand? Our irst climate-change question asks whether people be- lieve they understand a great deal, a moderate amount, only a little, or nothing at all about the issue of global warming or climate change. Figure 1 illustrates responses from the three 2010 New Hampshire polls, combined into one chart here be- cause they are not signiicantly diferent. More than one-half of the respondents say they understand “a moderate amount,” and more than one-fourth say “a great deal.” hese are self- assessments, not tested by a follow-up quiz to see whether people can explain, for example, what the term “greenhouse efect” actually means. he survey answers thus relect self- conidence, which has an untested relation to knowledge. For simplicity, however, we use the term “understanding” in referring to this question.