Search

Resistance to clean energy policy in the United States stems partly from public hesitancy and skepticism toward anthropogenic climate change. This article examines self-declared climate change skeptics' views of clean energy policy along a continuum of skeptical thought, spanning from epistemic denial to attribution doubt. To perform this, we use data from an online survey administered in the US Pacific Northwest and a series of pilot interviews conducted with skeptics in the same region. Results reveal that skeptics' support for clean energy policy is consistently linked with their environmental concern across the skepticism continuum. Conspiracy ideation and distrust in science lead to a reduction in support. However, the positive effect of environmental concern trumps the effects of these beliefs. Important and hopeful implications of these findings for climate change communication and policy are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research indicates that far-right political groups tend to be disproportionately composed of and supported by white people. Drawing off the group identity and developmental literature, we add theoretical clarity to this relationship. We argue that a salient white racial identity motivates people to explore social contexts that affirm the value of being white. Many of these contexts (e.g., conservative media) reinforce and instill beliefs in conspiracies, perceptions of racial threat, and a legitimization of group hierarchies, which are defining features of far-right ideologies. As people develop a strong white racial identity, they should thus view far-right groups more favorably. Drawing off survey data from a national US sample of 903 white young adults, we tested a mediation model positing that the effects of a strong white racial identity with support for four far-right groups (the January 6 protesters, QAnon, the Proud Boys, and the Oath Keepers) would be mediated by enhanced levels of conspiratorial ideation, perceived racial threat, and social dominance orientation. We found that the effects of white racial identity with support for all four groups were mostly or completely accounted for by these three mediating factors. We discuss the implications of this research for the racial identity and far-right groups literatures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the existing scholarship on climate change uses religiosity to measure the effects of religion on climate skepticism and results in inconsistent findings. Drawing on insights from the study of religion and environmentalism more broadly, we suggest that scholars should seek a deeper understanding of religion's impacts by considering the influence of specific religious beliefs on perceptions of climate change. We further contend that researchers should consider how these factors shape attitudes within and between segments of the public who hold varying positions on climate change. We test these contentions using a novel sample of 1,000 self-declared "climate skeptics" in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. We find that, among skeptics, specific religious beliefs are more strongly associated with a range of selected climate/environmental attitudes (i.e., conspiracy ideation, trust in climate science, proenvironmentalism, emotions about climate change) than is religiosity. We discuss these findings and their implications for future scholarship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]