Al Gore 2008, Part 2: A Comparison with the 2004 Evangelical Wedge
February 18th, 2007Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.
Last Friday I speculated that Al Gore will win the 2008 presidency in no small part due to the emergence of climate change as a wedge issue. A wedge issue well used in a political campaign will serve to split your opposition’s base and lead to a turn-out advantage among those motivated to vote. As a Pew Research analysis explained:
In electoral politics, however, what often matters most in measuring an issue’s potential impact is not whether a great many people care about it, but whether even a relatively small number care about it enough to base their vote on it. Indeed, the classic “wedge issue” is one that draws more of one kind of partisan than another to the polls.
So to explore this issue further I thought I’d compare the climate issue to evangelicals in the population. In the 2004 election the mobilization of evangelical voters was widely attributed as a successful strategy for George W. Bush. Here is what I found.
First, I gathered data on the self-described proportion of voters who call themselves ‘evangelical” from a poll taken in 2003-200 by the Annenberg Center (here in PDF). The following graph, left panel, compares the ranking of Evangelical voters with rank in percentage of 2004 presidential vote received by George W. Bush. Note that data was available for only 34 states. The right panel repeats the graph I presented in the earlier Gore post comparing the ranking of per capita CO2 emissions with rank in percentage of 2004 presidential vote received by George W. Bush.
The rank correlation between evangelicals and Bush vote is 0.69. Recall that it was 0.67 between per capita CO2 and Bush vote. Very interesting! (Note Ohio and Florida in that swing-state zone.)
Now compare the distribution of states in the following chart, color coded to represent the vote outcome in the 2004 election.
So what should you take from this comparison? If evangelical issues did indeed serve as a “wedge issue” in 2004 to the benefit the Republicans and George W. Bush, then the baseline conditions for the climate issue leading to 2008 suggest that it is equally amenable to exploitation for political gain among the Democrats, but particularly (and perhaps uniquely) for Al Gore.
February 18th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
As one of your friendly neighborhood AGW crisis skeptics, I can not help but smirk at the possible political ramifications of the two ‘religious world views’:-)!
Indeed, Rev. Gore might have the wedge issue he needs to ascend to the Presidency! (Whoa be to us AGW blasphemers!)
February 18th, 2007 at 9:56 pm
>So what should you take from this comparison?
Evangelicals cause CO2 emission?
February 19th, 2007 at 11:18 am
I have been working on a hypothesis that is consistent with this data:
1. Climate change science is complicated and full of anecdotal observations that can be used to “prove” (really placate) either side of the issue (extremes labeled “alarmists” and “debunkers”). Therefore, each side can feel vindicated by these “proofs”.
2. The result of easy vindication for either side is that preexisting bias can play a larger role in determining your position – as opposed to careful investigation in search of truth regardless of the consequences.
3. The most common bias I observe in the debunkers is a bent toward self reliance, decentralized decision making (e.g., market economy, small government), and religious conviction that includes moral absolutes. The most common bias I observe in the alarmists is group reliance (“it takes a village…”), centralized decision making (government managed economy), and religious conviction that includes tolerance of belief differences.
4. Each of these three bias areas lean away or toward AGW and the need for certain types of solutions. Interestingly, they also roughly align with Republicans and Democrats, country and city dwellers, evangelicals and mainline denominations.
February 19th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
Phil,
Interesting observations, but in #3 — alarmists having religious convictions that include tolerance of belief differences — you missed badly. They brag about having tolerance, but if they are disagreed with on politically hot topics, such as AGW, there will be no tolerance and no civil discourse. As a general rule, there will be plenty of personal attacks and name-calling.
February 19th, 2007 at 9:23 pm
Pops,
Understood. Of course, holding a view of how the world works best, and living it is a problem for us all. The point I’m making in #3 is that a religious perspective that stands on idealistic tolerance will lean toward a group-centered solution (i.e., we can fix this if we all just…), where a religious view that emphasizes personal responsibility to do the right thing will lean away from centralized constraints (e.g., emission caps). And if you recoil from the proposed solution to a problem you may tend to dismiss the basis of the problem rather than propose an alternate solution.
I also think, more to your point, that absolute tolerance (all views are valid) leaves you without a basis to persuade someone to your point of view and you are left with coersion.
February 20th, 2007 at 11:55 am
Phil,
Are the hypotheses you are working on based on systematic studies, or just your informal observations?
Anyway, wouldn’t a religious perspective that stands on idealistic *intolerance* lean toward a group centered solution? People in that group might tend to say their particular group will decide what the solution is and impose it on others.
Might not a religiously tolerant group lean toward letting each group decide what to do for itself? This would be a sort of “federalist” solution?
Wouldn’t people who avoid organized religion be the one’s who want to emphasize personal responsibility and resist centralized contraints? Let people join the group if they want to, otherwise, not?
I guess if I saw supporting data, I’d be willing to believe the types of correlations you suggest exist, but otherwise, I’m dubious!
February 20th, 2007 at 10:25 pm
Margo,
Thanks for the challenge. I am not a sociologist or political scientist – just an atmospheric physicist trying to understand why this science question seems to be so divisive along cultural fault lines the are generally drawn on economic, political, and religious grounds.
So, I start from the question, why is this problem so polarizing? As I describe above, the complexity of the science and diversity of the available observations makes for easy vindication of any side you want to choose. And you tend to choose the side that placates your preexisting bias.
There may be categories other than economic, political and religious, but these are the strongest I have observed – not scientifically but through many conversations with a diversity of acquaintances that cover a pretty broad range of views in these categories. (Given my profession everyone wants to know what I think about AGW and I usually turn the question on them to get their take on it first.)
I admit that the conclusions regarding the religious category are the most tenuous. But I often hear from people who are religiously conservative a tone that implies, “don’t tell me what I should do to solve the problem…if there even is one”. And I hear from religious liberals a tone that implies, “Because this is potentially so terrible, we ALL have to (fill in the blank).”
To your point, I haven’t run across anyone who holds to idealistic intolerance (sounds like a cult to me), but I guess your suggestion could result in that case.
February 21st, 2007 at 1:25 pm
On the Presidential Horserace:
I was visiting a Alternet and noticed an ad for a Draft Gore campaign now underway.( http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/algore2008/ )
Then, I thought to google “gore president” on google news: ( http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=/Politics/archive/200702/POL20070221a.html )
(My response to Phil seems to still be lost in the spam filter. )
February 21st, 2007 at 9:22 pm
Phil,
My longer comment seems to trigger Roger’s spam filter. I emailed Roger privately and he said he’d fish the comment out –but I’m guessing it just totally vanished!
One short observation: There has been tons of religious intolerance througout history. Naming episodes I can think of off hand from European history, I can think of The Crusades, The Inquisition, various persecusions during the reformation etc. The Puritans came the the American’s to escape persecution (and then were intolerant themselves.)
So, I don’t think we can relegate the idea of religious intolerance to those in cults!
February 21st, 2007 at 9:30 pm
Margo- Sorry, no sign of it (though I did find some earlier posts of yours stuck in the trap!) .. Thanks!
February 21st, 2007 at 9:30 pm
as a counter to the wedge politics thesis, here is an interesting commentary on the framing of climate as a political “wedge” in the expected Canadian election:
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/columnists/story.html?id=89e3ee3c-0d1c-4c55-9664-ac90a535dfa0
February 22nd, 2007 at 6:00 am
The posts you retrieved showed the “moderation” page after I submitted. The other one showed the “rejection” page. “Rejected” must not even get into the trap. Rewording to say more or less the same thing worked fine. (Your spam filter is finnicky about something.)
February 24th, 2007 at 11:55 am
One last response to Margo,
My original premise relative to religious bias was based on the fact(?) there is really no such thing as absolute tolerance because as soon as you say, “all views are valid”, you have stated that the view that “my view is true and others are false” is invalid! The only way to move forward from this is to hold all views up to testing for truth – while still recognizing that sometimes (most times?) we have to work with “probably true” as the best we can do (enter global warming and the pursuit of the probability of certain outcomes).
Note: your European examples are clearly aberrations of classic Christianity and I think could be characterized as cult-like behavior.
February 24th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
Phil,
I have no difficulties with your first paragraph. My comments simply touch on your suggestion that regligious intolerance displayed by the religious is somehow rare or a manifestation of cultlike behavior.
The examples of religious intolerance I mentioned were extreme; I picked them precisely because everyone has heard of them and I think everyone agrees they demonstrate absolute religious intolerance.
But I think it’s a bit of a stretch to say it’s cult like behavior. After all, The Roman Catholic Church was the majority religion that held sway over a very wide geographic area. While some may say the church deviated Christian ideals, I think few would call the Roman Catholic Church “a cult”. (Of if they call it a cult, I need to read their definition of cult so I can figure out what sort of religion is *not* a cult!)
In any case, even eliminating the extreme cases, I think examples are religious intolerance are frequent enough. After all, the Puritans arrived in the Americas to escape religious intolerance, as did many other groups. After they arrived here, many religious groups proceeded to inflict their own intolerance on people who held alternate views.
Both the Puritans and their European oppressors were religious. Their intolerance went well beyond simply not accepting the idea that “all views are valid”. They enacted laws to force their views on others and/or to restrict the rights of those who didn’t share their religious views. Where all these groups cults?
American’s were well aware of the fact this sort of religious intolerance existed, and they were well aware that it presented a danger. That’s our constitution has provisions to prevent states from establishing state religions.
I have no idea how all this interacts with the whole “who accepts or denies AGW” theory you are developing. But let me assure you, there are religious people who are very, very intolerant of rival religions. These people would move to disfavor rival groups using the arm of the law. And if all these people belong to “cults,” then your theory better account for how people in cults respond to the theory of AGW, because there are an awful lot of people in “cults”!