White Males Scared

Science, why are conservative white males more likely to be climate change skeptics than other groups?

The white male effect could stem from the notion that, historically, white males have faced fewer obstacles in life, said McCright. But another school of thought sees the adoption of risk tied to personal values. “It has to do with their identity as an in-group,” he said. “Something that would challenge the status quo is something [conservative white males] want to shun.” According to the literature on “identity protective cognition,” people believe messages coming from the people they identify with most and ignore messages that are contrarian, Dunlap said. While all groups have a tendency to do this, he said, in the case the climate change, conservative white males are especially likely to exhibit this self-protecting characteristic… Conservative white males’ motivation to ignore a certain risk — the risk of climate change in this case — therefore, has to do with defending the status of their identity tied to the white male establishment.

There you go: conservative white males don’t believe in climate change because they are afraid that Science wants to take their penises away. Now you know.