Symbolic image of a climate change denier: Psychoanalysts in the USA speak of "petro-masculinity" which includes "aspects of racism, misogyny and climate change denial".
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In the USA, too, the dramatic effects of global warming can no longer be overlooked.
Heat and cold waves, droughts, fires, water shortages, rivers and lakes drying up - and then again extreme rainfall, floods, hurricanes.
In 2021 alone, the US government counted 20 extreme weather disasters, each causing damage of more than one billion dollars.
The total bill for 2021 alone is $145 billion.
And yet the US is a lone outlier in a study released this week by US polling agency Pew.
Pew himself captioned the release of the results: "Climate change remains top global threat in a survey of 19 countries."
More fear of cyber attacks than of the climate crisis
In fact, in most of the countries surveyed, climate change ranked first or second when people considered something to be a “major threat, minor threat, or no threat” to their country.
In Germany, for example, 73 percent of those surveyed named climate change as a major threat, just before that, at 75 percent, disinformation landed on the Internet.
The four outliers on the list are Israel (47 percent), Malaysia (44 percent), Singapore (57 percent) — and the United States.
In the United States, the threat of climate change came last, with 54 percent agreement.
On the other hand, 71 percent are afraid of “cyber attacks from other countries”.
It seems paradoxical: the crisis and its effects are clearly noticeable and visible, expensive and deadly.
And yet only a little over half of the American population wants to recognize a real threat.
The proportion of those who see this threat has even fallen slightly in recent years.
How can that be?
Less than a quarter of Republicans live in reality
To understand this, you have to look more closely at the data from the US, which Pew did in a separate analysis.
The political orientation of the respondents was also taken into account.
The result: a stark, gaping chasm.
It will probably not come as a surprise to many, but its magnitude is still frightening.
Among US respondents who support or lean toward the Democrats, 78 percent believe climate change is a major threat.
Among Republican fans and sympathizers, on the other hand, the figure is only 23 percent.
Less than a quarter.
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Denial of man-made climate change has long been a core position of the party.
In the meantime, it is no longer so openly represented, but it has established itself among its own voters.
The older and, from a global perspective, worse »Big Lie« is: There is no man-made climate change and if there is, then it is not a problem.
A US federal judge – appointed by the Republicans – noted in a 2019 lawsuit against Exxon, Shell, BP and Co .: “Instead of ringing the alarm bells, the defendants made every effort to cloud the scientific consensus and changes – even though they were existential are necessary - to delay that would have stood in the way of their billions in profits.«
It's completely different in other industrial nations
The 54 percent that the study shows in a country comparison for the USA as a whole obscures the true picture: in the USA only part of the population, namely the supporters of the Democrats, lives in the same reality as the populations of other industrialized countries such as Germany, Japan ( 82 percent see climate change as a major threat there), France (81 percent), Great Britain (75 percent) or Australia (71 percent).
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The majority of the Republican electorate, on the other hand, has said goodbye to this globally shared reality: more than three quarters.
The oil companies, the “foundations”, “think tanks” and the “experts” bought by the Koch brothers and other fossil fuel propagandists have been working on this for decades, investing billions.
All of this is clearly documented.
The oil companies created the republican identity
The oil companies are terrified that one day they might end up like the tobacco industry, whose decades of lies finally cost them dearly in the late 1990s.
More costly lawsuits and public humiliation followed.
The oil companies are so afraid of successful lawsuits that they have been working hard for many years to fill courts up to the Supreme Court with well-disposed judges.
At the same time, their campaigns have changed the identity construction of millions upon millions.
A psychological survey published last year reads: “In many countries, climate change has become a politically polarized issue, with people who identify themselves as liberals being more likely to support climate change policies than those who identify themselves as conservatives . . . There is plenty of empirical evidence for this .
The overview study explicitly points out that this phenomenon can be observed in particular among older, white men who are afraid of losing status and privileges: "Anyone who belongs to a group that is particularly threatened by climate change will be particularly motivated to to support containment, while those who benefit from the status quo are more likely to oppose containment moves.”
Tribal affiliation old white male
Psychoanalysts in the US even speak of "petro-masculinity" which includes "aspects of racism, misogyny and climate change denial".
This fits in perfectly with the fossil fuel friends' alliance with the reactionary international right.
The culture war split in the USA, which the new right would like to transplant to Germany, is (also) a consequence of fossil propaganda.
As early as 2015, a team from Australia stated in "Nature Climate Change" that people in the USA who regard climate change as a fact and "skeptics" each have "clearly defined social identities, beliefs and emotional reactions".
In short: For those who count themselves among the Republicans today, actively ignoring the climate crisis is a question of personal political identity.
Especially if he's older and male.
This is also shown by the latest data from Pew: When asked whether climate change is a major threat, the number of “yes” answers among women is ten percentage points higher than among men.
And people under 30 in the US find the climate crisis threatening to a greater extent than older people.
The difference between the under 30s and the 50-64 year olds is particularly stark: the difference there is 13 percentage points.
There's even a car-free reward in California
But the biggest difference – 55 percentage points – is the political orientation.
This does not mean that climate protection would not be possible in the USA.
As is well known, Joe Biden finally managed to push through a slimmed down and sometimes problematic, but extremely comprehensive climate law - of course against the bitter resistance of the Republicans.
And in California, the fifth largest economy in the world, a whole package of far-reaching climate protection legislation was passed this week.
Last week, a ban on the registration of new combustion vehicles from 2035 was passed there.
Now a whole mountain of other regulations have been added, from subsidies for electric cars to eliminating parking requirements for new buildings to a $1,000 tax credit for low-income households who do not own a car.
There will even be a distance rule in California in the future - not for wind turbines, but for new oil wells near residential areas.
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Christian Stocker
We are the experiment
Publisher: Karl Blessing
Number of pages: 384
Publisher: Karl Blessing
Number of pages: 384
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Tribal Identity or Future?
So far, California is not doing nearly enough to even achieve its own climate goals.
But the new legislative package could at least be a step in the right direction.
One of the controversial points was whether the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant should be allowed to continue running - in the end the Democrats decided to do so in order to avoid even more fossil emissions.
Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom finds the political environment in his state, which is plagued by heat waves, droughts, fires and water shortages, somewhat different than elsewhere in the USA, as a regularly repeated survey shows: Around 70 percent of all adult Californians now support strong climate goals for their state - among the supporters of the Republicans there, too, it is only well under 40 percent.
And just 20 percent of California Republicans believe the climate crisis is a "very serious threat," which is very close to the findings of the statewide Pew study.
But climate change deniers and deniers simply don't carry enough weight in this state.
69 percent of the people who live there believe that the climate crisis is already having a noticeable impact.
About the same number believe their state should become a global leader in tackling the climate crisis.
US Republicans will face a crucial test in the coming years, as the effects of global warming continue to unleash ever-worsening disasters: will they ever admit that they've been pulling in the wrong direction for decades -- or will they keep trying hide tangible reality?
The question for the people of the United States will be: Which is more important to me - my tribal identity or the future?