New research on public skepticism of science from Duke University finds that the source of conservative climate change denial is largely an aversion to proposed climate change solutions.
Kate Sheppard covers the story at HuffPo and explains the study's finding that science denial in general is not a fear response to the problems under analysis, but rather, their specific solutions. With climate change, then, it's not that deniers necessarily distrust the science (even though they dispute it); rather, deniers fear that accepting the problem and the underlying science means accepting undesirable solutions like a carbon tax.
This is not exactly a revelation for those of us in the trenches who have come to understand this through experience; it is, however, a confirmation that greater effort needs to be made to advance conservative solutions to the climate crisis.
What we end up with, then, is a terribly vicious cycle: the GOP can't offer up any climate change solutions without offending its base (and donors) who claim it's not a problem, but the GOP base only says it's not a problem because the proffered solutions are "liberal."
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