Why would a specific demographic of people overwhelmingly believe something that's false? There are many possible reasons, but a big one is that billions of dollars have been spent to cultivate the particular false view that climate change isn’t a problem.
For example, the Washington Post’s coverage of recent polling from WaPo and University of Maryland carried the headline, "Democrats and Republicans [are] deeply divided on extreme weather."
The polling was not exactly shocking, finding that while lots of people have experienced extreme weather lately, their understanding of its climate context is politically filtered. A few excerpts:
"Since 2019, the polling shows, Republicans haven’t budged from their skepticism about climate change being a major factor in heat waves, while the percentage of Democrats making the link has increased from 79 percent to 85 percent."
"In 2023, 87 percent of Democratic-leaning adults say extreme weather is becoming more severe, up slightly from 82 percent in 2019. By contrast, 37 percent of Republican-leaning adults say extreme weather is becoming more severe — ticking down from 42 percent in 2019."
"More than 9 in 10 Democrats (93 percent) agree with the scientific consensus that human activity is causing changes to the world’s climate, compared with 55 percent of Republicans."
In other words, those who consume partisan, fossil-fueled media continue to deny the scientific reality of climate change, while those responsive to the real world become increasingly aware of climate impacts.
But that's not to say all Republicans are in denial! Quite the contrary: climate denial is a minority position, even within the party, with 55% of Republican and Republican-leaning respondents saying that human activity is changing the climate and causing warming.
The fossil fuel industry spends so heavily on disinformation because it needs to inflate the perceived relevance and popularity of denial. It uses money as a megaphone, amplifying sympathetic voices over those not toeing the party line.
But that wasn't in the Washington Post’s story. Nor were some other interesting factors found in the cross tabs.
Per Question 9, 44% of Republicans respondents said climate change is “a crisis” (9%) or "a major problem but not a crisis" (36%), and another 39% considered it at least "a minor problem." Only 17% replied that it was "not a problem at all," which is effectively the stance of the Republican Party. That’s probably why, per row 104, 51% of Republicans don't trust the Republican party "much" or "at all" to address climate change in the US.
In row 108 you can see that 51% of Republicans also answered that, "all else equal," they'd prefer the next president to be "someone who favors government action to address climate change" over "someone who opposes government action to address climate change."
While the Post is technically correct in asserting that "Democrats and Republicans [are] deeply divided on extreme weather," the outlet could've also just said that "Republicans are deeply divided!"