{"id":275497,"date":"2023-08-25T12:26:16","date_gmt":"2023-08-25T10:26:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=275497"},"modified":"2023-08-25T12:26:20","modified_gmt":"2023-08-25T10:26:20","slug":"predicting-public-attitudes-on-climate-change-the-holy-grail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=275497","title":{"rendered":"Predicting public attitudes on climate change: the \u2018Holy Grail\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From Net Zero Watch<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Andy A. West<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This is a guest article by Andy A. West.<\/em>\u00a0He can be found on Twitter at\u00a0@andywest_tweets<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a long-standing and extensive literature that searches for \u2018social predictors\u2019 of public attitudes on climate change: the social or demographic factors \u2013 such as political attitude, age, education or relative prosperity, among many other candidates \u2013 that can explain how people view the issue. As predictive power is sought at national as well as individual level, further candidates might include, for example, the relative civil liberties of a nation or its exposure to climate impacts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Holy Grail of this field is a single variable that is potent enough to explain, in broad terms, public attitudes on climate change, for instance whether it is man-made, whether they\u2019ll be harmed by it, or what priority they might give to fighting it (relative to other issues or threats); in other words, a variable that can predict a large part of the level of such attitudes in a population; if not at the dizzy heights of 50%, then maybe 30%, say, where this is at least the largest single factor among (perhaps many) others. The general idea behind this search, sometimes made explicit, is that knowledge of the drivers of attitudes would enable publics to be nudged in the \u2018right\u2019 direction, which of course is the direction of supporting Net Zero policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, outside the USA[1]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0the Holy Grail has slipped further and further away. A dozen years or more back, the search still featured attempts to find a\u00a0single<\/em>\u00a0powerful predictor. But as the years passed without success, efforts moved to multivariate analysis; it was hoped that groups of say three or four variables might yield greater predictive power when considered together. Unfortunately, these efforts did not deliver dramatic improvements, and introduced disagreements about which groupings were best. So, more and more variables were then pulled into the search, in a seemingly desperate attempt to find the missing magic that would make prediction possible. This required more complex models and increasingly sophisticated statistics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, the field now features webs of related variables, some of which themselves are high-level concepts such as \u2018New ecological paradigm\u2019, or \u2018Class\u2019 (engaged, pessimistic, indifferent, doubtful). A higher-level concept at the national level is for example \u2018attitudes to environmental care\u2019. Ridiculous variables have been dragged in too, such as the number of climate scientists residing in each nation!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Figure 1 is representative of the current predictor literature. It depicts fiendish complexity!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 1: Public attitudes on climate change: a typical model from the literature (Source: Ruiz et al.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The top half of Figure 2 shows a range of typical predictor values from this literature; some are older, some newer, some from simpler models and some more complex ones, some concern individual attitudes while others are national in scope. However, ultimately, they all result from a chronic lack of underlying theory about the attitudes being examined. Only one paper exceeds the 30% level.[2]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 2: Power of predictors in the literature (top) and using cultural causation (bottom)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This situation has now changed dramatically. As my book\u00a0\u2018The Grip of Culture\u2019<\/a>\u00a0sets out, there\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0an underlying predictor that can explain public attitudes on climate change. In other words, at the national level, we have found the Holy Grail: a\u00a0single<\/em>\u00a0variable that predicts a high proportion of the public attitudes on climate change (33\u201387% depending on the attitude), and across a wide range of attitudes; it is national religiosity. Figure 3 represents the theory in the same manner as the example diagram from the literature, and the bottom half of Figure 2 shows the dramatically increased predictive power from this very straightforward model. Attitude data comes from many independent sources \u2013 mainstream pollsters such as YouGov, Ipsos, Pew and more, plus the UN and EU.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 3: Public attitudes on climate change: the cultural causation model<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The underlying theory is that overall attitudes are shaped by cultures and their interactions. There is a cultural entity, a secular religion of climate catastrophism, which dominates public attitudes (and policy too) across nations. It also interacts with the older culture of religion (any faith), which is why the predictor works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While my book includes a list of technical reasons for why the Holy Grail predictor was missed, it can be summarised as being the result of entrenched bias in social science, which labours under a misapprehension that\u00a0global climate catastrophe<\/em>\u00a0is an output of \u2018hard science\u2019, rather than recognising its true nature \u2013 an emotive cultural narrative that\u00a0contradicts<\/em>\u00a0mainstream science. Of course, if you aren\u2019t looking for a culture, you probably won\u2019t find one!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cultures can have very unintuitive effects; for instance many countries appear to be simultaneously very concerned about climate change and very keen that nothing should be done about it. Wanna know why? Read the book<\/a>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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[1]<\/a>\u00a0One of the few things upon which I agree with the literature, is that the situation in the US is different, due to the very high degree of political polarisation there on climate change and many other issues. The theory of cultural causation still holds, but mapping this to the US is more complex. Chapter 12 in the book covers this (political stance is a great predictor, but more subtly 4 cultures are operating, of which one is still climate catastrophism).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/a> Lo and Chow\u2019s result was due to a near miss of the correct theory, but unfortunately this wasn\u2019t followed up. Another study (T1) exceeds 30% for some nations but not others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There is a long-standing and extensive literature that searches for \u2018social predictors\u2019 of public attitudes on climate change: the social or demographic factors \u2013 such as political attitude, age, education or relative prosperity, among many other candidates \u2013 that can explain how people view the issue. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":275507,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691818056,691818154,691822075],"class_list":{"0":"post-275497","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-climate-change","9":"tag-net-zero","10":"tag-social-aspects","12":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/0holygrail.webp?fit=1200%2C797&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-19Fv","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":267322,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=267322","url_meta":{"origin":275497,"position":0},"title":"The Grip of Culture: The Social Psychology of Climate Catastrophism","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"07\/14\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"\u201cClimate change catastrophism is a cultural disease haunting Western society.\u00a0 Andy West\u2019s excellent study of this problem explains the different drivers of this disease. It is an important contribution to a debate where reason must prevail.\u201d \u2013 Frank Furedi, emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent","rel":"","context":"In \"abuse of children\"","block_context":{"text":"abuse of children","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=abuse-of-children"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/0apocalyptic-gee723ea4d_1920-1068x703-1.jpg?fit=1068%2C703&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/0apocalyptic-gee723ea4d_1920-1068x703-1.jpg?fit=1068%2C703&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/0apocalyptic-gee723ea4d_1920-1068x703-1.jpg?fit=1068%2C703&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/0apocalyptic-gee723ea4d_1920-1068x703-1.jpg?fit=1068%2C703&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/0apocalyptic-gee723ea4d_1920-1068x703-1.jpg?fit=1068%2C703&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":267732,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=267732","url_meta":{"origin":275497,"position":1},"title":"The Grip of Culture: The Social Psychology of Climate\u00a0Catastrophism","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"07\/16\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"The book ends with a warning. Cultures can bind societies together and cause great civilisations to grow and prosper. But they can also lead them to disaster. If society is truly in the grip of a new cultural entity, we should be very concerned.\u201d","rel":"","context":"In \"abuse of children\"","block_context":{"text":"abuse of children","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=abuse-of-children"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/0Screenshot-2023-07-16-153543.png?fit=835%2C901&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/0Screenshot-2023-07-16-153543.png?fit=835%2C901&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/0Screenshot-2023-07-16-153543.png?fit=835%2C901&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/0Screenshot-2023-07-16-153543.png?fit=835%2C901&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":283811,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=283811","url_meta":{"origin":275497,"position":2},"title":"The \u2018Holy Grail\u2019 of social predictors of public attitudes toward climate change","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"10\/18\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"The Holy Grail of this field is a single variable that is potent enough to explain, in broad terms, public attitudes to climate change, such as whether it is man-made, whether they\u2019ll be harmed by it, or what priority they might give to fighting it. From Climate Etc. \u00a0October 17,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Climate Catastrophe\"","block_context":{"text":"Climate Catastrophe","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=climate-catastrophe"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/image-473.png?fit=1024%2C576&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/image-473.png?fit=1024%2C576&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/image-473.png?fit=1024%2C576&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/image-473.png?fit=1024%2C576&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":426384,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=426384","url_meta":{"origin":275497,"position":3},"title":"Kings College London: UK Climate Action Support Plummeting","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"02\/15\/2026","format":false,"excerpt":"A recent study from King's College London (KCL) highlights a notable decline in the UK's public sense of urgency around climate action and net zero targets, though overall support for the 2050 net zero goal remains relatively solid. The research, conducted by the Policy Institute at King's College London, in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"BBC\"","block_context":{"text":"BBC","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=bbc"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-260.png?fit=1188%2C799&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-260.png?fit=1188%2C799&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-260.png?fit=1188%2C799&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-260.png?fit=1188%2C799&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-260.png?fit=1188%2C799&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":419007,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=419007","url_meta":{"origin":275497,"position":4},"title":"Claim: Some Men Downplay Climate Concerns Because of Gender Insecurity","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"12\/29\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"According to the study, some men are frightened of appearing weak and feminine if they admit they are worried about climate change.","rel":"","context":"In \"climate alarmism\"","block_context":{"text":"climate alarmism","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=climate-alarmism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/AQMnagNEVDqHY_Rt1xaGZjcxOuyzdT4XmAE2RsXmOH8P7XN1aSRS69epyK6xmnq2VlKZ5-2UQRqN7pl_ZSxg_mH95j0WydnStrVOdqQ2aV5plEvPTTns71vbbFMVGf8R.png?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/AQMnagNEVDqHY_Rt1xaGZjcxOuyzdT4XmAE2RsXmOH8P7XN1aSRS69epyK6xmnq2VlKZ5-2UQRqN7pl_ZSxg_mH95j0WydnStrVOdqQ2aV5plEvPTTns71vbbFMVGf8R.png?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/AQMnagNEVDqHY_Rt1xaGZjcxOuyzdT4XmAE2RsXmOH8P7XN1aSRS69epyK6xmnq2VlKZ5-2UQRqN7pl_ZSxg_mH95j0WydnStrVOdqQ2aV5plEvPTTns71vbbFMVGf8R.png?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/AQMnagNEVDqHY_Rt1xaGZjcxOuyzdT4XmAE2RsXmOH8P7XN1aSRS69epyK6xmnq2VlKZ5-2UQRqN7pl_ZSxg_mH95j0WydnStrVOdqQ2aV5plEvPTTns71vbbFMVGf8R.png?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/AQMnagNEVDqHY_Rt1xaGZjcxOuyzdT4XmAE2RsXmOH8P7XN1aSRS69epyK6xmnq2VlKZ5-2UQRqN7pl_ZSxg_mH95j0WydnStrVOdqQ2aV5plEvPTTns71vbbFMVGf8R.png?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":291123,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=291123","url_meta":{"origin":275497,"position":5},"title":"Beyond Parody: Misogyny, Authoritarianism, and Climate Change","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"12\/13\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"There\u2019s nothing I can add to the self-parody that is this paper. I will get the obligatory citations out of the way and then just paste extensive quotes from the open access paper. Let the hilarity ensue. For masochists who wish to read the paper in its entirety\u00a0use this link.","rel":"","context":"In \"Climate change\"","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=climate-change"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/image-301.png?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/image-301.png?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/image-301.png?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/image-301.png?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/121246920"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=275497"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":275508,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275497\/revisions\/275508"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/275507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=275497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=275497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=275497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}