michael_nielsen

BTW, if your first response to the polarization in the US is "damn fool Republicans" then you're part of the reason for the polarization. A more interesting response than beating on the outgroup is to try to understand deeply _why_ this is true in the US, and how it could change

And, yes, I'm aware many will respond "Oh, it's Fox News" or some variation on "Republicans are anti-science fools". But that's a shallow response, just another way of beating on the outgroup without really understanding.

Incidentally, I've tweeted both these things before. I was somewhat puzzled as to why they got very low engagement, since they're more important (& certain) than many climate tweets that spread rapidly.

One possible theory: many (not all) people who claim to care about climate are more interested in using it as an issue to beat their political opponents with. These facts don't fit that purpose well, even though they're important to understand if you genuinely care about climate

But maybe it's just that the left-right axis is not the best one to use to spot the correlation.

Put another way, when the numbers are 10% and 18% the Guardian headline, while literally true, is quite misleading. It the numbers were 1% and 2% it would still be true... and yet would suggest almost no difference between the two groups in terms of their beliefs.