Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters
Document Type
Presentation
Publication Date
Spring 5-2021
Faculty Advisor(s)
John Compton
Abstract
Human-caused climate change has been acknowledged for decades, but public opinion on its validity and severity has been consistently questioned in the United States. Despite the overwhelming evidence pointing towards fossil fuel emissions and unsustainable practices as the leading causes of global climate change, its politicization during the beginning of the century has seriously slowed down America’s path towards a green future. Because this has become a partisan issue for many voters, considerable research has been done on the affiliation between party identification and public opinion on climate change. Although party identification has been studied as a major factor, other variables also come into effect. This paper aims to explore the relationship between how Americans view federal spending on the environment with their income and educational background. We will be obtaining and analyzing data from the 2016 American National Election Survey to see if these variables have statistical significance on how important federal climate change action is to the public. We expect that education will have a larger effect on public opinion than income and that people who want to increase the federal environmental budget will have lower incomes but higher education.
Recommended Citation
Falla, Joanna, "Beyond the Politics of Climate Change: How Education and Income Level Affect Environmental Values" (2021). Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters. 462.
https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/cusrd_abstracts/462
Comments
Presented at the virtual Spring 2021 Student Scholar Symposium at Chapman University.