Liberal Gov't Active

belated redumbdent but represents target aspect

gubmint ~ New Deal good gov't Gt Society

NOT A FAR FIGHT

WHO 3%

Discussion

What motivates experts and non-experts alike to pursue a position on climate change contrary to scientific consensus? The role of conservative politics, conservative think tanks, and industry efforts that make up the CCCM is well documented; however, our findings reveal other similarities among contrarians worthy of consideration.

In particular, the data reveal that most individuals in our data are aged sixty-five or older. This age group, at least in the United States, is also the most likely age group to disagree with the climate consensus; conversely,80 per cent of expert Earth scientists who agree with the consensus on AGW are under the age of sixty-five (Pew Research Center 2015). Although many individuals in our sample were non-experts, the experts were also aged 65 or older on average, with an average birth year of 1944. [1964 GOLDWATER, DIVISIONS ON VIET NAM ETC IE ORIG CTR-CULTURE] While we expect contrarian experts to hold views different from most of the scientific community, this age distinction suggests there may be other reasons that led these individuals to align with contrarian efforts. Individuals' experiences, for example, may impact their views of science and government. As a result, this may help explain why both experts and non-experts alike participate in a movement that hinders climate change mitigation efforts.

While one might assume that many contrarians in our sample would have higher trust in science because of their scientific degrees, prior research has found this not necessarily to be the case. Specifically, while higher education has a “positive” effect on the views of climate change for Democrats/liberals, educational attainment has a “weaker or negative” effect on the views of Republicans/conservatives (McCright and Dunlap :{Reference McCright and Dunlap:(style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:-1px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;clip:rect(0px, 0px, 0px, 0px);height:1px;overflow:hidden;width:1px;position:absolute;white-space:nowrap"):}:2011a, 175, emphasis in original). As a result, and considering the conservative nature of contrarian efforts, we believe this period may have led to unique views on government and science—specifically, government intervention into scientific matters. In other words, despite older contrarians' scientific knowledge and/or education, their subjective concern about government intervention in science may surpass objectivity regarding mainstream consensus, especially considering the pervasiveness of neoliberalism during this period.[TWO FREDS OZONE SST?]

Neoliberalism emerged as a driving force to oppose government oversight and regulation, largely related to backlash from Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal policies and subsequent expansion of the federal government. While tenets ofneoliberalism (that is, a laissez-faire approach to the market with a heavy emphasis on deregulation and free trade) would become central to CCCM objectives, the ideology pervaded academic circles far earlier (McCright and Dunlap :{Reference McCright and Dunlap:(style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:-1px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;clip:rect(0px, 0px, 0px, 0px);height:1px;overflow:hidden;width:1px;position:absolute;white-space:nowrap"):}:2011a; Oreskes and Conway :{Reference Oreskes and Conway:(style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:-1px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;clip:rect(0px, 0px, 0px, 0px);height:1px;overflow:hidden;width:1px;position:absolute;white-space:nowrap"):}:2010). In fact, while the ideology is most notably associated with the creation of the Chicago School of economics, it was not unique to just Chicago. Neoliberalism was transnational in nature, permeating into other academic and political circles with the help of several institutions established solely to push this ideology (Mirowski and Plehwe :{Reference Mirowski and Plehwe:(style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:-1px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;clip:rect(0px, 0px, 0px, 0px);height:1px;overflow:hidden;width:1px;position:absolute;white-space:nowrap"):}:2009). As a result, by the 1950s, there was “an all-out assault on virtually every aspect of Keynesian economics” led, most notably, by Milton Friedman (Yergin and Stanislaw :{Reference Yergin, Stanislaw, Yergin and Stanislaw:(style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:-1px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;clip:rect(0px, 0px, 0px, 0px);height:1px;overflow:hidden;width:1px;position:absolute;white-space:nowrap"):}:1998, para. 8). By the 1960s and 1970s, neoliberalism was a prominent theory within economics and other disciplines. As a result, much like collective memories pertinent to older contrarians' formative years, it is reasonable to believe that neoliberal ideology would have impacted contrarians' attitudes toward science and government prior to the emergence of the CCCM.:{Footnote:(style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:-1px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;clip:rect(0px, 0px, 0px, 0px);height:1px;overflow:hidden;width:1px;position:absolute;white-space:nowrap"):}:^14