THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SOCIETAL RESPONSE TO THE HARM OF TOBACCO VERSUS THE HARM OF CLIMATE CHANGE: THE ROLE OF PARTY DISCOURSE ON THE POLARIZATION OF PUBLIC OPINION _________________ A Thesis Presented to The faculty of College of Arts and Sciences Ohio University _________________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Graduation with Honors in Political Science _________________ By Maya Schneiderman May 2018 1 Table of Contents Abstract………….…………………..……………………………………………....2 Literature Review and Argument ………....………………………………………...4 Section 1: Tobacco….…………..…………………………………………..……...12 Section 2: Climate Change……...….……………………………………….……...22 2.1: Environmental Protection: An American Value………………...23 2.1(a): Climate Science: A Changing Discourse…………………….24 2.2: Inherent Political Party Ideological Differences…………….….28 2.2 (a): Competing Economic Views………………………..29 2.2 (b): Problems Arise Between Parties……………………31 2.3: Manipulation of Public Opinion Through Denial Campaign…..33 2.3 (a): Denial Campaign……………………………....…....39 2.3 (b): Amplification of Denial by Role of Media………....43 Section 3: Discussion and Conclusion…….…….……………………………….. 46 References....………………………………………………………………………52 2 THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SOCIETAL RESPONSE TO THE HARM OF TOBACCO VERSUS THE HARM OF CLIMATE CHANGE: THE ROLE OF PARTY DISCOURSE ON THE POLARIZATION OF PUBLIC OPINION ABSTRACT This paper examines the actors involved in effectively altering public perception of scientific evidence through a comparison of the climate change denial campaign versus the tobacco denial campaign. It finds that the denial campaign conducted by the Tobacco Industry was not successful in creating uncertainty about tobacco science among the public, however, the climate change denial campaign has been successful in influencing public perception on the accuracy of climate science. By understanding the role of public perception of the risk of personal harm, this paper identifies how particular denial campaigns are successful in polarizing of public opinion on scientific evidence. Keywords: climate change, public opinion, climate science, tobacco industry, polarization, denial campaign 3 This paper will explore the differences in societal understanding of public health issues by comparing the scientific evidence released about the correlation of lung cancer to smoking tobacco with the scientific evidence released about the correlation of burning fossil fuels to climate change. In each era, scientists formed a consensus on the evidence they found. With respect to tobacco science, public opinion consistently increased to reflect the evidence released by scientists. Looking at the dramatic impact on societal perception of the scientific evidence released about tobacco smoke, we can assume that this pattern would repeat itself in the future. However, it does not. These cases show how partisanship carried through mistrust for scientific knowledge is able to sway public opinion. This paper will show how the infiltration of the denial campaign into the discourse of politicians impacts public opinion on climate science. One way that partisanship carried through mistrust for scientific knowledge was through the strategic implementation of the climate change denial campaign by the Republican Party. This paper finds that in order for the Republican party to sustain their support in their position on climate policies, they had to enact skepticism about the accuracy of climate science and its scientific consensus. Recycling tactics of the Tobacco Industry in denying tobacco science, members of the Republican Party (starting with the conservative branch) enacted a similar denial campaign, in which the science of a warming planet was regarded as inaccurate or uncertain. Polarization of 4 public opinion is more durable when it correlates with beliefs in the absence or presence of personal harm to individuals. Literature Review And Argument Existing literature attempts to understand how partisanship can lead to societal polarization. Much of the literature acknowledges that there are inherent differences in ​ party values that would suggest competing discourses on climate policy, which would explain partisanship. For example, it makes sense that Republicans tend to vote against environmental regulations due to their value of a small presence of government involvement. Additionally, Democrats have historically been known to work more with government to protect our environment for the good of the community. Yet, data shows that both Republicans and Democrats care about the quality of our environment when it concerns public health (Pew Research, 2017). ​ ​ However, when it comes to climate change, surveys find a large gap between answers one gives based on their affiliated political party. Pew Research (2017) finds that the majority of Republicans stated that they were in favor of stricter environmental laws, even if there were economic costs to those regulations, until 2010. By 2009 the majority of respondents that disagreed with the scientific evidence of anthropogenic climate change, identified themselves as members of the Republican Party, whereas the majority of respondents that attribute climate change to human activity and express 5 trust in scientific evidence identified more with the Democratic Party. This noticeable division of party affiliation in public opinion on climate change has lead many academics to examine the role of partisanship in forming opinion. Journalists, such as Lauren Griffin (2016), point to the theory of cultural cognition of being a practical explanation of the polarization in public opinion about climate change. The theory of cultural cognition suggests that individuals form beliefs about controversial facts, such as climate change, in ways that reflect the values held by their cultural identities (Cultural Cognition Theory). Maeseele and Pepermans (2017) also agree with the research on the cultural cognition theory. They find that research has consistently shown that individuals will form opinions of climate change for the purpose of connecting them to others who share their ideological standpoints. This correlates with the Bullock et al’s (2015) findings that survey participants will actively provide an answer that aligns with their political affiliation solely because they believe it is part of their party’s ideology to answer a specific way. In other words, just as the cultural cognition theory suggests, participants do not want to give opinions that might separate them from their community; and this conditioned by outside sources. The belief of climate science skepticism is a strong component to the movements of the Republican Party, and people do not like to question commonly shared beliefs within their group. Further, the actions of political elites can stimulate an even larger stigma for disagreement with your community’s values. For example, 6 as Griffin (2016) acknowledges in her article, a former Conservative congressman, Bob Inglis, lost his seat in the primary almost immediately after speaking out on climate change. Other climate communication academics point to situations in which troubles of inner party disagreement has erupted. Guber (2017) refers to Mitt Romney’s contention of announcing his belief in “the basic scientific principles of climate change,” receiving negative responses from his party, regarding that belief as “tantamount to political suicide” (Guber, 2017, 10). Events like this create a narrative of the potential consequences if you take a stance on a political issue that differs from what your “community” believes. In fact, there is literature that acknowledges partisanship as a strategy that is used by parties in order to strengthen political affiliation. Captstick et al (2014) and Collomb (2014) argue that the stark polarization of opinion regarding climate change is a result from the attempt of the Republican Party to differentiate themselves from the Democratic Party. Specifically, once Republicans lost power to the Democrats in Congress in 2006, and then again with the Presidency in 2008, there was a sense of urgency by Republicans to harden their ideological differences. Following the election of President Obama in 2007, “climate change came to constitute a ‘litmus test’ with Conservative Republicans aligning with climate skeptic positions as a means of differentiating themselves from Democrats” (Capstick et al, 2014, 46). The Tea Party movement (beginning in 2009) is the most prominent example of the Conservative Republicans using skepticism of climate science to differentiate themselves from 7 Democrats. Collomb (2014) writes about the ideology of climate change denial in the United States, pointing to possible suggestions as to what motivated the Tea Party to engage in this type of discourse. He writes “from the small-government perspective, therefore, discrediting calls for strong national and international climate action has become a matter of ideological survival” (Collomb, 2014, 2). With regard to how this impacted the views of constituents, we start to see stark divisions of opinion on climate change based on partisanship shortly after the birth of the Tea Party movement in 2009. For example, Pew Research (2017) found a significant drop in the percentage of Republican respondents who agree that there is evidence that the average temperature on Earth is increasing from 59% in 2006 down to 34% in 2009. As the data shows strong polarization in climate change opinion, there is evidence to suggest that the cultural