If You Truly Believed This, Would It Change Your Behavior?

Yesterday Investor’s Business Daily posted an article about the behavior of people who sincerely believe in climate change (or at least claim to).

The article reports:

We keep hearing how global warming is the biggest crisis facing mankind today. But a new yearlong study finds that those ringing the alarm bells the loudest are the least likely to change their own behavior. They just want everyone else to.

The study divided 600 adults who reported on their climate-change beliefs into three groups: “skeptical,” “cautiously worried” and “highly concerned.”

Then the researchers — from the University of Michigan and Cornell University — tracked how often they reported doing things like recycling, using public transportation, buying environmentally friendly consumer products, and reusing shopping bags. And they asked about support for government mandates like CO2 emission reduction, gasoline taxes and renewable energy subsidies. The Journal of Environmental Psychology published the findings.

The findings are not a surprise to many of us.

The article reports the results:

The researchers found that the “highly concerned” group was the least likely to take individual action, but they were the most insistent on government action. The “skeptical” group, in contrast, was the most likely to recycle, use public transportation and do other environmentally sound things all on their own. Skeptics were least likely to endorse costly government regulations and mandates.

“Belief in climate change,” the researchers explained, “predicted support for government policies, but did not generally translate to individual-level, self-reported pro-environmental behavior. ” (emphasis mine)

Two notable examples of spouting climate change rhetoric but creating an unbelievable carbon footprint are Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio. Both live in luxurious homes which use much more electricity than the average American, and both travel on private jets. I have no problem with this–they have earned what they have. However, if you are going to support government regulations that negatively impact people earning a fraction of what you make, you really should practice what you preach.