CHARTS: Republicans and Democrats Treat Fracking Like It’s Global Warming

<p><a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&search_source=search_form&search_tracking_id=RGOU9aVi-1uJ0j6tp3w59A&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&searchterm=fracking&search_group=&orient=&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&commercial_ok=&color=&show_color_wheel=1#id=128666570&src=sRpLWO8XdQ4DWTUqXWNz-A-1-6" target="_blank">Michael G. McKinne</a>/Shutterstock</p>

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


The more liberals and conservatives know about science, the more they have wildly variant views about the risks of global warming, according to research by Yale’s Dan Kahan. You might call it the “smart idiot” effect—knowledge, itself, seems to make people with diametrically opposed views more sure that they’re right, and thus worsens the political fight over what is actually scientifically true.

And recent research suggests that the smart idiot effect isn’t limited to climate change—it also applies to public perception of fracking. At the center of a growing number of regional environmental disputes, fracking (short for hydraulic fracturing) refers to the process of blasting water and chemicals down wells at high pressure to crack shale layers and, in the process, release their hydrocarbon goodies.

Why is the fracking issue prime terrain for another smart idiot effect—and another extreme bifurcation of the left and the right over what is factually true and accurate?

Well, first, the issue is clearly growing in political salience—witness the recent Matt Damon film Promised Land—but still falls shy of going fully mainstream. According to a recent poll by the Yale and George Mason projects on climate change communication, less than half of Americans even have an opinion on the issue. But already, the more people know about it, the more they fall into either the “strongly support” or “strongly oppose” camp on the issue.

Indeed, if we turn back to Kahan’s research, we find that fracking shows a smart idiot effect that looks comparable to the one seen on global warming.

Here’s one figure from Kahan’s data, showing the relationship between one’s score on a general test of scientific literacy, one’s left-right political values, and one’s views on how dangerous global warming is. Note that Kahan refers to those on the left as “egalitarian communitarians” and those on the right as “hierarchical individualists,” but there is high overlap between these groups and good old “liberals” and “conservatives,” respectively:

Now, look at the same analysis when applied to the fracking issue:

Just as in the case of global warming, for people with conservative cultural values (hierarchical individualists), their conviction that fracking is just dandy for the environment increases with an increasing level of scientific literacy. But for those with liberal cultural values—egalitarian communitarians—the movement is in the opposite direction. With increasing scientific literacy, their conviction that fracking harms the environment increases. (To be sure, fracking and global warming are different in one key respect: On fracking, the science is murkier and more contested, and indeed, the Environmental Protection Agency is still trying to resolve the question of how it may affect drinking water supplies.)

In other words, the more scientifically literate you are, the more your values seem to bias you on fracking—and drive you to a diametrically opposed position from the one embraced by your political rivals.

What this means, unfortunately, is that as the fracking issue grows in prominence, people are going to be very hard to move or sway—despite the actual facts. It also means that the people who will be the hardest to sway are those who know a lot about it. The more they know, the more biased and polarized they’ll be, the more likely to double down on their beliefs. And each time some fracking-related news story rises to the level of national consciousness, each side will be ready with its “facts” and its “experts.”

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate