All hot topics in culture related to science and medicine have a veil of factuality but are really just about politics, and sometimes economics. In that regard, climate change policy is no different than energy or vaccines or genetically modified foods, it is only the political leaning of the critics that changes.
Though political pundits try to claim that the issues are not political but are simply denial of science, the issues are often more complex. Republicans in the U.S. Congress accept climate change science and listen to the "supermajority" consensus on the reality and causes of climate change, just like U.S. President Obama is spending money on vaccine awareness despite undermining the safety of vaccines in 2008 and 2010 with his statements and actions, but the issues are more than science, they are cultural and economic.
"Different perceptions and claims among lawmakers are a major hurdle to agreeing on action to address global warming and these were thought to simply reflect scientific uncertainty," says Xinsheng Liu of Texas A&M University, lead author of a new paper on the topic published in Climatic Change. "However, our findings show that congressional testimonies are in fact consistent with agreement in the climate science community and that the sources of controversies must lie elsewhere."
The paper analyzed 1,350 testimonies from 253 relevant congressional hearings from 1969 to 2007. Among expert witnesses who expressed a view, 86 percent say that global warming and climate change is happening and 78 percent say it is caused by human activity. Under Republican-controlled congresses, a three-quarter supermajority of scientists say that it is real and anthropogenic. Most significant of all, 95 percent of scientists giving testimonies support action to combat it. Liu and co-authors Arnold Vedlitz, James Stoutenborough and Scott Robinson found that despite Republican-controlled congresses in the United States being more likely to feature scientists with a skeptical view, the majority of experts called as witnesses still indicate that global warming and climate change are real and caused by human activity.
So it's not the science in climate change, any more than it is in GMOs, fracking or vaccines. Given that, the researchers therefore challenge the view that simply providing more information is key to evidence-based policy making.
"Action on climate change requires courage to face the facts by acknowledging, incorporating and legitimizing the supermajority scientists' views on the issue while recognizing different opinions beyond science," says Liu.
CitationL Liu, X., Vedlitz, A., Stoutenborough, J.W., and Robinson, S. (2015). Scientists' Views and Positions on Global Warming and Climate Change: A Content Analysis of Congressional Testimonies. Climatic Change; DOI 10.1007/s10584-015-1390-6