States With The Most Climate Change Deniers

The US continues to have a large population of people who do not believe in the damage from climate change. American Progress estimated the figure among members of Congress at 23% of the total. This figure was particularly alarming, the researchers said. “Some members of Congress have shifted from outright climate denial to other rhetorical tactics. Examples include redirecting responsibility for addressing the climate crisis, such as deferring U.S. actions to reduce greenhouse emissions until other countries act first; portraying climate activism as alarmism; or spreading misinformation.” In other words, some of these people know better.

Across the entire US population, Yale found that when asked “Is global warming happening?”, 14% said no. When asked “Is global warming caused mostly by human activities?”, 29% said no.

Additionally, climate deniers’ opinions and actions can cause significant damage. According to Climate Change Communications, “Disinformation about climate change has a straightforward purpose—to block action on climate change. In America, it has largely succeeded, with policies to mitigate climate change stymied or delayed for decades.” The New York Times added, “The unfounded claims that now regularly follow natural disasters and dangerous weather, contradicting a preponderance of scientific evidence, can often seem frivolous and fantastical. They persist, however—attracting large audiences and frustrating climate experts, who say the world has little time to evade a global warming catastrophe.”

Just as climate denial rates differ from nation to nation and among different demographics, they also vary by state. Among the most widely regarded research on this topic was conducted by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication’s Yale Climate Opinion Maps.

Nationally, approximately 72% of Americans believe global warming is happening. Denialism is usually highest in more conservative or inland Western/Mountain states, with states having the lowest percentages of climate change believers tending to cluster in these areas. Another primary source is the Climate Policy Dashboard, which also provides data by state. Stanford’s Climate Opinions offers similar research in its paper, American Public Opinion on Global Warming.

The methodology of the Yale study is the most comprehensive. “This site provides estimates of U.S. climate change beliefs, risk perceptions, and policy preferences at the state and local levels—a new source of high-resolution data on public opinion that can inform national, state, and local decision-making, policy, and education initiatives. The estimates are derived from a statistical model using multilevel regression with post-stratification (MRP) on a large national survey dataset, along with demographic and geographic population characteristics.”

In each of the above studies, 5% to 10% have “no answer,” so they cannot be characterized in either camp.

Climate Crisis247 examined each of these studies to identify the states with the most climate deniers:

• Utah consistently ranks at or near the bottom, with only about 64% believing global warming is happening (meaning approximately 36% are “deniers”).
• Other states frequently cited with lower belief levels include Idaho, Wyoming, and parts of the central/southern U.S. like Oklahoma, Mississippi, Alabama, and North Dakota. Denialism generally runs about 30% of the population.

The states with the fewest deniers on a percentage basis, according to Yale research, are California, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey. With the exception of California, these are all located in the Northeast. This list closely mirrors states with the most “liberals,” according to The World Population Review. For example, based on this data, Massachusetts is the most liberal state.

The remarkable aspect of denialism is that it persists despite increasingly violent and frequent weather events. For whatever reason, that evidence is not enough.