Responsibility for the Earth is part of many U.S. Christians’ beliefs, but so is skepticism about the climate
WASHINGTON, D.C. (November 17, 2022) – Most U.S. adults – including a solid majority of Christians and large numbers of people who identify with other religious traditions – consider the Earth sacred and believe God gave humans a duty to care for it, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.
But the survey also finds that highly religious Americans (those who say they pray each day, regularly attend religious services and consider religion very important in their lives) are far less likely than other U.S. adults to express concern about warming temperatures around the globe.
The survey reveals several reasons why religious Americans tend to be less concerned about climate change. First and foremost is politics: The main driver of U.S. public opinion about the climate is political party, not religion. Highly religious Americans are more inclined than others to identify with or lean toward the Republican Party, and Republicans tend to be much less likely than Democrats to believe that human activity (such as burning fossil fuels) is warming the Earth or to consider climate change a serious problem.
Christians, and religiously affiliated Americans more broadly, are not united in their views about climate change. While majorities of all the large U.S. Christian subgroups say they think global climate change is at least a somewhat serious problem, there are substantial differences in the shares who consider it an extremely or very serious problem – ranging from 68% of adults who identify with the historically Black Protestant tradition to 34% of evangelical Protestants. And half or fewer people surveyed in all major Protestant traditions say the Earth is getting warmer mostly because of human activity, including 32% of evangelicals.
Religious Americans who express little or no concern about climate change also give a variety of other explanations for their views, including that “there are much bigger problems in the world today,” that “God is in control of the climate,” and that they “do not believe the climate actually is changing.” In addition, many religious Americans voice concerns about the potential consequences of environmental regulations, such as a loss of individual freedoms, fewer jobs or higher energy prices.
Meanwhile, people who are less religious tend to be more concerned about the consequences of global warming. For example, religiously unaffiliated adults – those who describe themselves as atheists, agnostics or “nothing in particular” – are much more likely to say climate change is an extremely or very serious problem (70%) than are religiously affiliated Americans as a whole (52%). And people who have a low level of religious commitment are much more likely than those with medium or high levels of religious commitment to be concerned about climate change. Most highly religious Americans see climate change as at least a somewhat serious problem, but fewer than half (42%) say it is an extremely or very serious problem, compared with 72% of the least religious adults.
All these opinions are strongly tied to political partisanship, which emerges as a crucial factor in explaining views toward the environment and climate change. Democrats and Democratic leaners (83%) are far more likely than Republicans and GOP leaners (25%) to say that global climate change is an extremely or very serious problem – a huge gap that underlies much of the apparent differences in views among religious groups.
Other key findings:
- Climate change does not seem to be a major area of focus in U.S. congregations. Among all U.S. adults who say they attend religious services at least once or twice a month, just 8% say they hear a great deal or quite a bit about climate change in sermons. About another two-in-ten say they hear some discussion of the topic from the pulpit, but seven-in-ten say they hear little or nothing about it. Similarly, just 6% of U.S. congregants say they talk about climate change with other people at their congregation a great deal or quite a bit.
- The potential impact of government regulations is another factor that may contribute to religious Americans’ views on climate change. Compared with religious “nones” (28%), more Christians (44%) – and especially evangelical Protestants (56%) – say that in the next 30 years it is extremely or very likely that the U.S. will overreact to global climate change by creating many unnecessary environmental regulations. Religiously affiliated adults also are more likely than the unaffiliated to anticipate a gradual loss of individual freedoms in the coming decades because of environmental regulations.
- The survey finds a modest relationship between end-times beliefs and concerns about climate change. Those who believe humanity is living in the “end times” are less likely than those who do not believe this to say they think climate change is an extremely or very serious problem (51% vs. 62%), with end-times believers who hold a premillennialist perspective expressing the lowest levels of concern about climate change (40%). Still, even in this latter group, two-thirds say climate change is at least a somewhat serious problem.
- All respondents who say that their holy scripture has lessons about the environment were asked to describe, in their own words, what they think those lessons are. Within this group, people are far more likely to mention stewardship or people’s need to protect and care for the environment (29%) than they are to say that their religious text mentions that humans have dominion over Earth or that God put man in charge of creation (3%).
- As with views about the seriousness of climate change, opinions about whether the Earth is warming and the cause of it vary by party across religious groups. Roughly three-quarters of Democrats (77%) say the Earth is getting warmer mostly because of human activity such as burning fossil fuels, three times the share of Republicans who say this (24%). And within each of the major Christian traditions, as well as among Americans who do not identify with a religion, Republicans are consistently much less likely than Democrats in the same religious group to say the Earth’s warming is mostly caused by humans.
These are among the main findings of a new Pew Research Center survey, conducted April 11-17, 2022, among 10,156 adults on the Center’s American Trends Panel. The margin of sampling error for the full sample is plus or minus 1.6 percentage points.
This report was made possible by The Pew Charitable Trusts, which received support from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations.
To read the report, click here: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/11/17/how-religion-intersects-with-americans-views-on-the-environment/
Methodology: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/11/17/climate-religion-methodology/
Survey topline: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2022/11/PF_2022.11.17_religion-climate_TOPLINE.pdf
For more information or to arrange an interview with Becka Alper, please reach out to Kelsey Beveridge at kbeveridge@pewresearch.org.
Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. It does not take policy positions. The Center is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, its primary funder. Subscribe to our email newsletters or follow us on social media.
Leave a Reply