Facing the Hard Truth: Evidence from Climate Change Ignorance

Abstract:

Public ignorance around climate change remains high in many countries, including the United States, where in 2024 only 59% of adults reported to believe that global warming is mostly caused by human activities. In this paper, we show that information avoidance aimed at protecting self-image contributes at explaining climate ignorance. Exploiting mass-layoffs of coal miners in the US and a difference-in-differences design we find that climate ignorance shrinks more in counties affected by the layoffs as compared to other coal-mining counties. We also employ a triple difference-in-differences strategy that compares layoffs from coal and metal mines to confirm that employment in a polluting sector contributes to persistent climate change ignorance. Finally we investigate beliefs around other policy-relevant issues and we fail to find evidence of a broader change in public opinion.