Public Resource
Survey: Religion and race shape views on cause of climate change
Religion and race shape views on whether climate change is caused by human activities. Less than a third of white evangelicals saying it's driven by people, according to a new survey. Three-fourths of Hispanic Catholics and all religiously unaffiliated Americans (76%) believe climate change is caused by human activity, a survey released Wednesday by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute found. But less than half of Latter-day Saints believe climate change is caused by human activity (48%), and just three in 10 white evangelical Protestants (31%) believe so. A slim majority of white Catholics (56%) and white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants (54%) say climate change is human-caused. Meanwhile, most Americans (61%) believe climate change is caused mainly by human activity such as burning fossil fuels. 19% of white evangelical Protestants say there is no evidence that climate change is happening — the largest percentage of any religious group in the survey.