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Pictured is the Houston skyline.
A new survey released by the University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs found that while the vast majority of Houstonians believe in climate change, there is little consensus among residents about what is causing the globe’s warming temperatures.
According to the survey, published Wednesday, only 3.7% of Houston residents surveyed denied the existence of climate change. The majority of respondents also believed the results of climate change will have either a great or moderately harmful effect on their lives as well as future generations.
But there is a political divide between those who believe climate change is caused primarily by “human activities.” More than 48% of respondents who identify as Democrats agreed with the statement, compared to about 13% of Republicans.
The lead author of the study, assistant professor Maria P. Perez Arguelles, said in a statement the political gap reflects the respective parties’ legislative approach to the issue in Texas, where Republicans control both chambers of the state legislature.
“Lawmakers passed more bills that were aimed at strengthening the power grid or expanding the reliability of energy supply,” she wrote. “But other bills targeting renewable energy development and those that targeted wind and solar installations, for example, didn’t pass.”
The only area of some consensus across the political spectrum was with those who believe climate change is caused primarily by both human and natural changes. A nearly equal amount of Republicans, 37.6%, and Democrats, 38.1%, believed both were the most likely cause.
While the study was conducted between Aug. 11 and Sept. 4, its publication comes one day after President Donald Trump called climate change a “con job” while speaking at the United Nations’ general assembly, despite decades of research indicating that burning fossil fuels has contributed to rising global temperatures, posing a risk to human health worldwide.
Via the UH Hobby School of Public Affairs
When asked about how much they believe climate change will harm them personally, 25.2% of overall respondents in the Hobby School survey said it would harm them “a great deal,” while 40.6% said it would harm them “a moderate amount.” Only 10.7% said it would not harm them at all.
According to the survey, people were more likely to think that climate change would have a more harmful effect on future generations. When asked about the potential harm to future generations, 58.7% of respondents said it would harm them “a great deal,” and 7.5% believed it would not harm future generations at all
When asked about the main drivers behind climate change, 40.3% agreed that “climate change is mostly caused by human activities and natural changes in the environment,” while 32.6% said it was caused mostly “by human activities.”
Nearly 14% of respondents believed it was caused mostly by “natural changes in the environment,” and 3.7% believed it was not happening at all. Less than 10% said they did not know or did not have enough information to make a decision.
Among those who believe that climate change is happening, 57.7% said the oil and gas industry is “somewhat responsible,” while 26.2% said it’s “very responsible.”
The survey had a sample size of more than 1,500 and a 2% margin of error.
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