Just when you thought the climate debate couldn’t get any more divisive, along comes an academic paper which looks into the ‘effects of gender on climate change knowledge and concern in the American public’. The headline conclusion? ‘Women exhibit slightly higher levels of both than do their male counterparts.’

Aaron M McCright, an associate professor at Michigan State University’s Department of Sociology whose paper is published in the September issue of the journal Population and Environment, examined eight years of data from Gallup’s annual environment poll and found that ‘women tend to believe the scientific consensus on global warming more than men’. However, he also discovered that his findings reinforced past research which suggests women lack confidence in their science comprehension.

‘Men still claim they have a better understanding of global warming than women, even though women’s beliefs align much more closely with the scientific consensus,’ he said. McCright added that the gender divide is likely to be explained by ‘gender socialisation’: boys learn that masculinity emphasises detachment, control and mastery, whereas girls develop traits of attachment, empathy and care. It’s these latter qualities which McCright believes makes women more likely to ‘feel concern about the potential dire consequences of global warming’.

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