Why are a majority of Republicans climate change deniers isolated in their environmental beliefs from most of our nation and virtually the rest of the world?
A basic reason for their isolation is that the party leadership has succeeded in convincing them that climate change is a Democratic political ploy rather than an environmental concern.
Best guess is two-fold as to why the GOP hierarchy has decided to reject human-induced climate change's authenticity. First, some Right Wing elements in control of the GOP fear that the Democrats are using the issue as a vehicle for widening public support. How? By empowering big government to expand its influence through climate change regulations. Purportedly, these regulations will raise revenues used to redistribute wealth through increased public services to key voting blocs.
Secondly, Republican leaders have found that depiction of climate change as a Machiavellian tool has unified support within the ranks of their own anti-big government constituency.
What has made the Republican grassroots so receptive to climate change propaganda? Its demographic composition has had a lot to do with it. It is a segment of society dominated by an aging white middle class and blue collar workers. Many of them harbor anxiety at the burgeoning minority population who seem destined to attain numerical supremacy in the not too distant future.
Portraying climate change as a menacing instrument for social engineering has successfully been ingrained in the psyche of many in the GOP rank and file. As such, it has fostered perceptions of climate change as an attempt to deprive Republicans of political power and economic clout.
Other factors reinforce Republicans' climate change denial. The inherent procrastination in human nature is prone to emerge when future challenges are likely to require some demanding change in the status quo.
Some Republicans are offended by the thought that anyone other than God can influence climate, and base their skepticisms on those grounds.
Climate change deniers' biases also make them susceptible to the appeals of class warfare, anti-science, and xenophobia.
Suspicion directed at "intellectual elites" has been fanned by identifying them as the driving force behind climate change regulation. The scientific consensus incriminating climate change is dismissed because of the absence of iron-clad proof. This displays a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of science. Success is usually defined by the weight of evidence rather than elusive absolute answers.
Many in the GOP grassroots also embrace the propaganda that the international community is using climate change as a wedge to encroach on our sovereignty.
Finally, conservative media have reinforced the denial thesis by faithfully regurgitating it in just the way their audience wants.