Research
Guber, Deborah Lynn, Jeremiah Bohr & Riley E. Dunlap. 2020. “‘TIME TO WAKE UP’: Climate change advocacy in a polarized Congress, 1996-2015.” Environmental Politics.
*Abstract: Scholars who study the failure of climate change policy in the United States tend to focus on the mechanics of denial and the coordinated efforts of political operatives, conservative think tanks, and partisan news outlets to cast doubt on what has become overwhelming scientific consensus. In contrast, we address a factor that has been understudied until now – the role of climate change advocacy in the U.S. Congress. Using quantitative text analysis on a corpus of floor speeches published in the Congressional Record between 1996 and 2015, we find notable differences in the language partisans use. Democrats communicate in ways that are message-based, emphasizing the weight of scientific evidence, while Republicans tend towards a softer, cue-based narrative based on anecdotes and storytelling. We end with a discussion of what climate change advocates can hope to accomplish through the ‘politics of talk,’ especially in an age of heightened polarization.
Bohr, Jeremiah. 2020. “Key events and challenges: A computational text analysis of the 115th House of Representatives on Twitter.” Environmental Politics.
*Abstract: To determine to what extent politicians publicly discuss environmental issues in line with public opinion and economic characteristics of their constituents, we conducted a computational text analysis of the 115th House of Representatives’ tweets about environmental issues. In polarized U.S. environmental politics, many Republicans attack the authority of scientists and regulators but some signala desire for bipartisan policy compromises. Analyzing district characteristics and environmental communication on Twitter reveals that nominally pro-environment Republicans representing more moderate constituents fail to oppose their partisan colleagues, particularly during the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. At the same time, very few openly attacked climate science; instead, House Republicans primarily focused attention on fossil fuels, the Environmental Protection Agency and the right of the federal government to regulate economic activity. The ‘Waters of the United States’ served as a rallying cry for opposition to environmental regulation in the 115th House of Representatives.
Bohr, Jeremiah. 2020. “Reporting on climate change: A computational analysis of U.S. newspapers and sources of bias, 1997–2017.” Global Environmental Change.
*Abstract: News organizations constitute key sites of science communication between experts and lay audiences, giving many individuals their basic worldview of complex topics like climate change. Previous researchers have studied climate change news coverage to assess accuracy in reporting and potential sources of bias. These studies typically rely on manually coding articles from a handful of prestigious outlets, not allowing comparisons with smaller newspapers or providing enough diversity to assess the influence of partisan orientation or localized climate vulnerability on content production. Making these comparisons, this study indicates that partisan orientation, scale of circulation, and vulnerability to climate change correlate with several topics present in U.S. newspaper coverage of climate change. After assembling a corpus of over 78,000 articles covering two decades from 52 U.S. newspapers that are diverse in terms of geography, partisan orientation, scale of circulation, and objectively measured climate risk, a coherent set of latent topics were identified via an automated content analysis of climate change news coverage. Topic model results indicate that while outlet bias does not appear to impact the prevalence of coverage for most topics surrounding climate change, differences were evident for some topics based on partisan orientation, scale, or vulnerability status, particularly those relating to climate change denial, impacts, mitigation, or resource use. Overall, this paper provides a comprehensive study of U.S. newspaper coverage of climate change and identifies specific topics where outlet bias constitutes an important contextual factor.
Bohr, Jeremiah and Anna C. McCreery. 2019. “Do Energy Burdens Contribute to Economic Poverty in the United States? A Panel Analysis.” Social Forces.
Abstract: For many households, energy consumption represents a non-discretionary portion of their budget and directly relates to quality of life. As researchers continue to study the environmental impacts of energy behavior, it is important to explore how energy consumption relates to socio-economic wellbeing. This paper examines the economic impacts of being energy-burdened in the United States, defined as spending at least 10% of household income on heating and electricity services; energy burdens are partially, but not entirely, driven by income, since energy needs and costs can vary substantially due to housing characteristics, utility rates, and other factors. Using panel data of US household income and energy expenditures during 1999–2017, this analysis demonstrates that energy-burdened households were at about 150%–200% greater risk of transitioning into or extending the duration of economic poverty over a two-year timeframe relative to non-burdened households. This analysis indicates that dedicating inordinate amounts of income to energy services can threaten a household’s economic well-being over time, possibly by preventing a household from engaging in other economic activities or compounding existing economic hardship. These results emphasize the importance of energy assistance and energy efficiency for low-income households, drawing attention to how structures of energy consumption, the welfare state, and social stratification intertwine.
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Bohr, Jeremiah and Riley E. Dunlap. 2018. “Key topics in environmental sociology, 1990–2014: Results from a computational text analysis.” Environmental Sociology.
Abstract: Environmental sociology is a growing field producing a diverse body of literature while also moving into the mainstream of the larger discipline. The twin goals of this paper are to introduce environmental sociologists to innovations in content analysis, specifically a form of text-mining known as topic modeling, and then employing it to identify key themes and trends within our diverse field. We apply the topic modeling approach to a corpus of research articles within environmental sociology, identifying 25 central topics within the field and examining their prevalence over time, co-occurrence, impact (judged by citations), and prestige (judged by journal rankings). Our results indicate which topics are most prevalent, tend to occur together, and how both vary over time. They also indicate that the highest impact topics are not the most prevalent, the most prestigious topics are not the most prevalent, and topics can be prestigious without exerting much impact. We conclude with a discussion of the capabilities computational text analysis methods offer environmental sociologists.
Bohr, Jeremiah. 2017. “Is it hot in here or is it just me? Temperature anomalies and political polarization over global warming in the American public.” Climatic Change.
Abstract: Do temperature anomalies affect political polarization over global warming? Americans’ attitudes about global warming are affected by whether they reside in states experiencing unseasonably warm (or cold) temperatures versus those experiencing milder temperatures. Specifically, in terms of causal attribution, political polarization over global warming is more pronounced in states experiencing temperature anomalies. Using pooled data collected during 2013–2014, this study utilizes logistic regression to explore how temperature anomalies exacerbate the political polarization among Americans over perceptions of whether global warming impacts are immediately evident as well as the attribution of global warming to human activity. Results indicate that very cold or warm temperature anomalies from a 5-year baseline predict perceptions of global warming impacts and exacerbate existing political polarization over the causal attribution of global warming. These effects are particularly noticeable among Democrats. This analysis provides a contribution to understanding how temperature anomalies from the recent past shape the sociophysical context of global warming attitudes.
Bohr, Jeremiah. 2016. “The ‘climatism’ cartel: why climate change deniers oppose market-based mitigation policy.” Environmental Politics.
Abstract: Mainstream policy responses seek to utilize market mechanisms in an effort to minimize costs for major emitters of greenhouse gases. Presumably, this should win over some climate change deniers who align themselves with think tanks promoting free markets and economic growth. Yet, climate change deniers and free-market activists are as staunchly opposed to market-based climate policy as they are to any other form of climate mitigation. In order to understand why climate change deniers reject market-based policy proposals, an archive of free-market environmental newsletters was analyzed for themes of economic opposition. This analysis revealed how climate change deniers rely upon the concept of a regulatory cartel to connect economic opposition to climate policy with attacks on scientific evidence. Because professional scientists do not operate under conventional private-market incentive structures, neoliberal climate change deniers frame scientific knowledge as an attack on economic freedom when utilized to guide policy governing environment– economy relationships.
Bohr, Jeremiah. 2014. “Public views on the dangers and importance of climate change: predicting climate change beliefs in the United States through income moderated by party identification.” Climatic Change.
Abstract: Previous research has identified the interaction between political orientation and education as an important predictor of climate change beliefs. Using data from the 2010 General Social Survey, this article looks at the moderating effect of party identification on income in predicting climate change beliefs in the U.S. Probing this interaction reveals that increased income predicts a higher probability of dismissing climate dangers among Republican-leaning individuals when compared with Independents and Democrats. Alternatively, increased income predicts a higher probability of ranking climate change as the most important environmental problem facing the United States among Democraticleaning individuals compared with Republicans. The results indicate that income only predicts climate change beliefs in the presence of certain political orientations, with poorer Republicans less likely to dismiss climate change dangers than their affluent counterparts.
Bohr, Jeremiah. 2014. “Barriers to Environmental Sacrifice: The Interaction of Free Rider Fears with Education, Income, and Ideology.” Sociological Spectrum.
Abstract: Sacrificing individual material interests for collective benefits involves trust that others will act in good faith. Inherent to situations concerning collective goods is the problem of the free rider that plagues collective action: the individual who maximizes their short-term interests at the cost of the greater good. Prior research in environmental sociology has identified various social structural factors predicting pro-environmental behavior and concern, while research on social dilemmas has explored the role of trust in determining cooperation in situations regarding collective goods. This research draws upon these areas of scholarship to examine the interaction between free rider fears with education, income, and ideology in determining the willingness of Americans to sacrifice individual interest for environmental protection through an analysis of 2010 General Social Survey data. Findings help differentiate the engagement of pro-environmental behavior from general environmental concern, with the fear of free riders particularly impacting the highly educated and ideological liberals.