Study: Conservatives actively prefer wasteful tribalism

I neglected to blog about this when I first heard about it earlier this week, but an interesting and revealing (if not entirely surprising) new study seems to confirm that not only do more hardline conservatives care little about preserving the environment, they’ll actively go for the more wasteful and inefficient route in order to spite ’em some tree-huggerin’ librulz, even if it means paying more out of their own pocket for it:

A study out today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences examined attitudes about energy efficiency in liberals and conservatives, and found that promoting energy-efficient products and services on the basis of their environmental benefits actually turned conservatives off from picking them. The researchers first quizzed participants on how much they value various benefits of energy efficiency, including reducing carbon emissions, reducing foreign oil dependence, and reducing how much consumers pay for energy; cutting emissions appealed to conservatives the least.

The study then presented participants with a real-world choice: With a fixed amount of money in their wallet, respondents had to "buy" either an old-school light bulb or an efficient compact florescent bulb (CFL), the same kind Bachmann railed against. Both bulbs were labeled with basic hard data on their energy use, but without a translation of that into climate pros and cons. When the bulbs cost the same, and even when the CFL cost more, conservatives and liberals were equally likely to buy the efficient bulb. But slap a message on the CFL's packaging that says "Protect the Environment," and "we saw a significant drop-off in more politically moderates and conservatives choosing that option," said study author Dena Gromet, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business.

[…]

Gromet said she never expected the green message to motivate conservatives, but was surprised to find that it could in fact repel them from making a purchase even while they found other aspects, like saving cash on their power bills, attractive. The reason, she thinks, is that given the political polarization of the climate change debate, environmental activism is so frowned upon by those the right that they'll do anything to keep themselves distanced from it.

Daily Blend: Sunday, November 28, 2010

Joe Rehyansky

• For real: American judge Joe Rehyansky, part-time Tennessee magistrate and Vietnam veteran, accused of calling for “corrective rape” to “convert” lesbians in the US Military.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• How to avoid being grilled for spreading a lie, Michele Bachmann-style: Claim you “didn’t say [you] believed it”.

• What if solar got the same subsidies as fossil fuels?
  (via @todayspolitics)

• Breathtaking 80 gigapixel, 360-degree panoramic photograph of London, England. Find the supposed “naughty” bit, get a cookie.
  (via The Agitator)

• Frederika the 91-year-old superhero grandmother!
  (via The Agitator)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Daily Blend: Tuesday, November 09, 2010

Andrew Shirvell [source]

• See ya: Michigan Assistant Attorney General Andrew Shirvell [pictured] finally sacked for his ridiculous anti-gay crusade against a U-M student president.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• Aaaand the War on Christmas is ON, baby!

• Which is shocking: That the Pentagon wants permission to attack computer networks around the world “to protect American interests”, or that Obama administration lawyers are actually objecting?
  (via The Daily Grail)

• Climate scientists plan wide-scale media counterattack against ankle-biting denialists. Good. We need more belligerence on the side of reason.

• Federal judge temporarily blocks Oklahoma’s idiotic and pointless new ban on Sharia law in courts, citing a violation of the Establishment Clause.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• Michelle Malkin accuses Democrats of “incivility and hate”. In a screed foreshadowingly titled “Take Your Olive Branch and Shove It, Democrats”. Just wipe those shards of exploded irony meter out of your eyeballs, now.
  (via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)

• Are actual, 3D holographs just around the bend? Arizona scientists say they’re nearly there.
  (via The Daily Grail)

• Scientists now able to turn ordinary skin cells into new blood, providing new ray of hope for sufferers of leukemia, anemia, and so on.
  (via The Daily Grail)

• Groundbreaking research finds primitive human ancestors behaved more, well, primitively.
  (via The Daily Grail)