The New York Times reports an analysis of opinion research done by Gallup looking at issues where having more education causes opinions of liberals and conservatives to either converge or diverge. In the case of climate change, the answer is "diverge."
The Times' explanation for this phenomenon seems, to this educated conservative observer, somewhat lame as it is a liberal's explanation. Let me attempt an educated conservative's explanation.
Being more educated includes knowing more about the earth's naturally variable climatic history (warming periods, ice ages) and the relative impacts of human endeavor vs. solar variation and vulcanism. Such knowledge leads educated conservatives to see human activity as a relatively puny force for climate change, unlikely to be determinative.
Liberal appeals to "scientific consensus" cause us to recall the decades when plate tectonics was universally considered geological crackpot lunacy. It is now received wisdom; clearly scientific consensus is no guarantee of accurate knowledge.
