IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/climat/v178y2025i6d10.1007_s10584-025-03964-x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The meaning of climate change in American politics: an embedding regression analysis of U.S. politicians on Twitter

Author

Listed:
  • Jeremiah Bohr

    (University of Wisconsin Oshkosh)

Abstract

This study employs word embedding regression to examine the meaning of climate change in U.S. congressional discourse on Twitter from 2015–2022. By analyzing semantic variations across partisanship, district CO2 emissions, climate vulnerability, and constituent education levels, it offers novel insights into political communication on this issue. Results reveal less partisan polarization around climate change compared to contentious issues like abortion, guns, and immigration, with polarization decreasing in recent years. Notably, congressional representatives show greater polarization on climate change meaning in districts with fewer per capita emissions or higher shares of college graduates. This computational approach allows for systematic investigation of semantic meaning across social groups and time, contributing to our knowledge of how politicians frame climate change. The findings challenge common assumptions about partisan divides on climate issues and highlight the complex interplay between local factors and political discourse, offering implications for climate communication strategies and policy development.

Suggested Citation

  • Jeremiah Bohr, 2025. "The meaning of climate change in American politics: an embedding regression analysis of U.S. politicians on Twitter," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 178(6), pages 1-16, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:climat:v:178:y:2025:i:6:d:10.1007_s10584-025-03964-x
    DOI: 10.1007/s10584-025-03964-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10584-025-03964-x
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10584-025-03964-x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael I. Cragg & Yuyu Zhou & Kevin Gurney & Matthew E. Kahn, 2013. "Carbon Geography: The Political Economy Of Congressional Support For Legislation Intended To Mitigate Greenhouse Gas Production," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 51(2), pages 1640-1650, April.
    2. Martin, Gregory J. & Webster, Steven W., 2020. "Does residential sorting explain geographic polarization?," Political Science Research and Methods, Cambridge University Press, vol. 8(2), pages 215-231, April.
    3. Andrea Mah & Eunkyung Song, 2024. "Elite Speech about Climate Change: Analysis of Sentiment from the United Nations Conference of Parties, 1995–2021," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(7), pages 1-27, March.
    4. Adrienne R. Brown & Lawrence C. Hamilton, 2021. "Interaction effects on support for climate‐change mitigation," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 102(6), pages 2649-2660, November.
    5. Leah C. Stokes, 2016. "Electoral Backlash against Climate Policy: A Natural Experiment on Retrospective Voting and Local Resistance to Public Policy," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 60(4), pages 958-974, October.
    6. Aaron McCright, 2011. "Political orientation moderates Americans’ beliefs and concern about climate change," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 104(2), pages 243-253, January.
    7. Lawrence Hamilton, 2011. "Education, politics and opinions about climate change evidence for interaction effects," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 104(2), pages 231-242, January.
    8. Kevin M. Quinn & Burt L. Monroe & Michael Colaresi & Michael H. Crespin & Dragomir R. Radev, 2010. "How to Analyze Political Attention with Minimal Assumptions and Costs," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(1), pages 209-228, January.
    9. Rodriguez, Pedro L. & Spirling, Arthur & Stewart, Brandon M., 2023. "Embedding Regression: Models for Context-Specific Description and Inference," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 117(4), pages 1255-1274, November.
    10. Elke U. Weber, 2010. "What shapes perceptions of climate change?," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 1(3), pages 332-342, May.
    11. Bromley-Trujillo, Rebecca & Poe, John, 2020. "The importance of salience: public opinion and state policy action on climate change," Journal of Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 40(2), pages 280-304, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ting Liu & Nick Shryane & Mark Elliot, 2022. "Attitudes to climate change risk: classification of and transitions in the UK population between 2012 and 2020," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-15, December.
    2. Jeremiah Bohr, 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, Springer, vol. 142(1), pages 271-285, May.
    3. Italo Colantone & Livio Di Lonardo & Yotam Margalit & Marco Percoco, 2022. "The Political Consequences of Green Policies: Evidence from Italy," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 22176, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    4. Robert Huang & Matthew E. Kahn, 2024. "Do Red States Have a Comparative Advantage in Generating Green Power?," Environmental and Energy Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 5(1), pages 200-238.
    5. Selim Jürgen Ergun & Zehra D. Karadeniz & M. Fernanda Rivas, 2024. "Climate change risk perception in Europe: country-level factors and gender differences," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-13, December.
    6. Lawrence C. Hamilton & Joel Hartter & Kei Saito, 2015. "Trust in Scientists on Climate Change and Vaccines," SAGE Open, , vol. 5(3), pages 21582440156, August.
    7. Colantone, Italo & Di Lonardo, Livio & Margalit, Yotan & Percoco, Marco, 2022. "The Political Consequences of Green Policies: Evidence from Italy," FEEM Working Papers 327326, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    8. repec:osf:osfxxx:9zadu_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Hossain, Ashrafee & Rjiba, Hatem & Zhang, Dongyang, 2023. "Ex-ante litigation risk and firm-level climate-change exposure," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 214(C), pages 731-746.
    10. Adam Millard-Ball & Purva Kapshikar, 2024. "How land use patterns keep driving cheap: Geographic support for transportation taxes," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 61(7), pages 1345-1370, May.
    11. J. L. Arroyo-Barrigüete & C. Bellón Núñez-Mera & J. Labrador & V. L. Nicolas, 2023. "Ideology, scientific literacy, and climate change: the case of Spain," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 13(2), pages 350-356, June.
    12. Ziegler, Andreas, 2017. "Political orientation, environmental values, and climate change beliefs and attitudes: An empirical cross country analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 144-153.
    13. Bernstein, Asaf & Billings, Stephen B. & Gustafson, Matthew T. & Lewis, Ryan, 2022. "Partisan residential sorting on climate change risk," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(3), pages 989-1015.
    14. Inna Čábelková & Luboš Smutka & Wadim Strielkowski, 2022. "Public support for sustainable development and environmental policy: A case of the Czech Republic," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(1), pages 110-126, February.
    15. E. Keith Smith & Adam Mayer, 2019. "Anomalous Anglophones? Contours of free market ideology, political polarization, and climate change attitudes in English-speaking countries, Western European and post-Communist states," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 152(1), pages 17-34, January.
    16. Alexandre Morin-Chassé & Erick Lachapelle, 2020. "Partisan strength and the politicization of global climate change: a re-examination of Schuldt, Roh, and Schwarz 2015," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 10(1), pages 31-40, March.
    17. Salil Benegal & Jon Green, 2024. "Cost sensitivity, partisan cues, and support for the Green New Deal," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 14(4), pages 763-775, December.
    18. Italo Colantone & Livio Di Lonardo & Yotam Margalit & Marco Percoco, 2022. "The Political Consequences of Green Policies: Evidence from Italy," CESifo Working Paper Series 9599, CESifo.
    19. Dai, Jing & Kesternich, Martin & Löschel, Andreas & Ziegler, Andreas, 2015. "Extreme weather experiences and climate change beliefs in China: An econometric analysis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 310-321.
    20. Jeremiah Bohr, 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, Springer, vol. 126(1), pages 217-227, September.
    21. Italo Colantone & Livio Di Donaldo & Yotam Margalit & Marco Percoco, 2022. "The Political Consequences of Green Policies: Evidence from Italy," Working Papers 2022.28, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:climat:v:178:y:2025:i:6:d:10.1007_s10584-025-03964-x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.