Examining U.S. birth rate decline since the release of An Inconvenient Truth in 2006

Introduction: Though awareness of climate change rose globally with the release of former Vice President Al Gore’s movie and book An Inconvenient Truth in 2006, there has seemingly never been a connection drawn between Gore’s works and subsequent fertility trends in the United States, particularly along political lines. Objectives: The primary objective of this project is to determine whether the release of the movie and book An Inconvenient Truth in 2006 sparked an inflection point within a year or two in the United States for birth rates, and whether those rates differ between red and blue states. The secondary objective is to determine whether there was a drop in birth rates after that inflection point. Methods: This project used natality data – birth rates per state per year from 2003-2020 – from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, joined with state political party data from the 2020 Presidential election from Wisevoter. Data were cleaned using Excel and analyzed using Tableau visualizations. Results: The year 2007 was indeed an inflection point in the United States for birth rates, as both red and blue states recorded their highest birth rates at this point in the 2003-2020 span. The birth rate in red states was higher than that of blue states throughout the span but both rates had a positive correlation, running parallel throughout the span. Conclusions: The United States birth rate declined after 2007 in both red and blue states, but it is unclear whether the release of An Inconvenient Truth influenced this decline.