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Description: Social dominance orientation (SDO) and right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) are ideological attitudes that predict lower concern for the environment and less willingness to act on climate change. Research generally shows that SDO exhibits a strong, negative relationship with environmentalism, yet findings are mixed on the role of RWA. We examine the longitudinal influence of SDO and RWA on people’s willingness to change their behaviour to benefit the environment in a national probability sample over five years. We show that SDO is related to lower environmentalism across time, and RWA was a weaker, but significant, negative predictor. These findings suggest that the motivation to exploit the environment comes primarily from the desire for dominance, and to a lesser extent from the desire to submit to tradition and authority.