The carbon bubble is a hypothesized bubble in the valuation of companies dependent on fossil-fuel-based energy production, because the true costs of carbon dioxide in intensifying global warming are not yet taken into account in a company's stock market valuation.Currently the price of fossil fuels companies' shares is calculated under the assumption that all fossil fuel reserves
will be consumed. An estimate made by Kepler Chevreux puts the loss in
value of the fossil fuel companies due to the impact of the growing
renewables industry at US$28 trillion over the next two decades-long. A more recent analysis made by Citi puts that figure at $100 trillion.
Analysts in both the petroleum and financial industries are
concluding that the "age of oil" has already reached a new stage where
the excess supply that appeared in late 2014 may continue to prevail in
the future.
A consensus appears to be emerging that an international agreement will
be reached to introduce measures to constrain the combustion of
hydrocarbons in an effort to limit global temperature rise to the
nominal 2 °C that is consensually predicted to limit environmental harm
to tolerable levels.
According to the UK's Committee on Climate Change,
overvaluing companies that produce fossil fuels and greenhouse gases
poses a serious threat to the economy. The committee warned the British
government and Bank of England of the risks of the carbon bubble in 2014. The following year, Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, in his lecture to Lloyd's of London, warned that limiting global warming to 2 °C appears to require that the "vast majority" of fossil fuel reserves be "stranded assets",
or "literally unburnable without expensive carbon-capture technology",
resulting in "potentially huge" exposure to investors in that sector. He concluded that "the window of opportunity
is finite and shrinking" for responding to the threat that climate
change poses to financial resilience and longer-term prosperity, which
he called the "tragedy of the horizon". That same month, the Prudential Regulation Authority
of the Bank of England issued a report discussing the risks and
opportunities that climate change presents to the insurance industry.
In his speech announcing his denial of the proposal to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline, United States President Barack Obama
gave as one reason for the decision "... ultimately, if we're going to
prevent large parts of this Earth from becoming not only inhospitable
but uninhabitable in our lifetimes, we're going to have to keep some
fossil fuels in the ground...".
Etymology
The
term "carbon bubble" arose in the early 21st century from the
increasing awareness of the impact of fossil fuel combustion on global
temperatures. The term was coined by the Carbon Tracker Initiative which published key reports in July 2011 and April 2013. and it was further popularised in the New Scientist magazine in October 2011.
A widely shared article by Bill McKibben was published in Rolling Stone magazine in July 2012, bringing the idea to the attention of a popular audience.
These were followed later in 2013 by a report from the Demos think tank.
Value
Author Bill McKibben
has estimated that to sustain human life in the world, up to
$20 trillion worth of fossil fuel reserves will need to remain in the
ground. The Stern report
in 2006 stated that the benefits of strong, early action to decrease
the use of oil, coal and gas considerably outweigh the costs. Fossil
fuel contributors, the building industry, and land use practices ignore
the responsibility of the external costs and ignore the polluter pays principle according to which climate change costs will be paid by historical climate polluters.
Prospects for orderly bubble deflation
A
planned and orderly transition away from dependence on fossil fuels
could prevent a disruptive "bursting of the carbon bubble". A number of
developments are supporting such a transition.
Government action on climate change
A detailed academic study of the consequences for the producers
of the various hydrocarbon fuels concluded in early 2015 that a third of
global oil reserves, half of gas reserves and over 80% of current coal
reserves should remain underground from 2010 to 2050 in order to meet
the target of no more than a 2 °C rise in average global temperature.
Hence continued exploration or development of reserves would be
extraneous to needs. To meet the 2 °C target, strong measures would be
needed to suppress demand, such as a substantial carbon tax
leaving a lower price for the producers from a smaller market. The
impact on producers would vary widely depending on the cost of
production in their areas of operation. For example, the impact in
Canada would be far larger than in the United States. Open-pit mining of
bituminous sands
in Canada would soon drop to negligible levels after 2020 in all
scenarios considered because it is considerably less economic than other
methods of production.
In mid-2015, the Centre for Science and Policy, University of Cambridge
published a report assessing the risks from climate change in order to
estimate the amount of resources that should be allocated to address
them. The report notes that "standard economic estimates of the global
costs of climate change are wildly sensitive both to assumptions about
the science, and to judgments about the value of human life. They are
also likely to be systematically biased towards underestimation of risk,
as they tend to omit a wide range of impacts that are difficult to
quantify".
Awareness in the financial industry
By 2013, there was significant awareness in the financial
industry of the risks associated with exposure to companies involved in
extraction of fossil fuels. In early 2014, the FTSE Group, BlackRock and the Natural Resources Defense Council collaborated in the creation of a stock market index
series that excludes companies linked to exploration, ownership or
extraction of carbon-based fossil fuel reserves. These indices are
intended to make it easier for investors to steer their investments away
from such companies.
It has been proposed that companies be required by law to report on
their greenhouse gas emissions and assess the risk this could pose to
their future financial performance. According to Christiana Figueres, UNFCCC, companies have a duty to shareholders to move to a low-carbon economy, because of the effects of the carbon bubble.
The ongoing fossil fuels divestment campaign in universities, churches and pension funds contributes to divestiture from fossil fuel companies. By late 2015, this divestiture was reported to reach $2.6 trillion, by September 2019, total divestment commitments had grown to an approximate value of $11.48 trillion.
In September 2019, when the University of California announced, it will divest
its $83 billion in endowment and pension funds from the fossil fuel
industry, UC officials said, they made it for financial reasons: "We
believe hanging on to fossil fuel assets is a financial risk."
Cheaper clean energy
The price of renewable energy is continually dropping. As of 2014 new wind power is cheaper than new coal and gas power in Australia, China and the United States. Also the electricity produced from a photovoltaic roof system is cheaper than the electricity from the grid in many countries and places in the world.
Real pollution control
Fossil fuels are known for their huge negative externalities or hidden costs. Tackling this market failure will make alternative energies more competitive and will reduce the consumption of fossil fuels.
Cancellation of government energy subsidies
According to the International Monetary Fund, governments around the world gave $523 billion direct subsidies for fossil fuels in 2011. If a carbon tax of $25 per ton of CO 2 is included the subsidies total $1.9 trillion only for 2011. Removing fossil fuels subsidies will further reduce their consumption and make the alternative energies even more competitive.
Renewable corporations lobbying
As the penetration of the renewable energy increases so will the
wealth of the renewable energy corporations. This and the increasing
number of employees in the renewable energy sector will inevitably
transform into political lobbying against fossil fuels.
Urbanization and Electric transportation
Urbanization combined with increasing availability of convenient, safe and efficient public transport, green buildings
and efficient energy distribution, as well as extended product
life/use/re-use, increased local recycling and self-sustainability in
raw materials drive down energy consumption. Perversely, ready access to
travel and luxury, more batteries (energy storage and conversion
losses) and proliferation of low cost LED technology, e.g. for
advertising and decorative uses, may negate some of the potential energy
savings. Switching to renewables sourced, electricity based transportation will reduce the demand for fossil fuels, particularly petroleum.
Combining roof photovoltaics with second hand EV batteries will further
reduce the dependence on fossil fuels as they will provide the needed grid storage for the times when the intermittent renewable energy sources are not producing electricity.
Innovation and Efficiency
Innovations in, for example, information technology,
miniaturisation, LEDs, virtual reality, 3D printing, new materials and
biotechnology enable energy reduction in the areas of human sustenance
and travel, as well as physical product creation and distribution. They
also offer new avenues for economic growth and technological leadership,
and are thus especially important for sustained wealth creation in the
most developed, net-energy importing nations. Energy consumption may be
expected to decrease as the service sector of the economy continues to
grow whilst heavy industry, construction, manufacturing and agricultural
sectors reduce. Increased investments in energy efficiency may lead to less consumed energy even when the economy grows.
Without growth in energy usage the prices of fossil fuels will decrease
and most of the mega energy projects may be uneconomical.
Demographics and Changes in consumer behavior
A shrinking and ageing, already materially prosperous, satisfied
and individualistic society may be less motivated towards additional,
energy consuming material goods and new construction. On the other hand,
longer life expectancy and increasing leisure and travel time will
increase total energy use over an individual's lifetime. According to
research by U.S. PIRG Education Fund reported in late 2014: "Over the
last decade – after 60-plus years of steady increases – the number of
miles driven by the average American has been falling. Young Americans
have experienced the greatest changes: driving less; taking public
transport, biking and walking more; and seeking out places to live in
cities and walkable communities where driving is an option, not a
necessity." Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration
show that U.S. consumption of both coal and petroleum liquids peaked in
2005, and at the end of 2014 had fallen by 21% and 13% respectively.
Consumption of natural gas continued to climb, resulting in the rate of
total fossil fuel consumption in terms of energy units falling only 6%
from its peak in 2007 to a plateau. On the other hand, global
consumption of petroleum climbed steadily a total of 32% from 1995 to
2014.
Climate change communication
research frequently studies the effectiveness of that media. Some
researchers and journalists believe that media coverage of political
issues is adequate and fair, while a few feel that it is biased. However, most studies on media coverage of the topic are neither recent nor concerned with coverage of environmental issues. Moreover, they are only rarely concerned specifically with the question of bias.
Despite recent trends in increased coverage on climate change,
media coverage is not constant, and researchers wonder if the current
increase in attention will be sustained.
History
Media attention is especially high in carbon dependent countries with commitments under the Kyoto Protocol. The way the media report on climate change in English-speaking
countries, especially in the United States, has been widely studied,
while studies of reporting in other countries have been less expansive. A number of studies have shown that particularly in the United States and in the UK tabloid press, the media significantly understated the strength of scientific consensus on climate change established in IPCC Assessment Reports in 1995 and in 2001.
The Media and Climate Change Observatory team at the University
of Colorado Boulder found that 2017 “saw media attention to climate
change and global warming ebb and flow” with June seeing the maximum
global media coverage on both subjects. This rise is “largely
attributed to news surrounding United States (US) President Donald J.
Trump’s withdrawal from the 2015 United Nations (UN) Paris Climate Agreement, with continuing media attention paid to the emergent US isolation following through the G7 summit a few weeks later.”
Common distortions
Factual
Bord
et al. claim that a substantial portion of the United States public has
a flawed understanding of global warming, seeing it as linked to
general "pollution" and causally connected in some way to atmospheric ozone depletion. Scientists and media scholars who express frustrations with inadequate science reporting
argue that it can lead to at least three basic distortions. First,
journalists distort reality by making scientific errors. Second, they
distort by keying on human-interest stories rather than scientific
content. And third, journalists distort by rigid adherence to the
construct of balanced coverage. Bord, O’Connor, & Fisher (2000)
argue that responsible citizenry necessitates a concrete knowledge of
causes and that until, for example, the public understands what causes
climate change it cannot be expected to take voluntary action to
mitigate its effects.
Narrative
According to Shoemaker and Reese,
controversy is one of the main variables affecting story choice among
news editors, along with human interest, prominence, timeliness,
celebrity, and proximity. Coverage of climate change has been accused of
falling victim to the journalistic norm of "personalization". W.L
Bennet defines this trait as: "the tendency to downplay the big social,
economic, or political picture in favor of human trials, tragedies and
triumphs" The culture of political journalism
has long used the notion of balanced coverage in covering the
controversy. In this construct, it is permissible to air a highly partisan
opinion, provided this view is accompanied by a competing opinion. But
recently scientists and scholars have challenged the legitimacy of this
journalistic core value with regard to matters of great importance on
which the overwhelming majority of the scientific community has reached a
well-substantiated consensus view.
Yet there is evidence that this is exactly what the media is doing. In a
survey of 636 articles from four top United States newspapers between
1988 and 2002, two scholars found that most articles gave as much time to the small group of climate change doubters as to the scientific consensus view. Given real consensus among climatologists over global warming, many scientists find the media's desire to portray the topic as a scientific controversy to be a gross distortion. As Stephen Schneider put it:
“a mainstream, well-established consensus may be ‘balanced’ against the
opposing views of a few extremists, and to the uninformed, each
position seems equally credible.”
Science journalism concerns itself with gathering and evaluating
various types of relevant evidence and rigorously checking sources and
facts. Boyce Rensberger,
the director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Knight
Center for Science Journalism, said, “balanced coverage of science does
not mean giving equal weight to both sides of an argument. It means
apportioning weight according to the balance of evidence.”
The claims of scientists also get distorted by the media by a
tendency to seek out extreme views, which can result in portrayal of
risks well beyond the claims actually being made by scientists.
Journalists tend to overemphasize the most extreme outcomes from a
range of possibilities reported in scientific articles. A study that
tracked press reports about a climate change article in the journal Nature
found that "results and conclusions of the study were widely
misrepresented, especially in the news media, to make the consequences
seem more catastrophic and the timescale shorter."
A 2020 study in PNAS found that newspapers tended to give
greater coverage of press releases that opposed action on climate change
than those that supported action. The study attributes it to false balance.
Alarmism
Alarmism is using inflated language, including an urgent tone and imagery of doom. In a report produced for the Institute for Public Policy Research
Gill Ereaut and Nat Segnit suggested that alarmist language is
frequently used in relation to environmental matters by newspapers,
popular magazines and in campaign literature put out by the government
and environment groups. It is claimed that when applied to climate change, alarmist language can create a greater sense of urgency.
The term alarmist can be used as a pejorative by critics of mainstream climate science to describe those that endorse it. MITmeteorologistKerry Emanuel
wrote that labeling someone as an "alarmist" is "a particularly
infantile smear considering what is at stake." He continued that using
this "inflammatory terminology has a distinctly Orwellian flavor."
It has been argued that using sensational and alarming
techniques, often evoke "denial, paralysis, or apathy" rather than
motivating individuals to action and do not motivate people to become engaged with the issue of climate change. In the context of climate refugees—the potential for climate change to displace people—it has been reported that "alarmist hyperbole" is frequently employed by private military contractors and think tanks.
Some media reports have used alarmist tactics to challenge the
science related to global warming by comparing it with a purported
episode of global cooling. In the 1970s, global cooling, a claim with limited scientific support (even during the height of a media frenzy over global cooling, "the possibility of anthropogenic warming dominated the peer-reviewed literature")
was widely reported in the press. Several media pieces have claimed
that since the even-at-the-time-poorly-supported theory of global cooling was shown to be false, that the well-supported theory of global warming can also be dismissed. For example, an article in The Hindu
by Kapista and Bashkirtsev wrote: "Who remembers today, they query,
that in the 1970s, when global temperatures began to dip, many warned
that we faced a new ice age? An editorial in The Time magazine on June
24, 1974, quoted concerned scientists as voicing alarm over the
atmosphere 'growing gradually cooler for the past three decades', 'the
unexpected persistence and thickness of pack ice in the waters around
Iceland,' and other harbingers of an ice age that could prove
'catastrophic.' Man was blamed for global cooling as he is blamed today
for global warming"., and the Irish Independent
published an article claiming that "The widespread alarm over global
warming is only the latest scare about the environment to come our way
since the 1960s. Let's go through some of them. Almost exactly 30 years
ago the world was in another panic about climate change. However, it
wasn't the thought of global warming that concerned us. It was the fear
of its opposite, global cooling. The doom-sayers were wrong in the past
and it's entirely possible they're wrong this time as well." Numerous other examples exist.
Media, politics, and public discourse
As
McCombs et al.’s 1972 study of the political function of mass media
showed, media coverage of an issue can “play an important part in
shaping political reality”. Research into media coverage of climate change has demonstrated the significant role of the media in determining climate policy formation.
The media has considerable bearing on public opinion, and the way in
which issues are reported, or framed, establishes a particular discourse.
In more general terms, media coverage of climate change in the
USA is related to the controversy about media ownership and fairness.
While most media scholars uphold the view that the media in the USA is
free and unbiased, a minority disagrees. Historian Michael Parenti, for instance, alleges that the American media serves corporate interests by "inventing reality."
Media-policy interface
The relationship between media and politics is reflexive.
As Feindt & Oels state, “[media] discourse has material and power
effects as well as being the effect of material practices and power
relations”.
Public support of climate change research ultimately decides whether or
not funding for the research is made available to scientists and
institutions.
As highlighted above, media coverage in the United States during
the Bush Administration often emphasized and exaggerated scientific
uncertainty over climate change, reflecting the interests of the
political elite.
Hall et al. suggest that government and corporate officials enjoy
privileged access to the media, so their line quickly becomes the
‘primary definer’ of an issue.
Furthermore, media sources and their institutions very often have
political leanings which determine their reporting on climate change,
mirroring the views of a particular party. However, media also has the capacity to challenge political norms and expose corrupt behaviour, as demonstrated in 2007 when The Guardian revealed that American Enterprise Institute received $10,000 from petrochemical giant Exxon Mobil to publish articles undermining the IPCC’s 4th assessment report.
Ever-strengthening scientific consensus on climate change means
that skepticism is becoming less prevalent in the media (although the
email scandal in the build up to Copenhagen reinvigorated climate
skepticism in the media).
Discourses of action
The polar bear has become a symbol for those attempting to generate support for addressing climate change
Commentators
have argued that the climate change discourses constructed in the media
have not been conducive to generating the political will for swift
action. The polar bear has become a powerful discursive symbol in the
fight against climate change. However, such images may create a
perception of climate change impacts as geographically distant, and MacNaghten argues that climate change needs to be framed as an issue 'closer to home'.
On the other hand, Beck suggests that a major benefit of global media
is that it brings distant issues within our consciousness.
Furthermore, media coverage of climate change (particularly in
tabloid journalism but also more generally), is concentrated around
extreme weather events and projections of catastrophe, creating “a
language of imminent terror”
which some commentators argue has instilled policy-paralysis and
inhibited response. Moser et al. suggest using solution-orientated
frames will help inspire action to solve climate change. The predominance of catastrophe frames over solution frames may help explain the apparent value-action gap with climate change; the current discursive setting has generated concern over climate change but not inspired action.
Breaking the prevailing notions in society requires discourse
that is traditionally appropriate and approachable to common people. For
example, Bill McKibben, an environmental activist, provides one
approach to inspiring action: a war-like mobilization, where climate
change is the enemy.
This approach would resonate with working Americans who normally find
themselves occupied with other news headlines. Dispelling the capitalist
commodification
of the environment also requires different rhetoric that breaks certain
ingrained notions concerning the human relationship with the
environment. This could include incorporating traditional Indigenous
knowledge that prioritizes human existence with the environment as a
mutualistic and protective one.
Additionally, international movements in developing countries in the Global South are usually excluded in developed nations that assert hegemony
over the economies of developing nations. This especially applies to
the people of Latin America, that are battling multinational oil and
mineral corporations that seek to cooperate with the ruling class and
exploit fragile ecosystems, rather than provide real solutions to
working people that mutually benefit the environment. This is apparent
in Ecuador, where former President Rafael Correa, a left-leaning populist, incited “economic growth” as a reason to sell portions of the Amazon rainforest to oil companies.
These popular movements usually are neglected by the United States due
to corporate relationships within the political sphere of influence.
Compared to what experts know about traditional media's and
tabloid journalism's impacts on the formation of public perceptions of
climate change and willingness to act, there is comparatively little
knowledge of the impacts of social media, including message platforms
like Twitter, on public attitudes toward climate change.
Coverage of youth
Published in the journal Childhood,
the article "Children's protest in relation to the climate emergency: A
qualitative study on a new form of resistance promoting political and
social change"
considers how children have evolved into prominent actors to create a
global impact on awareness of climate change. It highlights the work of
children like Greta Thunberg
and the significance of their resistance to the passivity of world
leaders regarding climate change. It also discusses how individual
resistance can directly be linked to collective resistance and that this
then creates a more powerful impact, empowering young people to act
more responsibly and take authority over the future. The article offers a
holistic view of the impact of youth to raise awareness whilst also inspiring action, and using social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Instagram to share the youth message.
Coverage by country
Canada
During the Harper government (2006-2015), Canadian media, mostly notably the CBC, made little effort to balance the claims of global warming deniers with voices from science.
The Canadian coverage appeared to be driven more by national and
international political events rather than the changes to carbon
emissions or various other ecological factors.
The discourse was dominated by matters of government responsibility,
policy-making, policy measures for mitigation, and ways to mitigate
climate change; with the issue coverage by mass media outlets continuing
to act as an important means of communicating environmental concerns to
the general public, rather than introducing new ideas about the topic
itself.
Within various provincial and language media outlets, there are
varying levels of articulation regarding scientific consensus and the
focus on ecological dimensions of climate change.
Within Quebec, specifically, these outlets are more likely to position
climate change as an international issue, and to link climate change to
social justice concerns in order to depict Quebec as a pro-environmental
society
Across various nations, including Canada, there has been an
increased effort in the use of celebrities in climate change coverage,
which is able to gain audience attention, but in turn, it reinforces
individualized rather than structural interpretations of climate change
responsibility and solutions
.
Japan
In Japan, a study of newspaper coverage of climate change from
January 1998 to July 2007 found coverage increased dramatically from
January 2007.
India
A 2010 study of four major, national circulation English-language
newspapers in India examined "the frames through which climate change is
represented in India", and found that "The results strongly contrast
with previous studies from developed countries; by framing climate
change along a 'risk-responsibility divide', the Indian national press
set up a strongly nationalistic position on climate change that divides
the issue along both developmental and postcolonial lines."
On the other hand, a qualitative analysis of some mainstream
Indian newspapers (particularly opinion and editorial pieces) during the
release of the IPCC 4th Assessment Report and during the Nobel Peace
Prize win by Al Gore and the IPCC found that Indian media strongly
pursue scientific certainty in their coverage of climate change. This is
in contrast to the skepticism displayed by American newspapers at the
time. Indian media highlights energy challenges, social progress, public
accountability and looming disaster.
New Zealand
A six-month study in 1988 on climate change reporting in the media
found that 80% of stories were no worse than slightly inaccurate.
However, one story in six contained significant misreporting. Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth in conjunction with the Stern Review generated an increase in media interest in 2006.
The popular media in New Zealand often give equal weight to those supporting anthropogenic climate change
and those who deny it. This stance is out of step with the findings of
the scientific community where the vast majority support the climate change scenarios. A survey carried out in 2007 on climate change gave the following responses:
Not really a problem
8%
A problem for the future
13%
A problem now
42%
An urgent and immediate problem
35%
Don't know
2%
Turkey
According to journalist Pelin Cengiz mainstream media tends to cover newly opened coal-fired power stations in Turkey as increasing employment rather than climate change, and almost all owners have financial interests in fossil fuels.
One of the first critical studies of media coverage of climate change in
the United States appeared in 1999. The author summarized her research:
Following
a review of the decisive role of the media in American politics and of a
few earlier studies of media bias, this paper examines media coverage
of the greenhouse effect. It does so by comparing two pictures. The
first picture emerges from reading all 100 greenhouse-related articles
published over a five-month period (May–September 1997) in The Christian Science Monitor, New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, and The Washington Post.
The second picture emerges from the mainstream scientific literature.
This comparison shows that media coverage of environmental issues
suffers from both shallowness and pro-corporate bias.
According to Peter J. Jacques et al., the mainstream news media of the United States is an example of the effectiveness of environmental skepticism as a tactic. A 2005 study reviewed and analyzed the US mass-media coverage of the environmental issue of climate change
from 1988 to 2004. The authors confirm that within the journalism
industry there is great emphasis on eliminating the presence of media bias. In their study they found that — due to this practice of journalistic objectivity
— "Over a 15-year period, a majority (52.7%) of prestige-press articles
featured balanced accounts that gave 'roughly equal attention' to the
views that humans were contributing to global warming and that
exclusively natural fluctuations could explain the earth's temperature
increase." As a result, they observed that it is easier for people to
conclude that the issue of global warming and the accompanying scientific evidence is still hotly debated.
A study of US newspapers and television news from 1995 to 2006
examined "how and why US media have represented conflict and
contentions, despite an emergent consensus view regarding anthropogenic
climate science." The IPCC Assessment Reports in 1995 and in 2001
established an increasingly strong scientific consensus, yet the media
continued to present the science as contentious. The study noted the
influence of Michael Crichton's 2004 novel State of Fear,
which "empowered movements across scale, from individual perceptions to
the perspectives of US federal powerbrokers regarding human
contribution to climate change."
A 2010 study concluded that "Mass media in the U.S. continue to
suggest that scientific consensus estimates of global climate
disruption, such as those from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC), are 'exaggerated' and overly pessimistic. By contrast,
work on the Asymmetry of Scientific Challenge (ASC) suggests that such
consensus assessments are likely to understate climate disruptions [...]
new scientific findings were more than twenty times as likely to
support the ASC perspective than the usual framing of the issue in the
U.S. mass media. The findings indicate that supposed challenges to the
scientific consensus on global warming need to be subjected to greater
scrutiny, as well as showing that, if reporters wish to discuss "both
sides" of the climate issue, the scientifically legitimate 'other side'
is that, if anything, global climate disruption may prove to be
significantly worse than has been suggested in scientific consensus
estimates to date."
The most watched news network in the United States, Fox News,
most of the time promotes climate misinformation and employs tactics
that distract from the urgency of global climate change, according to a
2019 study by Public Citizen.
According to the study, 86% of Fox News segments that discussed the
topic were "dismissive of the climate crisis, cast its consequences in
doubt or employed fear mongering when discussing climate solutions."
These segments presented global climate change as a political construct,
rarely, if ever, discussing the threat posed by climate change or the
vast body of scientific evidence for its existence. Consistent with such
politicized framing, three messages were most commonly advanced in
these segments: global climate change is part of a "big government"
agenda of the Democratic Party
(34% of segments); an effective response to the climate crisis would
destroy the economy and hurtle us back to the Stone Age (26% of
segments); and, concern about the climate crisis is “alarmists”,
“hysterical,” the shrill voice of a "doomsday climate cult," or the like
(12% of segments). Such segments often featured "experts" who are not
climate scientists at all or are personally connected to vested
interests, such as the energy industry and its network of lobbyists and think tanks, for example, the Heartland Institute, funded by the Exxon Mobil company and the Koch foundation. The remaining segments (14%) were neutral on the subject or presented information without editorializing.
It has been suggested that the association of climate change with
the Arctic in popular media may undermine effective communication of
the scientific realities of anthropogenic climate change. The close
association of images of Arctic glaciers, ice, and fauna with climate
change might harbor cultural connotations that contradict the fragility
of the region. For example, in cultural-historical narratives, the
Arctic was depicted as an unconquerable, foreboding environment for
explorers; in climate change discourse, the same environment is sought
to be understood as fragile and easily affected by humanity.
Gallup's annual update on Americans' attitudes toward the environment shows a public that over the last two years has become less worried about the threat of global warming,
less convinced that its effects are already happening, and more likely
to believe that scientist themselves are uncertain about its occurrence.
In response to one key question, 48% of Americans now believe that the
seriousness of global warming is generally exaggerated, up from 41% in
2009 and 31% in 1997, when Gallup first asked the question.
Data from the Media Matters for America organization has shown
that, despite 2015 being “a year marked by more landmark actions to
address climate change than ever before,” the combined climate coverage
on the top broadcast networks was down by 5% from 2014.
President Donald Trump
denies the threat of global warming publicly. As a result of the Trump
Presidency, media coverage on climate change was expected to decline
during his term as president.
Ireland
Ireland
has quite a low coverage of climate change in media. a survey created
shows how the Irish Times had only 0.84% of news coverage for climate
change in the space of 13 years. This percentage is incredibly low
compared to the rest of Europe, for example- Coverage of climate change
in Ireland 10.6 stories, while the rest of Europe lies within 58.4
stories.
Former senator Tom Coburn of the United States in 2017 discussing the Paris agreement and denying the scientific consensus on man-made global warming. Coburn claimed that sea level rise had been no more than 5 mm in 25 years, and asserted there was now global cooling. In 2013 he said "I am a global warming denier. I don't deny that."
The campaign to undermine public trust in climate science has
been described as a "denial machine" organized by industrial, political
and ideological interests, and supported by conservative media and
skeptical bloggers to manufacture uncertainty about global warming.
Organised campaigning to undermine public trust in climate science is associated with conservativeeconomic policies and backed by industrial interests opposed to the regulation of CO 2 emissions. Climate change denial has been associated with the fossil fuels lobby, the Koch brothers, industry advocates and conservativethink tanks, often in the United States. More than 90% of papers skeptical on climate change originate from right-wing think tanks.
Since the late 1970s, oil companies have published research
broadly in line with the standard views on global warming. Despite
this, oil companies organized a climate change denial campaign to
disseminate public disinformation for several decades, a strategy that
has been compared to the organized denial of the hazards of tobacco smoking by the tobacco industry, and often even carried out by the same individuals who previously spread the tobacco industry's denialist propaganda.
Terminology
Amardeo Sarma lecturing about climate change denialism and the future world energy and environmental problems during the European Skeptics Congress 2015
"Climate change skepticism" and "climate change denial" refer to
denial, dismissal or unwarranted doubt of the scientific consensus on
the rate and extent of global warming, its significance, or its
connection to human behavior, in whole or in part. Though there is a distinction between skepticism which indicates doubting the truth of an assertion and outright denial
of the truth of an assertion, in the public debate phrases such as
"climate skepticism" have frequently been used with the same meaning as
climate denialism or contrarianism.
The terminology emerged in the 1990s. Even though all scientists adhere to scientific skepticism
as an inherent part of the process, by mid November 1995 the word
"skeptic" was being used specifically for the minority who publicized
views contrary to the scientific consensus.
This small group of scientists presented their views in public
statements and the media, rather than to the scientific community. This usage continued. In his December 1995 article "The Heat is On: The warming of the world's climate sparks a blaze of denial", Ross Gelbspan
said industry had engaged "a small band of skeptics" to confuse public
opinion in a "persistent and well-funded campaign of denial". His 1997 book The Heat is On may have been the first to concentrate specifically on the topic.
In it, Gelbspan discussed a "pervasive denial of global warming" in a
"persistent campaign of denial and suppression" involving "undisclosed
funding of these 'greenhouse skeptics' " with "the climate skeptics"
confusing the public and influencing decision makers.
A November 2006 CBC Television documentary on the campaign was titled The Denial Machine. In 2007 journalist Sharon Begley reported on the "denial machine", a phrase subsequently used by academics.
In addition to explicit denial, social groups have shown implicit denial by accepting the scientific consensus, but failing to come to terms with its implications or take action to reduce the problem. This was exemplified in Kari Norgaard's study of a village in Norway affected by climate change, where residents diverted their attention to other issues.
The terminology is debated: most of those actively rejecting the scientific consensus use the terms skeptic and climate change skepticism, and only a few have expressed preference for being described as deniers, but the word "skepticism" is incorrectly used, as scientific skepticism is an intrinsic part of scientific methodology. The term contrarian
is more specific, but used less frequently. In academic literature and
journalism, the terms "climate change denial" and "climate change
deniers" have well-established usage as descriptive terms without any
pejorative intent. Both the National Center for Science Education and historian Spencer R. Weart recognize that either option is problematic, but have decided to use "climate change denial" rather than "skepticism".
Terms related to "denialism" have been criticized for introducing a moralistic tone, and potentially implying a link with Holocaust denial. There have been claims that this link is intentional, which academics have strongly disputed. The usage of "denial" long predates the Holocaust, and is commonly applied in other areas such as HIV/AIDS denialism: the claim is described by John Timmer of Ars Technica as itself being a form of denial.
In December 2014, an open letter from the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
called on the media to stop using the term "skepticism" when referring
to climate change denial. They contrasted scientific skepticism—which is
"foundational to the scientific method"—with denial—"the a priori
rejection of ideas without objective consideration"—and the behavior of
those involved in political attempts to undermine climate science. They
said "Not all individuals who call themselves climate change skeptics
are deniers. But virtually all deniers have falsely branded themselves
as skeptics. By perpetrating this misnomer, journalists have granted
undeserved credibility to those who reject science and scientific
inquiry." In June 2015 Media Matters for America were told by The New York Times
public editor that the newspaper was increasingly tending to use
"denier" when "someone is challenging established science", but
assessing this on an individual basis with no fixed policy, and would
not use the term when someone was "kind of wishy-washy on the subject or
in the middle." The executive director of the Society of Environmental Journalists
said that while there was reasonable skepticism about specific issues,
she felt that denier was "the most accurate term when someone claims
there is no such thing as global warming, or agrees that it exists but
denies that it has any cause we could understand or any impact that
could be measured."
The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry letter inspired a petition by climatetruth.org
in which signers were asked to 'Tell the Associated Press: Establish a
rule in the AP StyleBook ruling out the use of "skeptic" to describe
those who deny scientific facts.' On 22 September 2015, the Associated
Press announced "an addition to AP Stylebook entry on global
warming" which advised, "to describe those who don’t accept climate
science or dispute the world is warming from man-made forces, use
climate change doubters or those who reject mainstream climate science.
Avoid use of skeptics or deniers." On 17 May 2019, The Guardian also rejected use of the term "climate skeptic" in favor of "climate science denier".
History
Research on the effect of CO 2 on the climate began in 1824, when Joseph Fourier inferred the existence of the atmospheric "greenhouse effect". In 1860, John Tyndall quantified the effects of greenhouse gases on absorption of infrared radiation. Svante Arrhenius in 1896 showed that coal burning could cause global warming, and in 1938 Guy Stewart Callendar found it already happening to some extent. Research advanced rapidly after 1940; from 1957, Roger Revelle alerted the public to risks that fossil fuel burning was "a grandiose scientific experiment" on climate. NASA and NOAA took on research, the 1979 Charney Report concluded that substantial warming was already on the way, and "A wait-and-see policy may mean waiting until it is too late."
In 1959 a scientist working for Shell suggested in a New Scientist article, that carbon cycles are too vast to upset Nature's balance.
By 1966 however, a coal industry research organization, Bituminous
Coal Research Inc., published its finding that if then prevailing trends
of coal consumption continue, "the temperature of the earth’s
atmosphere will increase and that vast changes in the climates of the
earth will result.” “Such changes in temperature will cause melting of
the polar icecaps, which, in turn, would result in the inundation of
many coastal cities, including New York and London." In a discussion following this paper in the same publication, a combustion engineer for Peabody Coal, now Peabody Energy,
the world's largest coal supplier, added that the coal industry was
merely "buying time" before additional government air pollution
regulations would be promulgated to clean the air. Nevertheless, the
coal industry for decades thereafter publicly advocated the position
that increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is beneficial for the
planet.
In response to increasing public awareness of the greenhouse
effect in the 1970s, conservative reaction built up, denying
environmental concerns which could lead to government regulation. With
the 1981 Presidency of Ronald Reagan,
global warming became a political issue, with immediate plans to cut
spending on environmental research, particularly climate-related, and
stop funding for CO 2 monitoring. Reagan appointed as Secretary of EnergyJames B. Edwards, who said that there was no real global warming problem. Congressman Al Gore
had studied under Revelle and was aware of the developing science: he
joined others in arranging congressional hearings from 1981 onwards,
with testimony by scientists including Revelle, Stephen Schneider and Wallace Smith Broecker. The hearings gained enough public attention to reduce the cuts in atmospheric research. A polarized party-political debate developed. In 1982 Sherwood B. Idso published his book Carbon Dioxide: Friend or Foe? which said increases in CO 2
would not warm the planet, but would fertilize crops and were
"something to be encouraged and not suppressed", while complaining that
his theories had been rejected by the "scientific establishment". An Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) report in 1983 said global warming was "not a theoretical problem
but a threat whose effects will be felt within a few years", with
potentially "catastrophic" consequences.
The Reagan administration reacted by calling the report "alarmist", and
the dispute got wide news coverage. Public attention turned to other
issues, then the 1985 finding of a polar ozone hole brought a swift international response. To the public, this was related to climate change and the possibility of effective action, but news interest faded.
Public attention was renewed amidst summer droughts and heat waves when James Hansen testified to a Congressional hearing on 23 June 1988,
stating with high confidence that long term warming was underway with
severe warming likely within the next 50 years, and warning of likely
storms and floods. There was increasing media attention: the scientific
community had reached a broad consensus that the climate was warming,
human activity was very likely the primary cause, and there would be
significant consequences if the warming trend was not curbed.
These facts encouraged discussion about new laws concerning
environmental regulation, which was opposed by the fossil fuel industry.
From 1989 onwards industry-funded organizations including the Global Climate Coalition and the George C. Marshall Institute sought to spread doubt among the public, in a strategy already developed by the tobacco industry.
A small group of scientists opposed to the consensus on global warming
became politically involved, and with support from conservative
political interests, began publishing in books and the press rather than
in scientific journals.
This small group of scientists included some of the same people that
were part of the strategy already tried by the tobacco industry. Spencer Weart
identifies this period as the point where legitimate skepticism about
basic aspects of climate science was no longer justified, and those
spreading mistrust about these issues became deniers.
As their arguments were increasingly refuted by the scientific
community and new data, deniers turned to political arguments, making
personal attacks on the reputation of scientists, and promoting ideas of
a global warming conspiracy.
With the 1989 fall of communism and the environmental movement's international reach at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, the attention of U.S. conservative think tanks,
which had been organized in the 1970s as an intellectual
counter-movement to socialism, turned from the "red scare" to the "green
scare" which they saw as a threat to their aims of private property,
free trade market economies and global capitalism. As a
counter-movement, they used environmental skepticism to promote denial of the reality of problems such as loss of biodiversity and climate change.
In 1992, an EPA report linked second-hand smoke with lung cancer. The tobacco industry engaged the APCO Worldwide public relations company, which set out a strategy of astroturfing
campaigns to cast doubt on the science by linking smoking anxieties
with other issues, including global warming, in order to turn public
opinion against calls for government intervention. The campaign depicted
public concerns as "unfounded fears" supposedly based only on "junk
science" in contrast to their "sound science", and operated through front groups, primarily the Advancement of Sound Science Center (TASSC) and its Junk Science website, run by Steven Milloy.
A tobacco company memo commented "Doubt is our product since it is the
best means of competing with the 'body of fact' that exists in the mind
of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a
controversy." During the 1990s, the tobacco campaign died away, and
TASSC began taking funding from oil companies including Exxon. Its
website became central in distributing "almost every kind of
climate-change denial that has found its way into the popular press."
In the 1990s, the Marshall Institute began campaigning against increased regulations on environmental issues such as acid rain, ozone depletion, second-hand smoke, and the dangers of DDT.
In each case their argument was that the science was too uncertain to
justify any government intervention, a strategy it borrowed from earlier
efforts to downplay the health effects of tobacco in the 1980s. This campaign would continue for the next two decades.
These efforts succeeded in influencing public perception of climate science.
Between 1988 and the 1990s, public discourse shifted from the science
and data of climate change to discussion of politics and surrounding
controversy.
The campaign to spread doubt continued into the 1990s, including an advertising campaign funded by coal industry advocates intended to "reposition global warming as theory rather than fact," and a 1998 proposal written by the American Petroleum Institute
intending to recruit scientists to convince politicians, the media and
the public that climate science was too uncertain to warrant
environmental regulation. The proposal included a US$ 5,000,000 multi-point strategy to "maximize the impact of scientific views consistent with ours on Congress,
the media and other key audiences", with a goal of "raising questions
about and undercutting the 'prevailing scientific wisdom'".
In 1998, Gelbspan noted that his fellow journalists accepted that
global warming was occurring, but said they were in "'stage-two' denial
of the climate crisis", unable to accept the feasibility of answers to the problem. A subsequent book by Milburn and Conrad on The Politics of Denial described "economic and psychological forces" producing denial of the consensus on global warming issues.
These efforts by climate change denial groups were recognized as an organized campaign beginning in the 2000s. The sociologists Riley Dunlap and Aaron McCright
played a significant role in this shift when they published an article
in 2000 exploring the connection between conservative think tanks and
climate change denial.
Later work would continue the argument specific groups were marshaling
skepticism against climate change - A study in 2008 from the University
of Central Florida analyzed the sources of "environmentally skeptical"
literature published in the United States. The analysis demonstrated
that 92% of the literature was partly or wholly affiliated with a
self-proclaimed conservative think tanks.
A later piece of research from 2015 identified 4,556 individuals with
overlapping network ties to 164 organizations which are responsible for
the most efforts to downplay the threat of climate change in the U.S.
Gelbspan's Boiling Point, published in 2004, detailed the
fossil-fuel industry's campaign to deny climate change and undermine
public confidence in climate science. In Newsweek's August 2007 cover story "The Truth About Denial", Sharon Begley
reported that "the denial machine is running at full throttle", and
said that this "well-coordinated, well-funded campaign" by contrarian
scientists, free-marketthink tanks, and industry had "created a paralyzing fog of doubt around climate change."
Referencing work of sociologists Robert Antonio and Robert Brulle,
Wayne A. White has written that climate change denial has become the
top priority in a broader agenda against environmental regulation being
pursued by neoliberals.
Today, climate change skepticism is most prominently seen in the United
States, where the media disproportionately features views of the
climate change denial community.
In addition to the media, the contrarian movement has also been
sustained by the growth of the internet, having gained some of its
support from internet bloggers, talk radio hosts and newspaper
columnists.
The New York Times and others reported in 2015 that oil companies knew that burning oil and gas could cause climate change and global warming since the 1970s but nonetheless funded deniers for years. Dana Nuccitelli wrote in The Guardian that a small fringe group of climate deniers were no longer taken seriously at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, in an agreement that "we need to stop delaying and start getting serious about preventing a climate crisis." However, The New York Times
says any implementation is voluntary and will depend on any future
world leaders—and every Republican U.S. presidential candidate in 2016
questioned or denied the science of climate change.
Ernesto Araújo, the new Minister of Foreign Affairs appointed by the newly elected president Brazil's president Jair Bolsonaro has called global warming a plot by "cultural Marxists" and has eliminated the Climate Change Division of the ministry.
Denial networks
The climate change denial industry is most powerful in the United States. In the 2016 United States election cycle, every Republican
presidential candidate questioned or denied climate change, and opposed
U.S. government steps to address climate change as has the Republican
leader in the U.S. Senate.
A Pentagon report has pointed out how climate change denial threatens national security.
A study from 2015 identified 4,556 individuals with overlapping network
ties to 164 organizations which are responsible for the most efforts to
downplay the threat of climate change in the U.S.
In 2013 the Center for Media and Democracy reported that the State Policy Network
(SPN), an umbrella group of 64 U.S. think tanks, had been lobbying on
behalf of major corporations and conservative donors to oppose climate
change regulation.
International
The Clexit Coalition claims to be: "A new international organisation
(which) aims to prevent ratification of the costly and dangerous Paris
global warming treaty". It has members in 26 countries. According to The Guardian newspaper: "Clexit leaders are heavily involved in tobacco and fossil fuel-funded organizations".
Arguments and positions on global warming
The Fourth National Climate Assessment ("NCA4", U.S., 2017) includes charts
illustrating how human factors—not various natural factors that have
been investigated—are the predominant cause of observed global warming.
Some climate change denial groups say that because CO 2
is only a trace gas in the atmosphere (roughly 400ppm, or 0.04%, 4
parts per 10,000) it can only have a minor effect on the climate.
Scientists have known for over a century that even this small proportion
has a significant warming effect, and doubling the proportion leads to a
large temperature increase. The scientific consensus, as summarized by the IPCC fourth assessment report,
the U.S. Geological Survey, and other reports, is that human activity
is the leading cause of climate change. The burning of fossil fuels
accounts for around 30 billion tons of CO 2 each year, which is 130 times the amount produced by volcanoes. Some groups allege that water vapor is a more significant greenhouse gas, and is left out of many climate models. While water vapor is a greenhouse gas, the very short atmospheric lifetime of water vapor (about 10 days) compared that of CO 2 (hundreds of years) means that CO 2 is the primary driver of increasing temperatures; water vapour acts as a feedback, not a forcing, mechanism. Water vapor has been incorporated into climate models since their inception in the late 1800s.
Climate denial groups may also argue that global warming stopped recently, a global warming hiatus, or that global temperatures are actually decreasing, leading to global cooling. These arguments are based on short term fluctuations, and ignore the long term pattern of warming.
These groups often point to natural variability, such as sunspots and cosmic rays, to explain the warming trend.
According to these groups, there is natural variability that will abate
over time, and human influences have little to do with it. These
factors are already taken into account when developing climate models,
and the scientific consensus is that they cannot explain the observed
warming trend.
Climate change denial literature often features the suggestion
that we should wait for better technologies before addressing climate
change, when they will be more affordable and effective.
Conspiracy theories
Global warming conspiracy theories have been posited which allege
that the scientific consensus is illusory, or that climatologists are
acting on their own financial interests by causing undue alarm about a
changing climate. Despite leaked emails during the Climatic Research Unit email controversy,
as well as multinational, independent research on the topic, no
evidence of such a conspiracy has been presented, and strong consensus
exists among scientists from a multitude of political, social,
organizational and national backgrounds about the extent and cause of
climate change. Several researchers have concluded that around 97% of climate scientists agree with this consensus.
As well, much of the data used in climate science is publicly available
to be viewed and interpreted by competing researchers as well as the
public.
Inhofe holding a snowball on the U.S. Senate floor.
In February 2015 climate change denier Jim Inhofe,
who had previously called climate change "the greatest hoax ever
perpetrated against the American people," claimed to have debunked the
alleged hoax when he brought a snowball with him in the U.S. Senate
chamber and tossed it across the floor. He was succeeded in 2017 by John Barrasso, who similarly said: "The climate is constantly changing. The role human activity plays is not known."
Donald Trump tweeted in 2012 that the Chinese invented "the
concept of global warming" because they believed it would somehow hurt
U.S. manufacturing. In late 2015, he called global warming a "hoax."
Taxonomy of climate change denial
Characteristics of science denial (including climate science denial)
In 2004 Stefan Rahmstorf
described how the media give the misleading impression that climate
change was still disputed within the scientific community, attributing
this impression to PR efforts of climate change skeptics. He identified
different positions argued by climate skeptics, which he used as a taxonomy of climate change skepticism: Later the model was also applied on denial.
Trend sceptics or deniers (who deny there is global warming),
[and] argue that no significant climate warming is taking place at all,
claiming that the warming trend measured by weather stations is an
artefact due to urbanisation around those stations ("urban heat island effect").
Attribution sceptics or deniers (who accept the global warming trend
but see natural causes for this), [and] doubt that human activities are
responsible for the observed trends. A few of them even deny that the
rise in the atmospheric CO 2 content is anthropogenic [while others argue that] additional CO 2 does not lead to discernible warming [and] that there must be other—natural—causes for warming.
Impact sceptics or deniers (who think global warming is harmless or even beneficial).
This taxonomy has been used in social science for analysis of publications, and to categorize climate change skepticism and climate change denial.
Sometimes, a fourth category called "consensus denial" is added, which
describes people who question the scientific consensus on anthropogenic
global warming.
The National Center for Science Education describes climate
change denial as disputing differing points in the scientific consensus,
a sequential range of arguments from denying the occurrence of climate
change, accepting that but denying any significant human contribution,
accepting these but denying scientific findings on how this would affect
nature and human society, to accepting all these but denying that
humans can mitigate or reduce the problems. James L. Powell provides a more extended list, as does climatologist Michael E. Mann
in "six stages of denial", a ladder model whereby deniers have over
time conceded acceptance of points, while retreating to a position which
still rejects the mainstream consensus:
CO 2 is not actually increasing.
Even if it is, the increase has no impact on the climate since there is no convincing evidence of warming.
Even if there is warming, it is due to natural causes.
Even if the warming cannot be explained by natural causes, the human
impact is small, and the impact of continued greenhouse gas emissions
will be minor.
Even if the current and future projected human effects on Earth's
climate are not negligible, the changes are generally going to be good
for us.
Whether or not the changes are going to be good for us, humans are
very adept at adapting to changes; besides, it's too late to do anything
about it, and/or a technological fix is bound to come along when we
really need it.
Journalists and newspaper columnists including George Monbiot and Ellen Goodman, among others,have described climate change denial as a form of denialism.
Denialism in this context has been defined by Chris and Mark Hoofnagle as the use of rhetorical devices
"to give the appearance of legitimate debate where there is none, an
approach that has the ultimate goal of rejecting a proposition on which a
scientific consensus exists." This process characteristically uses one
or more of the following tactics:
Allegations that scientific consensus involves conspiring to
fake data or suppress the truth: a global warming conspiracy theory.
Fake experts, or individuals with views at odds with established
knowledge, at the same time marginalising or denigrating published topic
experts. Like the manufactured doubt over smoking and health, a few contrarian scientists oppose the climate consensus, some of them the same individuals.
Unworkable demands of research, claiming that any uncertainty
invalidates the field or exaggerating uncertainty while rejecting
probabilities and mathematical models.
In 2015, environmentalist Bill McKibben accused President Obama (widely regarded as strongly in favour of action on climate change)
of "Catastrophic Climate-Change Denial", for his approval of
oil-drilling permits in offshore Alaska. According to McKibben, the
President has also "opened huge swaths of the Powder River basin
to new coal mining." McKibben calls this "climate denial of the status
quo sort", where the President denies "the meaning of the science, which
is that we must keep carbon in the ground."
A study assessed the public perception and actions to climate
change, on grounds of belief systems, and identified seven psychological
barriers affecting the behavior that otherwise would facilitate
mitigation, adaptation, and environmental stewardship. The author found
the following barriers: cognition, ideological world views, comparisons
to key people, costs and momentum, discredence toward experts and
authorities, perceived risks of change, and inadequate behavioral
changes.
Pseudoscience
One deceptive approach is cherry picking data from short time periods to assert that global average temperatures are not rising. Blue trendlines show short-term countertrends that mask longer-term warming trends that are shown by red trendlines.Such representations have been applied to the so-called Global warming hiatus (blue dots, 1998–2013).
Various groups, including the National Center for Science Education, have described climate change denial as a form of pseudoscience.
Climate change skepticism, while in some cases professing to do
research on climate change, has focused instead on influencing the
opinion of the public, legislators and the media, in contrast to
legitimate science.
In a review of the book The Pseudoscience Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe by Michael D. Gordin, David Morrison wrote:
In his final chapter, Gordin turns
to the new phase of pseudoscience, practiced by a few rogue scientists
themselves. Climate change denialism is the prime example, where a
handful of scientists, allied with an effective PR machine, are publicly
challenging the scientific consensus that global warming is real and is
due primarily to human consumption of fossil fuels. Scientists have
watched in disbelief that as the evidence for global warming has become
ever more solid, the deniers have been increasingly successful in the
public and political arena. … Today pseudoscience is still with us, and
is as dangerous a challenge to science as it ever was in the past.
In 2019, Sen. Gerard Rennick of Queensland, Australia accused the Australian Bureau of Meteorology
of changing data from temperature records to support a climate change
narrative. (The Bureau had updated data collected with old equipment to
enable it to be compared with data collected with newer equipment.) "I
don't believe the record," the senator said, citing his own "background
in system accounting where I’ve changed records.”
False beliefs
In 2015, at a town council meeting in Woodland, North Carolina, two
individuals said they feared that solar farms would draw too much energy
from the sun, one of whom was a retired science teacher who worried
that this would interfere with the photosynthesis of nearby plants and
also that it could cause cancer in humans. (Solar panels do not attract energy from the sun; they simply use what lands on them.)
Explaining the techniques of science denial and misinformation,
by presenting "examples of people using cherrypicking or fake experts or
false balance to mislead the public," has been shown to inoculate people somewhat against misinformation.
Dialogue focused on the question of how belief differs from
scientific theory may provide useful insights into how the scientific
method works, and how beliefs may have strong or minimal supporting
evidence.
Wong-Parodi's survey of the literature shows four effective approaches
to dialogue, including "[encouraging] people to openly share their
values and stance on climate change before introducing actual scientific
climate information into the discussion."
Emotional and psychological aspects
Florida State Senator Tom Lee
has described the emotional impact and reactions of individuals to
climate change. Lee says, "If these predictions do bear out, that it's
just economically daunting. I mean, you have to be the Grim Reaper
of reality in a world that isn't real fond of the Grim Reaper. That's
why I use the term emotionally shut down, because I think you lose
people at hello a lot of times in the Republican conversation over
this."
Emotional reactions to climate change may include guilt, fear, anger,
and apathy. Psychology Today, in an article titled "The Existential
Dread of Climate Change, has suggested that "despair about our changing
climate may get in the way of fixing it." The American Psychological Association has urged psychologists and other social scientists to work on psychological barriers to taking action on climate change.
Responding to climate denial - the role of emotions and persuasive argument
An Irish Times
article notes that climate denial "is not simply overcome by reasoned
argument," because it is not a rational response. Attempting to overcome
denial using techniques of persuasive argument, such as supplying a
missing piece of information, or providing general scientific education
may be ineffective. A person who is in denial about climate is most
likely taking a position based on their feelings, especially their
feelings about things they fear.
Lewandowsky has stated that "It is pretty clear that fear of the solutions drives much opposition to the science."
It can be useful to respond to emotions, including with the
statement "It can be painful to realise that our own lifestyles are
responsible," in order to help move "from denial to acceptance to
constructive action."
Farmers and climate denial
Seeing positive economic results from efforts at climate-friendly
agricultural practices, or becoming involved in intergenerational
stewardship of a farm may play a role in turning farmers away from
denial. One study of climate change denial among farmers in Australia
found that farmers were less likely to take a position of climate denial
if they had experienced improved production from climate-friendly
practices, or identified a younger person as a successor for their farm.
In the United States, rural climate dialogues sponsored by the Sierra Club
have helped neighbors overcome their fears of political polarization
and exclusion, and come together to address shared concerns about
climate impacts in their communities. Some participants who start out
with attitudes of anthropogenic climate change denial have shifted to
identifying concerns which they would like to see addressed by local
officials.
People who have changed their position
"I used to be a climate-change skeptic," conservative columnist Max Boot
admitted in 2018, one who believed that "the science was inconclusive"
and that worry was "overblown." Now, he says, referencing the Fourth National Climate Assessment, "the scientific consensus is so clear and convincing."
Climate change doubter Bob Inglis,
a former US representative for South Carolina, changed his mind after
appeals from his son on his environmental positions, and after spending
time with climate scientist Scott Heron studying coral bleaching in the Great Barrier Reef.
Inglis lost his House race in 2010, and went on to found republicEn, a
nonprofit promoting conservative voices and solutions on climate change.
Jerry Taylor promoted climate denialism for 20 years as former staff director for the energy and environment task force at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and former vice president of the Cato Institute. Taylor began to change his mind after climate scientist James Hansen challenged him to reread some Senate testimony. He became President of the Niskanen Center
in 2014, where he is involved in turning climate skeptics into climate
activists, and making the business case for climate action.
In 2009, Russian president Dmitri Medvedev
expressed his opinion that climate change was "some kind of tricky
campaign made up by some commercial structures to promote their business
projects." After the devastating 2010 Russian wildfires
damaged agriculture and left Moscow choking in smoke, Medvedev
commented, "Unfortunately, what is happening now in our central regions
is evidence of this global climate change."
Michael Shermer, the publisher of Skeptic Magazine,
reached a tipping point in 2006 as a result of his increasing
familiarity with scientific evidence, and decided there was
"overwhelming evidence for anthropogenic global warming." Journalist Gregg Easterbrook, an early skeptic of climate change who authored the influential book A Moment on the Earth, also changed his mind in 2006, and wrote an essay titled "Case Closed: The Debate About Global Warming is Over."
Weather Channel senior meteorologist Stu Ostro expressed
skepticism or cynicism about anthropogenic global warming for some
years, but by 2010, he had become involved in explaining the connections
between man-made climate change and extreme weather."
Richard A. Muller,
professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and the
co-founder of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, funded by
Charles Koch Charitable Foundation,
has been a prominent critic of prevailing climate science. In 2011, he
stated that "following an intensive research effort involving a dozen
scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior
estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I'm now going a step
further: Humans are almost entirely the cause."
Funding
Between 2002 and 2010, the combined annual income of 91 climate
change counter-movement organizations—think tanks, advocacy groups and
industry associations—was roughly $900 million. During the same period, billionaires secretively donated nearly $120 million (£77 million) via the Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund to more than 100 organizations seeking to undermine the public perception of the science on climate change.
As of the end of 2019, in the current U.S. election cycle, 97
percent of the coal industry's political contributions and 88 percent of
the oil and gas industries' contributions had gone to Republicans, leading Paul Krugman to call the Republicans "the world’s only major climate-denialist party."
Public opinion
Public opinion on climate change is significantly affected by media coverage of climate change,
and the effects of climate change denial campaigns. Campaigns to
undermine public confidence in climate science have decreased public
belief in climate change, which in turn have affected legislative
efforts to curb CO 2 emissions. Another reason why the public is skeptical about climate change is their lack of knowledge.
United States
In a 2006 ABC News/Time Magazine poll, 56% of Americans correctly
answered that average global temperatures had risen over the previous
three years. Additionally, in the same poll, two-thirds said they
believed that scientists had "a lot of disagreement" about "whether or
not global warming is happening."
From 2001 to 2012, the number of Americans who said they believe
in anthropogenic global warming decreased from 75 percent to 44 percent. (Scientists believe it is happening.)
Democrats
(blue) and Republicans (red) have long differed in views of the
importance of addressing climate change, with the gap widening in the
late 2010s mainly through Democrats' share increasing by more than 30
points. (Discontinuity resulted from survey changing in 2015 from reciting "global warming" to "climate change".)
A study found that public climate change policy support and behavior
are significantly influenced by public beliefs, attitudes and risk
perceptions.
As of March 2018 the rate of acceptance among U.S. TV forecasters that
the climate is changing has increased to ninety-five percent. The number
of local television stories about global warming has also increased, by
fifteen-fold. Climate Central has received some of the credit for this because they provide classes for meteorologists and graphics for television stations.
The popular media in the U.S. gives greater attention to climate
change skeptics than the scientific community as a whole, and the level
of agreement within the scientific community has not been accurately
communicated.
In some cases, news outlets have allowed climate change skeptics to
explain the science of climate change instead of experts in climatology. US and UK
media coverage differ from that presented in other countries, where
reporting is more consistent with the scientific literature. Some journalists attribute the difference to climate change denial
being propagated, mainly in the US, by business-centered organizations
employing tactics worked out previously by the US tobacco lobby. In France,
the US and the UK, the opinions of climate change skeptics appear much
more frequently in conservative news outlets than other news, and in
many cases those opinions are left uncontested.
The efforts of Al Gore
and other environmental campaigns have focused on the effects of global
warming and have managed to increase awareness and concern, but despite
these efforts, the number of Americans believing humans are the cause
of global warming was holding steady at 61% in 2007, and those believing
the popular media was understating the issue remained about 35%.
A recent poll from 2015 suggests that while Americans are growing more
aware of the dangers and implications of climate change for future
generations, the majority are not worried about it.
From a survey conducted in 2004, it was found that more than 30% of
news presented in the previous decade showed equal attention to both
human and non human contributions to global warming.
In 2018, the National Science Teachers Association urged teachers to "emphasize to students that no scientific controversy exists regarding the basic facts of climate change."
Europe
Climate change denial has been promoted by several far-right European parties, including Spain's Vox, Finland's far-right Finns Party, Austria's far-right Freedom Party, and Germany's anti-immigration Alternative for Deutschland (AFD).
Nationalism
It has been suggested that climate change can conflict with a nationalistic
view because it is "unsolvable" at the national level and requires
collective action between nations or between local communities, and that
therefore populist nationalism tends to reject the science of climate
change.
...nationalism
has no solution to climate change. If you want to be a nationalist in
the 21st century, you have to deny the problem. If you accept the
reality of the problem, then you must accept that, yes, there is still
room in the world for patriotism, there is still room in the world for
having special loyalties and obligations towards your own people,
towards your own country. I don't think anybody is really thinking of
abolishing that. But in order to confront climate change, we need
additional loyalties and commitments to a level beyond the nation.
In 2019, U.S. Undersecretary of Energy Mark W. Menezes
said that the Freeport LNG project's exports would be "spreading
freedom gas throughout the world," while Assistant Secretary for Fossil
Energy Steven Winberg echoed the call to internationally export "molecules of US freedom."
On the other hand, it has been argued that effective climate
action is polycentric rather than international, and national interest
in multilateral groups can be furthered by overcoming climate change
denial.
Climate change contrarians may believe in a "caricature" of
internationalist state intervention that is perceived as threatening
national sovereignty, and may re-attribute risks such as flooding to
international institutions. UK Independence Party policy on climate change has been influenced by noted contrarian Christopher Monckton and then by its energy spokesman Roger Helmer MEP who stated in a speech "It is not clear that the rise in atmospheric CO2 is anthropogenic".
Jerry Taylor of the Niskanen Center posits that climate change
denial is an important component of Trumpian historical consciousness,
and "plays a significant role in the architecture of Trumpism as a developing philosophical system."
Lobbying
Efforts to lobby against environmental regulation have included
campaigns to manufacture doubt about the science behind climate change,
and to obscure the scientific consensus and data. These efforts have undermined public confidence in climate science, and impacted climate change lobbying.
This approach to downplay the significance of climate change was copied from tobacco lobbyists; in the face of scientific evidence linking tobacco to lung cancer, to prevent or delay the introduction of regulation. Lobbyists attempted to discredit
the scientific research by creating doubt and manipulating debate. They
worked to discredit the scientists involved, to dispute their findings,
and to create and maintain an apparent controversy by promoting claims
that contradicted scientific research. ""Doubt is our product," boasted a
now infamous 1969 industry memo. Doubt would shield the tobacco
industry from litigation and regulation for decades to come." In 2006, George Monbiot wrote in The Guardian about similarities between the methods of groups funded by Exxon, and those of the tobacco giant Philip Morris, including direct attacks on peer-reviewed science, and attempts to create public controversy and doubt.
The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment,
hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and
welfare of mankind. There is no convincing scientific evidence that
human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is
causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating
of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. … We
are living in an increasingly lush environment of plants and animals as a
result of the carbon dioxide increase. Our children will enjoy an Earth
with far more plant and animal life than that with which we now are
blessed. This is a wonderful and unexpected gift from the Industrial
Revolution.
George Monbiot wrote in The Guardian that this petition, which
he criticizes as misleading and tied to industry funding, "has been
cited by almost every journalist who claims that climate change is a
myth." Efforts by climate change denial groups played a significant role
in the eventual rejection of the Kyoto protocol in the US.
Monbiot has written about another group founded by the tobacco lobby, The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC), that now campaigns against measures to combat global warming. In again trying to manufacture the appearance of a grass-roots movement
against "unfounded fear" and "over-regulation," Monbiot states that
TASSC "has done more damage to the campaign to halt [climate change]
than any other body."
Drexel Universityenvironmental sociologistRobert Brulle
analysed the funding of 91 organizations opposed to restrictions on
carbon emissions, which he termed the "climate change counter-movement."
Between 2003 and 2013, the donor-advised fundsDonors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, combined, were the largest funders, accounting for about one quarter of the total funds, and the American Enterprise Institute
was the largest recipient, 16% of the total funds. The study also found
that the amount of money donated to these organizations by means of
foundations whose funding sources cannot be traced had risen.
Private sector
Several large corporations within the fossil fuel industry provide
significant funding for attempts to mislead the public about the
trustworthiness of climate science. ExxonMobil and the Koch family foundations have been identified as especially influential funders of climate change contrarianism. The bankruptcy of the coal company Cloud Peak Energy revealed it funded the Institute for Energy Research, a climate denial think tank, as well as several other policy influencers.
After the IPCC released its February 2007 report, the American Enterprise Institute
offered British, American and other scientists $10,000 plus travel
expenses to publish articles critical of the assessment. The institute
had received more than US$1.6 million from Exxon, and its vice-chairman
of trustees was former head of Exxon Lee Raymond.
Raymond sent letters that alleged the IPCC report was not "supported by
the analytical work." More than 20 AEI employees worked as consultants
to the George W. Bush administration. Despite her initial conviction that climate change denial would abate with time, Senator Barbara Boxer said that when she learned of the AEI's offer, she "realized there was a movement behind this that just wasn't giving up."
The Royal Society
conducted a survey that found ExxonMobil had given US$2.9 million to
American groups that "misinformed the public about climate change," 39
of which "misrepresented the science of climate change by outright
denial of the evidence".
In 2006, the Royal Society issued a demand that ExxonMobil withdraw
funding for climate change denial. The letter drew criticism, notably
from Timothy Ball who argued the society attempted to "politicize the private funding of science and to censor scientific debate."
ExxonMobil denied that it has been trying to mislead the public
about global warming. A spokesman, Gantt Walton, said that ExxonMobil's
funding of research does not mean that it acts to influence the
research, and that ExxonMobil supports taking action to curb the output
of greenhouse gasses.
Research conducted at an Exxon archival collection at the University of
Texas and interviews with former employees by journalists indicate the
scientific opinion within the company and their public posture towards
climate change was contradictory.
Between 1989 and 2002 the Global Climate Coalition, a group of mainly United States businesses, used aggressive lobbying and public relations tactics to oppose action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fight the Kyoto Protocol. The coalition was financed by large corporations and trade groups from the oil, coal and auto industries. The New York Times
reported that "even as the coalition worked to sway opinion [towards
skepticism], its own scientific and technical experts were advising that
the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming
could not be refuted." In 2000, Ford Motor Company was the first company to leave the coalition as a result of pressure from environmentalists, followed by Daimler-Chrysler, Texaco, the Southern Company and General Motors subsequently left to GCC. The organization closed in 2002.
From January 2009 through June 2010, the oil, coal and utility
industries spent $500 million in lobby expenditures in opposition to
legislation to address climate change.
In early 2015, several media reports emerged saying that Willie Soon,
a popular scientist among climate change deniers, had failed to
disclose conflicts of interest in at least 11 scientific papers
published since 2008.
They reported that he received a total of $1.25m from ExxonMobil,
Southern Company, the American Petroleum Institute and a foundation run
by the Koch brothers. Charles R. Alcock, director of the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics,
where Soon was based, said that allowing funders of Soon's work to
prohibit disclosure of funding sources was a mistake, which will not be
permitted in future grant agreements.
Lewandowsky reports that by asking four questions about the free market he is able to predict with "67% "confidence" (that is, variance)" an individual's attitudes towards climate change.
Public sector
The Republican Party in the United States is unique in denying anthropogenic climate change among conservative political parties across the Western world. In 1994, according to a leaked memo, the Republican strategist Frank Luntz
advised members of the Republican Party, with regard to climate change,
that "you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a
primary issue" and "challenge the science" by "recruiting experts who
are sympathetic to your view."
(In 2006, Luntz said he still believes "back [in] '97, '98, the science
was uncertain", but he now agrees with the scientific consensus.)
From 2008 to 2017, the Republican Party went from "debating how to
combat human-caused climate change to arguing that it does not exist,"
according to The New York Times.
In 2011 "more than half of the Republicans in the House and
three-quarters of Republican senators" said "that the threat of global
warming, as a man-made and highly threatening phenomenon, is at best an
exaggeration and at worst an utter "hoax"" according to Judith Warner writing in The New York Times Magazine.
In 2014, more than 55% of congressional Republicans were climate change deniers, according to NBC News.
According to PolitiFact in May 2014, Jerry Brown's
statement that 'virtually no Republican' in Washington accepts climate
change science, was "mostly true"; PolitiFact counted "eight out of 278,
or about 3 percent" of Republican members of Congress who "accept the
prevailing scientific conclusion that global warming is both real and
man-made."
In 2005, The New York Times reported that Philip Cooney, former fossil fuel lobbyist and "climate team leader" at the American Petroleum Institute and President George W. Bush's chief of staff of the Council on Environmental Quality,
had "repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play
down links between such emissions and global warming, according to
internal documents." Sharon Begley reported in Newsweek
that Cooney "edited a 2002 report on climate science by sprinkling it
with phrases such as 'lack of understanding' and 'considerable
uncertainty.'" Cooney reportedly removed an entire section on climate in
one report, whereupon another lobbyist sent him a fax saying "You are
doing a great job." Cooney announced his resignation two days after the story of his tampering with scientific reports broke, but a few days later it was announced that Cooney would take up a position with ExxonMobil.
United States Secretary of EnergyRick Perry,
in a 19 June 2017 interview with CNBC, acknowledged the existence of
climate change and impact from humans, but said that he did not agree
with the idea that carbon dioxide was the primary driver of global
warming pointing instead to "the ocean waters and this environment that
we live in". The American Meteorological Society
responded in a letter to Perry saying that it is "critically important
that you understand that emissions of carbon dioxide and other
greenhouse gases are the primary cause", pointing to conclusions of
scientists worldwide.
Republican Jim Bridenstine,
the first elected politician to serve as NASA administrator, had
previously stated that global temperatures were not rising. A month
after the Senate confirmed his NASA position in April 2018, he
acknowledged that human emissions of greenhouse gases are raising global
temperatures.
Although climate denial positions have started to shift among the
Republican Party leadership towards an acknowledgement that "the
climate is changing", a 2019 report describes the climate right as
"fragmented and underfunded."
Acknowledgement of climate change by politicians, while
expressing uncertainty as to how much climate change can be attributed
to human activity, has been described as a new form of climate denial,
and "a reliable tool to manipulate public perception of climate change
and stall political action."
Schools
According to documents leaked in February 2012, The Heartland Institute is developing a curriculum for use in schools which frames climate change as a scientific controversy. In 2017, Glenn Branch, Deputy Director of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE),
wrote that "the Heartland Institute is continuing to inflict its
climate change denial literature on science teachers across the
country". He also described how some science teachers were reacting to
Heartland's mailings: "Fortunately, the Heartland mailing continues to
be greeted with skepticism and dismissed with scorn." The NCSE has prepared Classroom Resources in response to Heartland and other anti-science threats.
Branch also referred to an article by ClimateFeedback.org
which reviewed an unsolicited Heartland booklet, entitled "Why
Scientists Disagree about Global Warming", which was sent to science
teachers in the United States. Their intention was to send it to "more
than 200,000 K-12 teachers". Each significant claim was rated for
accuracy by scientists who were experts on that topic. Overall, they
scored the accuracy of the booklet with an "F": "it could hardly score
lower", and "the "Key Findings" section are incorrect, misleading, based
on flawed logic, or simply factually inaccurate."
Effect
Manufactured uncertainty
over climate change, the fundamental strategy of climate change denial,
has been very effective, particularly in the US. It has contributed to
low levels of public concern and to government inaction worldwide.
An Angus Reid poll released in 2010 indicates that global warming
skepticism in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom has been
rising.
There may be multiple causes of this trend, including a focus on
economic rather than environmental issues, and a negative perception of
the United Nations and its role in discussing climate change.
Another cause may be weariness from overexposure to the topic:
secondary polls suggest that the public may have been discouraged by
extremism when discussing the topic, while other polls show 54% of U.S. voters believe that "the news media make global warming appear worse than it really is."
A poll in 2009 regarding the issue of whether "some scientists have
falsified research data to support their own theories and beliefs about
global warming" showed that 59% of Americans believed it "at least
somewhat likely", with 35% believing it was "very likely".[276]
According to Tim Wirth,
"They patterned what they did after the tobacco industry. […] Both
figured, sow enough doubt, call the science uncertain and in dispute.
That's had a huge impact on both the public and Congress." This approach has been propagated by the US media, presenting a false balance between climate science and climate skeptics. Newsweek
reports that the majority of Europe and Japan accept the consensus on
scientific climate change, but only one third of Americans considered
human activity to play a major role in climate change in 2006; 64%
believed that scientists disagreed about it "a lot." A 2007 Newsweek
poll found these numbers were declining, although majorities of
Americans still believed that scientists were uncertain about climate
change and its causes. Rush Holt wrote a piece for Science, which appeared in Newsweek:
… for more than two decades
scientists have been issuing warnings that the release of greenhouse
gases, principally carbon dioxide (CO 2),
is probably altering Earth's climate in ways that will be expensive and
even deadly. The American public yawned and bought bigger cars.
Statements by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Geophysical Union, American Meteorological Society, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
and others underscored the warnings and called for new government
policies to deal with climate change. Politicians, presented with noisy
statistics, shrugged, said there is too much doubt among scientists, and
did nothing.
Deliberate attempts by the Western Fuels Association
"to confuse the public" have succeeded in their objectives. This has
been "exacerbated by media treatment of the climate issue". According to
a Pew poll in 2012, 57% of the US public are unaware of, or outright
reject, the scientific consensus on climate change.
Some organizations promoting climate change denial have asserted that
scientists are increasingly rejecting climate change, but this notion is
contradicted by research showing that 97% of published papers endorse the scientific consensus, and that percentage is increasing with time.
Social psychologist Craig Foster compares climate change
denialists to flat-earth believers and the reaction to the latter by the
scientific community. Foster states, "the potential and kinetic energy
devoted to counter the flat-earth movement is wasteful and misguided... I
don't understand why anybody would worry about the flat-earth gnat
while facing the climate change mammoth... Climate change denial does
not require belief. It only requires neglect."
In 2016, Aaron McCright argued that anti-environmentalism—and
climate change denial specifically—has expanded to a point in the US
where it has now become "a central tenet of the current conservative and Republican identity."
On the other hand, global oil companies have begun to acknowledge the existence of climate change and its risks. Still top oil firms are spending millions lobbying to delay, weaken or block policies to tackle climate change.
Manufactured climate change denial is also influencing how
scientific knowledge is communicated to the public. According to
climate scientist Michael E. Mann,
"...universities and scientific societies and organizations,
publishers, etc.—are too often risk averse when it comes to defending
and communicating science that is perceived as threatening by powerful
interests..."
