Climate change denial

Climate change denial refers to denial, dismissal, or doubt of the scientific consensus on the rate and extent of climate change, its significance, or its connection to human behavior, in whole or in part. The terms climate skeptics or contrarians are nowadays used with the same meaning as climate change deniers even though deniers usually prefer not to, in order to sow confusion as to their intentions. 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. In fact, all scientists adhere to scientific skepticism as part of the scientific process that demands continuing questioning. Both options are problematic, but climate change denial has become more widely used than skepticism. Journalist Ross Gelbspan said in 1995 that 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 2015, The New York Times's public editor said that the Times was increasingly using 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". A petition by climatetruth.org asked signers 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". In September 2015, the Associated Press announced "an addition to AP Stylebook entry on global warming" that advised "to describe those who don't accept climate science or dispute the world is warming from human-made forces, use 'climate change doubters' or 'those who reject mainstream climate science'. Avoid use of 'skeptics' or 'deniers'". In May 2019, The Guardian also rejected use of the term "climate skeptic" in favor of "climate science denier". In addition to explicit denial, people have also shown implicit denial by accepting the scientific consensus but failing to "translate their acceptance into action". == Categories and tactics ==

In 2004, German climate scientist Stefan Rahmstorf described how the media give the misleading impression that climate change is still disputed within the scientific community, attributing this impression to climate change skeptics' PR efforts. He identified different positions that climate skeptics argue, which he used as a taxonomy of climate change skepticism. Later the model was also applied to denial: data from short time periods to assert that global average temperatures are not rising. show short-term countertrends that mask longer-term warming trends that are shown by . Such representations have been applied to the so-called global warming hiatus (blue rectangle with , upper right). Climate change denial is a form of denialism. Chris and Mark Hoofnagle have defined denialism in this context 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 climate change conspiracy theory. • Fake experts, or individuals with views at odds with established knowledge, at the same time marginalizing 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 people. • Selectivity, such as cherry-picking atypical or even obsolete papers, in the same way that the MMR vaccine controversy was based on one paper: examples include discredited ideas of the medieval warm period. --> ("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 politicians and climate change denial groups say that because is only a trace gas in the atmosphere (0.04%), it cannot cause climate change. But 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. Climate denial groups may also argue that global warming has stopped, that a global warming hiatus is in effect, 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. but is likely negligible with respect to net global warming. 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. Avery's list was immediately called into question for misunderstanding and distorting the conclusions of many of the named studies and citing outdated, flawed studies that had long been abandoned. Many of the scientists on the list demanded their names be removed. At least 45 of them had no idea they were included as "co-authors" and disagreed with the article's conclusions. The Heartland Institute refused these requests, saying that the scientists "have no right—legally or ethically—to demand that their names be removed from a bibliography composed by researchers with whom they disagree". In 2005, the House of Lords Economics Committee wrote, "We have some concerns about the objectivity of the IPCC process, with some of its emissions scenarios and summary documentation apparently influenced by political considerations." It doubted the high emission scenarios and said that the IPCC had "played-down" what the committee called "some positive aspects of global warming". The main statements of the House of Lords Economics Committee were rejected in the response made by the United Kingdom government. On 10 December 2008, the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works minority members released a report under the leadership of the Senate's most vocal global warming denier, Jim Inhofe. It says it summarizes scientific dissent from the IPCC. Many of its statements about the numbers of people listed in the report, whether they are actually scientists, and whether they support the positions attributed to them, have been disputed. Inhofe also said that "some parts of the IPCC process resembled a Soviet-style trial, in which the facts are predetermined, and ideological purity trumps technical and scientific rigor." Creating doubts about scientific publishing processes Some climate change deniers promote conspiracy theories alleging that the scientific consensus is illusory, or that climatologists are acting out of their own financial interests by causing undue alarm about a changing climate. Some climate change deniers claim that there is no scientific consensus on climate change, that any evidence for a scientific consensus is faked, or that the peer-review process for climate science papers has become corrupted by scientists seeking to suppress dissent. The Great Global Warming Swindle is a 2007 British polemical documentary film directed by Martin Durkin that denies the scientific consensus about the reality and causes of climate change, justifying this by suggesting that climatology is influenced by funding and political factors. The film strongly opposes the scientific consensus on climate change. It argues that the consensus on climate change is the product of "a multibillion-dollar worldwide industry: created by fanatically anti-industrial environmentalists; supported by scientists peddling scare stories to chase funding; and propped up by complicit politicians and the media". The programme's publicity materials claim that man-made global warming is "a lie" and "the biggest scam of modern times." The climate deniers involved in the Climatic Research Unit email controversy ("Climategate") in 2009 claimed that researchers faked the data in their research publications and suppressed their critics in order to receive more funding (i.e. taxpayer money). Eight committees investigated these allegations and published reports, each finding no evidence of fraud or scientific misconduct. According to the Muir Russell report, the scientists' "rigor and honesty as scientists are not in doubt", the investigators "did not find any evidence of behavior that might undermine the conclusions of the IPCC assessments", but there had been "a consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness." The scientific consensus that climate change is occurring as a result of human activity remained unchanged at the end of the investigations. Being "lukewarm" or "skeptical" In 2012, Clive Hamilton published the essay "Climate change and the soothing message of luke-warmism". He defined luke-warmists as "those who appear to accept the body of climate science but interpret it in a way that is least threatening: emphasising uncertainties, playing down dangers, and advocating a slow and cautious response. They are politically conservative and anxious about the threat to the social structure posed by the implications of climate science. Their 'pragmatic' approach is therefore alluring to political leaders looking for a justification for policy minimalism." He cited Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger of the Breakthrough Institute, and also Roger A. Pielke Jr., Daniel Sarewitz, Steve Rayner, Mike Hulme and "the pre-eminent luke-warmist" Danish economist Bjørn Lomborg. Pushing for adaptation only The conservative National Center for Policy Analysis, whose "Environmental Task Force" contains a number of climate change deniers, including Sherwood Idso and S. Fred Singer, has said, "The growing consensus on climate change policies is that adaptation will protect present and future generations from climate-sensitive risks far more than efforts to restrict emissions." The adaptation-only plan is also endorsed by oil companies like ExxonMobil. According to a Ceres report, "ExxonMobil's plan appears to be to stay the course and try to adjust when changes occur. The company's plan is one that involves adaptation, as opposed to leadership." The George W. Bush administration also voiced support for an adaptation-only policy in 2002. "In a stark shift for the Bush administration, the United States has sent a climate report [U.S. Climate Action Report 2002] to the United Nations detailing specific and far-reaching effects it says global warming will inflict on the American environment. In the report, the administration also for the first time places most of the blame for recent global warming on human actions—mainly the burning of fossil fuels that send heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere." The report "does not propose any major shift in the administration's policy on greenhouse gases. Instead it recommends adapting to inevitable changes instead of making rapid and drastic reductions in greenhouse gases to limit warming." This position apparently precipitated a similar shift in emphasis at the COP 8 climate talks in New Delhi several months later; "The shift satisfies the Bush administration, which has fought to avoid mandatory cuts in emissions for fear it would harm the economy. 'We're welcoming a focus on more of a balance on adaptation versus mitigation', said a senior American negotiator in New Delhi. 'You don't have enough money to do everything. Some find this shift and attitude disingenuous and indicative of a bias against prevention (i.e. reducing emissions/consumption) and toward prolonging the oil industry's profits at the environment's expense. In an article addressing the supposed economic hazards of addressing climate change, writer and environmental activist George Monbiot wrote: "Now that the dismissal of climate change is no longer fashionable, the professional deniers are trying another means of stopping us from taking action. It would be cheaper, they say, to wait for the impacts of climate change and then adapt to them". Delaying climate change mitigation measures Climate change deniers often debate whether action (such as the restrictions on the use of fossil fuels to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions) should be taken now or in the near future. They fear the economic ramifications of such restrictions. For example, in a 1998 speech, a staff member of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, argued that emission controls' negative economic effects outweighed their environmental benefits. Climate change deniers tend to argue that even if global warming is caused solely by the burning of fossil fuels, restricting their use would damage the world economy more than the increases in global temperature. Conversely, the general consensus is that early action to reduce emissions would help avoid much greater economic costs later, and reduce the risk of catastrophic, irreversible change. Earlier, climate change deniers' online YouTube content focused on denying global warming, or saying such warming is not caused by humans burning fossil fuel. A 2016 article in Science made the case that opposition to climate policy was beginning to take a "rhetorical shift away from outright skepticism" and called this neoskepticism. Rather than denying the existence of global warming, neoskeptics instead "question the magnitude of the risks and assert that reducing them has more costs than benefits." According to the authors, the emergence of neoskepticism "heightens the need for science to inform decision making under uncertainty and to improve communication and education." There is a range of possible mitigation policies. Disagreement over the sufficiency, viability, or desirability of a given policy is not necessarily neoskepticism. But neoskepticism is marked by failure to appreciate the increased risks associated with delayed action. Gavin Schmidt has called neoskepticism a form of confirmation bias and the tendency to always take "as gospel the lowest estimate of a plausible range". Neoskeptics err on the side of the least disruptive projections and least active policies and, as such, neglect or misapprehend the full spectrum of risks associated with global warming. Promoting conspiracy theories Climate change denial is commonly rooted in a phenomenon known as conspiracy theory, in which people misattribute events to a powerful group's secret plot or plan. People with certain cognitive tendencies are also more drawn than others to conspiracy theories about climate change. Conspiratorial beliefs are more predominantly found in narcissistic people and those who consistently look for meanings or patterns in their world, including believers in paranormal activity. Climate change conspiracy disbelief is also linked to lower levels of education and analytic thinking. Scientists are investigating which factors associated with conspiracy belief can be influenced and changed. They have identified "uncertainty, feelings of powerlessness, political cynicism, magical thinking, and errors in logical and probabilistic reasoning". In 2012, researchers found that belief in other conspiracy theories was associated with being more likely to endorse climate change denial. Examples of science-related conspiracy theories that some people believe include that aliens exist, childhood vaccines are linked to autism, Bigfoot is real, the government "adds fluoride to drinking water for 'sinister' purposes", and the moon landing was faked. Examples of alleged climate change conspiracies include: • Aiming at New World Order: Senator James Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma, suggested in 2006 that supporters of the Kyoto Protocol such as Jacques Chirac are aiming at global governance. In his speech, Inhofe said: "So, I wonder: are the French going to be dictating U.S. policy?" William M. Gray also claimed in 2006 that scientists support the scientific consensus on climate change because they were promoted by government leaders and environmentalists seeking world government. He added that its purpose was to exercise political influence, to try to introduce world government, and to control people. • To promote other types of energy sources: Some have claimed that the "threat of global warming is an attempt to promote nuclear power". Another claim is that "because many people have invested in renewable energy companies, they stand to lose a lot of money if global warming is shown to be a myth. According to this theory, environmental groups therefore bribe climate scientists to doctor their data so that they are able to secure their financial investment in green energy." == Psychology ==

A study published in PLOS One in 2024 found that even a single repetition of a claim was sufficient to increase the perceived truth of both climate science-aligned claims and climate change skeptic/denial claims—"highlighting the insidious effect of repetition". == Connections to other debates ==

Links with other environmental issues Many of the climate change deniers have disagreed, in whole or part, with the scientific consensus regarding other issues, particularly those relating to environmental risks, such as ozone depletion, DDT, and passive smoking. 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. 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. The UK Independence Party's policy on climate change has been influenced by climate change denier Christopher Monckton and by its energy spokesman Roger Helmer, who has said, "It is not clear that the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide 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". Though climate change denial was apparently waning circa 2021, some right-wing nationalist organizations have adopted a theory of "environmental populism" advocating that natural resources be preserved for a nation's existing residents, to the exclusion of immigrants. Other such right-wing organizations have contrived new "green wings" that falsely assert that refugees from poor nations cause environmental pollution and climate change and should therefore be excluded. The authors defined national narcissism as "a belief that one's national group is exceptional and deserves external recognition underlain by unsatisfied psychological needs". They defined secure national identification as "reflect[ing] feelings of strong bonds and solidarity with one's ingroup members, and sense of satisfaction in group membership". The researchers concluded that secure national identification tends to support policies promoting renewable energy, while national narcissism is inversely correlated with support for such policies—except to the extent that such policies, as well as greenwashing, enhance the national image. The gap has been widening since the late 2010s. One worldview that often leads to climate change denial is belief in free enterprise capitalism. The "freedom of the commons" (tragedy of the commons), or the freedom to use natural resources as a public good as it is practiced in free enterprise capitalism, destroys important ecosystems and their functions, and so having a stake in this worldview does not correlate with climate change mitigation behavior. Political worldview plays an important role in environmental policy and action. Liberals tend to focus on environmental risks, while conservatives focus on the benefits of economic development. Because of this difference, conflicting opinions on the acceptance of climate change arise. Conservative white men who report understanding climate change very well are even more likely to deny climate change. In the U.S., climate change denial largely correlates with political affiliation. This is partially because Democrats focus more on tighter government regulations and taxation, which are the basis for most environmental policy. Political affiliation also affects how different people interpret the same facts. Because of this, many people hold the popular values of their political affiliation, regardless of their personal beliefs, so as not to be ostracized by the group. == History ==

or "imminent ice ages"—dominated peer-reviewed literature in the 1970s, contrary to false claims that climate science subsequently reversed its consensus. In 1966, a coal industry research organization, Bituminous Coal Research Inc., published its finding that if then prevailing trends of coal consumption continued, "the temperature of the earth's atmosphere will increase" and "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 publicly advocated for decades thereafter 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 that could lead to government regulation. In 1977, the first Secretary of Energy, James Schlesinger, suggested President Jimmy Carter take no action regarding a climate change memo, citing uncertainty. During the 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 monitoring. Congressman Al Gore was aware of the developing science: he joined others in arranging congressional hearings from 1981 onward, with testimony from scientists including Revelle, Stephen Schneider, and Wallace Smith Broecker. 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 called the report "alarmist" and the dispute was widely covered. 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 amid summer droughts and heat waves when James Hansen testified to a Congressional hearing on 23 June 1988, saying 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 trend was not curbed. These facts encouraged discussion about new environmental regulations, which the fossil fuel industry opposed. As the scientific community and new data increasingly refuted their arguments, deniers turned to political arguments, making personal attacks on scientists' reputations, and promoting ideas of global warming conspiracies. In 1998, journalists Ross Gelbspan noted that his fellow journalists accepted that global warming was occurring, but were in "'stage-two' denial of the climate crisis", unable to accept the feasibility of solutions to the problem. In Newsweek August 2007 cover story "The Truth About Denial", Sharon Begley reported that "the denial machine is running at full throttle", and that this "well-coordinated, well-funded campaign" by contrarian scientists, free-market think tanks, and industry had "created a paralyzing fog of doubt around climate change." The approach to downplay climate change's significance was copied from tobacco lobbyists, who attempted to prevent or delay the introduction of regulation in the face of scientific evidence linking tobacco to lung cancer. They attempted to discredit the research by creating doubt, manipulating debate, discrediting the scientists involved, disputing their findings, and creating and maintaining an apparent controversy by promoting claims that contradicted scientific research. Doubt shielded the tobacco industry from litigation and regulation for decades. For example, in 1992 an EPA report linked secondhand smoke with lung cancer. In response, 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 read, "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 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". From 2008 to 2017, the Republican Party went from "debating how to combat human-caused climate change to arguing that it does not exist". 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 human-made and highly threatening phenomenon, is at best an exaggeration and at worst an utter 'hoax. In 2014, more than 55% of congressional Republicans were reported to be climate change deniers. 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, a 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." Overall, 60% of Americans surveyed in 2021 said oil and gas companies were "completely or mostly responsible" for climate change. In 2016, Aaron McCright argued that anti-environmentalism—and climate change denial specifically—had expanded in the U.S. to become "a central tenet of the current conservative and Republican identity". In a 2017 interview, United States Secretary of Energy Rick Perry acknowledged the existence of climate change and impact from humans, but said that he did not agree that carbon dioxide was its primary driver, pointing instead to "the ocean waters and this environment that we live in". The American Meteorological Society responded in a letter to Perry 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. Climate denial has started to decrease among the Republican Party leadership toward acknowledgment that "the climate is changing"; a 2019 study by several major think tanks called the climate right "fragmented and underfunded". Florida Republican Tom Lee described people's emotional impact and reactions to climate change, saying: "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 I think you lose people at hello a lot times in the Republican conversation over this." When a moderator at the August 23, 2023, Republican presidential debate asked the candidates to raise their hands if they believed human behavior is causing climate change, none did. Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy said, "the climate change agenda is a hoax" and that "more people are dying of climate change policies than they actually are of climate change"; none of his competitors challenged him directly on climate. == Denial networks ==

Conservative and libertarian think tanks A 2000 article explored the connection between conservative think tanks and climate change denial. Conservative and libertarian think tanks in the U.S., such as The Heritage Foundation, Marshall Institute, Cato Institute, and the American Enterprise Institute, were significant participants in lobbying attempts seeking to halt or eliminate environmental regulations. 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. Publishers, websites and networks In November 2021, a study by the Center for Countering Digital Hate identified "ten fringe publishers" that together were responsible for nearly 70 percent of Facebook user interactions with content that denied climate change. Facebook said the percentage was overstated and called the study misleading. The "toxic ten" publishers: Breitbart News, The Western Journal, Newsmax, Townhall, Media Research Center, The Washington Times, The Federalist, The Daily Wire, RT (TV network), and The Patriot Post. The Rebel Media and its director, Ezra Levant, have promoted climate change denial and oil sands extraction in Alberta. Willard Anthony Watts is an American blogger who runs Watts Up With That?, a climate change denial blog. A piece of research from 2015 identified 4,556 people with overlapping network ties to 164 organizations that were responsible for most efforts to downplay the threat of climate change in the U.S. Publications for school children According to documents leaked in February 2012, The Heartland Institute is developing a curriculum for use in schools that frames climate change as a scientific controversy. In 2017, deputy director of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) Glenn Branch wrote, "the Heartland Institute is continuing to inflict its climate change denial literature on science teachers across the country". Each significant claim was rated for accuracy by scientists who were experts on that topic. It was found that "the 'Key Findings' section are incorrect, misleading, based on flawed logic, or simply factually inaccurate". The NCSE has prepared Classroom Resources in response to Heartland and other anti-science threats. In 2023, Republican politician and Baptist minister Mike Huckabee published Kids Guide to the Truth About Climate Change, which acknowledges global warming but minimizes the influence of human emissions. Marketed as an alternative to mainstream education, the publication does not attribute authorship or cite scientific credentials. In 2023, the state of Florida approved a public school curriculum including videos produced by conservative advocacy group PragerU that liken climate change skeptics to those who fought Communism and Nazism, imply renewable energy harms the environment, and say current global warming occurs naturally. Texas, which has a large influence on school textbooks published nationwide, proposed textbooks in 2023 that included more information about the climate crisis than editions a decade earlier. But some books clouded the human causes of climate change and downplayed the role of fossil fuels, with Texas U.S. Representative August Pfluger emphasizing the importance of "secure, reliable energy" (oil and natural gas) produced in the Permian Basin. == Notable people who deny climate change ==

Politicians Acknowledgment of climate change by politicians, while expressing uncertainty as to how much of it is due 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". In 2010, Donald Trump said, "With the coldest winter ever recorded, with snow setting record levels up and down the coast, the Nobel committee should take the Nobel Prize back from Al Gore....Gore wants us to clean up our factories and plants in order to protect us from global warming, when China and other countries couldn't care less. It would make us totally noncompetitive in the manufacturing world, and China, Japan and India are laughing at America's stupidity." In 2012, Trump tweeted, "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive." By the early 2020s, Trump's administration generally changed the framing of the issue from denial to dismissal: diminishing, ridiculing or rejecting the idea that climate change should be mitigated or even studied. On September 23, 2025, in his first address to the United Nations General Assembly during his second term in office, Trump called the UN's predictions about climate change exaggerated, incorrect, and "the greatest con job perpetrated by the world". He falsely said that renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power "don't work", are unreliable, and more expensive than fossil fuels. On January 21, 2015, Jim Inhofe returned to chairing the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works as part of a new Republican majority in the Senate. In response to NOAA and NASA reports that 2014 had been the warmest year globally in the temperature record, he said, "we had the coldest in the western hemisphere in the same time frame", and attributed changes to a 30-year cycle, not human activity. In a debate the same day about a bill for the Keystone XL pipeline, Inhofe endorsed an amendment proposed by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, "Climate change is real and not a hoax", which passed 98–1. Inhofe clarified his view, saying, "Climate is changing and climate has always changed and always will. There is archaeological evidence of that, there is biblical evidence of that, there is historical evidence of that", but added, "there are some people who are so arrogant to think they are so powerful they can change climate." On February 26, 2015, Inhofe brought a snowball to the Senate floor and tossed it before delivering remarks in which he said that environmentalists keep talking about global warming even though it keeps getting cold. on the 2015 Paris Agreement (a global effort to reduce carbon emissions), claiming it was 'poorly negotiated', in an interview with TheStreet. In 2017, former U.S. Senator Tom Coburn discussed the Paris Agreement and denied the scientific consensus on human-caused global warming. He 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." Republican Jim Bridenstine, the first elected politician to serve as NASA administrator, had previously said that global temperatures were not rising. But a month after the Senate confirmed his NASA position in April 2018, he acknowledged that human emissions of greenhouse gases are raising global temperatures. During a May 2018 meeting of the United States House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, Representative Mo Brooks claimed that sea level rise is caused not by melting glaciers but rather by coastal erosion and silt that flows from rivers into the ocean. In 2019, Ernesto Araújo, the minister of foreign affairs appointed by Brazil's newly elected president Jair Bolsonaro, called global warming a plot by "cultural Marxists" and eliminated the ministry's climate change division. An April 15, 2023, tweet by Republican U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene said climate change was a "scam", that "fossil fuels are natural and amazing", and that "there are some very powerful people that are getting rich beyond their wildest dreams convincing many that carbon is the enemy". Her tweet included a chart that omitted carbon dioxide and methane A 2024 analysis found 100 U.S. representatives and 23 U.S. senators—23% of the 535 members of Congress—to be climate change deniers, all the deniers being Republicans. On 29 July 2025, the chief administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency announced that the Trump administration would rescind the 2009 endangerment finding, which concluded that planet-warming greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health.) A 13 August Carbon Brief fact-check concluded that there were at least 100 false or misleading statements in the Trump administration's A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate, published on 23 July to support rescinding of the endangerment finding. On 30 August, ''Climate Experts' Review of the DOE Climate Working Group Report'' was published as a compendium of comments from 85 climate experts to counter the government's Critical Review. The government's five-member Climate Working Group that authored the Critical Review was dissolved by 5 September in response to a lawsuit filed by the Environmental Defense Fund and Union of Concerned Scientists. On 17 September, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) published a 137-page paper stating that "the evidence for current and future harm to human health and welfare created by human-caused GHGs is beyond scientific dispute". Scientists American and New Zealand climate scientist Kevin Trenberth has published widely on climate change science and fought back against climate change misinformation for decades. He describes in his memoirs his "close encounters with deniers and skeptics"—with fellow meteorologists or climate change scientists. These included Richard Lindzen ("he is quite beguiling but is criticized as "intellectually dishonest" by his peers"; Lindzen was a professor of meteorology at MIT and has been called a contrarian in relation to climate change and other issues.), Roy Spencer (who has "repeatedly made errors that always resulted in lower temperature trends than were really present"), John Christy ("his decisions on climate work and statements appear to be heavily colored by his religion"), Roger Pielke Jr, Christopher Landsea, Pat Michaels ("long associated with the Cato Institute, he changed his bombastic tune gradually over time as climate change became more evident"). In 1998, Frederick Seitz, an American physicist and former National Academy of Sciences president, wrote the Oregon Petition, a controversial document in opposition to the Kyoto Protocol. The petition and accompanying "Research Review of Global Warming Evidence" claimed that "We are living in an increasingly lush environment of plants and animals as a result of the carbon dioxide increase. [...] This is a wonderful and unexpected gift from the Industrial Revolution". In their book Merchants of Doubt, the authors write that Seitz and a group of other scientists fought the scientific evidence and spread confusion on many of the most important issues of our time, like the harmfulness of tobacco smoke, acid rains, CFCs, pesticides, and global warming. == Lobbying and related activities ==

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. Efforts by climate change denial groups played a significant role in the United States' rejection of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. Fossil fuel companies and other private sector actors The fossil fuel industry has been waging a decades-long, multi-billion-dollar disinformation campaign denying climate change and spreading doubt on climate science, aimed at blocking climate action and phasing out fossil fuels. Research conducted at an Exxon archival collection at the University of Texas and interviews with former Exxon employees indicate that the company's scientific opinion and its public posture toward climate change were contradictory. A systematic review of Exxon's climate modeling projections concluded that in private and academic circles since the late 1970s and early 1980s, ExxonMobil predicted global warming correctly and skillfully, correctly dismissed the possibility of a coming ice age in favor of a "carbon dioxide induced super-interglacial", and reasonably estimated how much would lead to dangerous warming. Between 1989 and 2002, the Global Climate Coalition, a group of mainly U.S. businesses, used aggressive lobbying and public relations tactics to oppose action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fight the Kyoto Protocol. Large corporations and trade groups from the oil, coal and auto industries financed the coalition. The New York Times reported, "even as the coalition worked to sway opinion [toward 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, the Ford Motor Company was the first company to leave the coalition as a result of pressure from environmentalists. Daimler-Chrysler, Texaco, the Southern Company and General Motors subsequently left the GCC. It 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. A study in 2022 traced the history of an influential group of economic consultants hired by the petroleum industry from the 1990s to the 2010s to estimate the costs of various proposed climate policies. The economists used models that inflated predicted costs while ignoring policy benefits, and their results were often portrayed to the public as independent rather than industry-sponsored. Their work played a key role in undermining numerous major climate policy initiatives in the US over a span of decades. This study illustrates how the fossil fuel industry has funded biased economic analyses to oppose climate policy. ExxonMobil Attacks and threats towards scientists Climate change deniers attacked the work of climate scientist Michael E. Mann for years. On 8 February 2024, Mann won a $1 million judgment for punitive damages in a defamation lawsuit filed in 2012 against bloggers who attacked his hockey stick graph of the Northern Hemisphere temperature rise. One of the bloggers had called Mann's work "fraudulent", contrary to numerous investigations that had already cleared Mann of any misconduct and supported the validity of his research. After Elon Musk's 2022 takeover of Twitter (now X), key figures at the company who ensured trusted content was prioritized were removed, and climate scientists received a large increase in hostile, threatening, harassing, and personally abusive tweets from deniers. In 2023, increases in climate change denial were reported, particularly on the far right. The German television news service Tagesschau called this a global phenomenon. Funding for deniers Journalists reported in 2015 that oil companies had known since the 1970s that burning oil and gas could cause climate change but nonetheless funded deniers for years. 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 Fourth Assessment Report in 2007, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) offered British, American, and other scientists $10,000 plus travel expenses to publish articles critical of the assessment. The institute had received more than $1.6 million from Exxon, and its vice-chairman of trustees was former Exxon head 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. The authors of the 2010 book Merchants of Doubt provide documentation for the assertion that professional deniers have tried to sow seeds of doubt in public opinion in order to halt any meaningful social or political action to reduce the impact of human carbon emissions. That only half of the American population believes global warming is caused by human activity could be seen as a victory for these deniers. After that, between December 1999 and early March 2000, the GCC was deserted by Daimler-Chrysler, Texaco, energy firm the Southern Company and General Motors. The Global Climate Coalition closed in 2002. 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 $1.25 million from ExxonMobil, Southern Company, the American Petroleum Institute, and a foundation run by the Koch brothers. Documents obtained by Greenpeace under the Freedom of Information Act show that the Charles G. Koch Foundation gave Soon two grants totaling $175,000 in 2005/6 and again in 2010. Grants to Soon between 2001 and 2007 from the American Petroleum Institute totaled $274,000, and between 2005 and 2010 from ExxonMobil totaled $335,000. The Mobil Foundation, the Texaco Foundation, and the Electric Power Research Institute also funded Soon. Acknowledging that he received this money, Soon said that he had "never been motivated by financial reward in any of my scientific research". Science editor-in-chief Donald Kennedy has said that deniers such as Michaels are lobbyists more than researchers, and "I don't think it's unethical any more than most lobbying is unethical". He said donations to deniers amount to "trying to get a political message across". Robert Brulle analyzed the funding of 91 organizations opposed to restrictions on carbon emissions, which he called the "climate change counter-movement". Between 2003 and 2013, the donor-advised funds Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, combined, were the largest funders, accounting for about a quarter of the funds, and the American Enterprise Institute was the largest recipient, with 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. Global patterns Climate change denial is considered the world's most studied science denial. Energy industry structure plays a significant role in countries' denial rates. Countries with state-managed energy sectors show much lower rates of climate change denial than those with privatized systems, where private lobbying can filter skeptical coverage into media and policy. France generates 80% of its energy through nuclear power, leaving little room for oil and gas lobbying. As of 2015, two out of five UK residents believed that climate change is still contested by scientists, with skepticism overrepresented among the elderly, those from poor socioeconomic backgrounds, conservatives, and men. Nor is the rest of Europe is in full agreement on climate change. French politician Claude Allègre published ''L'imposture climatique (The Climate Fraud'') in 2010. In Russia, climate action is portrayed as a Western agenda aimed at keeping the rest of the world poor. In Germany, the car industry lobbies heavily against EU emission policy. Even Sweden, a country known for progressive policy, has significant lobbying efforts aimed at maintaining its forestry industry. Tactics have shifted from outright denial to "manufacturing doubt", attempting to create uncertainty to establish that any policy action would be premature and costly. This involves consensus denial, claiming scientists do not collectively agree; impact denial, saying human-caused warming is very minor; and trend denial, claiming warming is a natural progression of the earth's atmosphere. Companies greenwash, claiming to be environmentally friendly while actually engaging in harmful practices. There is also technological optimism, claiming future technology will combat climate change quickly and cheaply, so no action need be taken now. Finally, nations engage in "whataboutism", pointing to other nations that might not be at the same level of environmental awareness and would therefore be at an economic advantage. == Effects on public opinion ==

channel guests (31% real, 69% denying). Based on IPCC report coverage between August 1, 2013, and October 1, 2013. 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 has affected legislative efforts to curb emissions. even though 100% of climate scientists (as of 2019) believe it is real. A 2010 Angus Reid poll found that global warming skepticism in the U.S., 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. 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." Some organizations promoting climate change denial have asserted that scientists are increasingly rejecting climate change, but this is contradicted by research showing that 97% of published papers endorse the scientific consensus, and that percentage is increasing with time. 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". United States 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 95 percent. The number of local TV stories about global warming has also increased, by a factor of 15. Climate Central has received some credit for this, because it provides classes for meteorologists and graphics for TV stations. 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. Denial of climate change is most prevalent among white, politically conservative men in the U.S. In France, the U.S., and the U.K., climate change skeptics' opinions appear much more frequently in conservative news outlets than others, and in many cases those opinions are left uncontested. Europe climate survey stated that climate change had an impact on everyday life. 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). Russia also spreads climate disinformation with the aim of blaming the Western Bloc. In April 2023, French political scientist Jean-Yves Dormagen said that the modest and conservative classes were the most skeptical about climate change. In a study by the Jean-Jaurès Foundation published the same month, climate skepticism was compared to a new populism whose representative and spokesman is Steven E. Koonin. == Responses to denialism ==

The role of emotions and persuasive argument 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. Academics have 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." Following people who have changed their position Some climate change skeptics have changed their positions regarding global warming. Ronald Bailey, author of Global Warming and Other Eco-Myths (published in 2002), stated in 2005, "Anyone still holding onto the idea that there is no global warming ought to hang it up." By 2007, he wrote "Details like sea level rise will continue to be debated by researchers, but if the debate over whether or not humanity is contributing to global warming wasn't over before, it is now.... as the new IPCC Summary makes clear, climate change Pollyannaism is no longer looking very tenable." 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. 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". In 2006, he stated, "based on the data I'm now switching sides regarding global warming, from skeptic to convert." 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." 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, had 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." "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." Effective approaches to dialogue 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." Approaches with farmers 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. Therefore, 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. 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. Statements of well known people calling for climate action In May 2013 Charles, Prince of Wales took a strong stance criticising both climate change deniers and corporate lobbyists by likening the Earth to a dying patient. "A scientific hypothesis is tested to absolute destruction, but medicine can't wait. If a doctor sees a child with a fever, he can't wait for [endless] tests. He has to act on what is there." Legal response As of February 2024, there are at least 32 ongoing lawsuits in the United States seeking damages against the fossil fuel industry on the grounds that it spread climate change denialism despite knowing the risks. In June 2025, UN Special Rapporteur Elisa Morgera released a report that cites climate disinformation as a major obstacle to action and, among other actions, calls for criminalization of climate disinformation and a ban on fossil-fuel lobbying and advertising. == See also ==