The Roots of Climate Denialism
Over the last 300 years, since the industrial revolution took place in Britain, the rapid growth of industry has taken place across the world. Powered by steam and coal, this expansion has led to the creation of vast amounts of wealth for people across the world. At the same time, this reliance on fossil fuels has been hugely damaging to the planet, setting us on a dangerous course of climate change and global warming. Apparently not, say the climate change deniers of the world. To them, all the scientific evidence on the subject accounts to little more than a hill of beans. This prompts one to question the limits of persuasion possessed by the scientific community, and lay open the doors for psychological analysis: how does one believe in something shown so certainly to be false?
Luckily for us, some research has been conducted on this subject. A recent study conducted in Switzerland, allowed respondents to interact with experts in the field to navigate climate change information. Faced with the truth, respondents were asked about whether or not they themselves or the governments they elect should do something about the matter. The responses varied widely. Many of those who were against the idea of taking action blamed others (whether people or countries) for their role in the creation of the crisis. Researchers identified these measures as coping mechanisms in order to avoid taking any actual action. According to researchers, these have been developed in response to the perceived difficulty of moving away from their present lifestyles. The paper ends by emphasizing that the problem of climate change denialism needs to be viewed from a social and psychological perspective.
This is why it is important to remember the wider social context of these problems. Even before climate change became a major policy issue, climate change denial was being pushed by powerful fossil fuel lobbies. The Koch Brothers and Exxon for example, were very intent on pushing a narrative of disinformation which contributed greatly to the doubt surrounding climate change in the 1980s. Since then their propaganda has only grown stronger.
For this reason, people feel emboldened enough to propagate climate change denialism as a legitimate ideology. Therefore, one cannot truly discuss the problem of climate change denialism without discussing the larger socio-political environment surrounding it. Climate change denialism isn’t about a few ‘nuts’, it’s about a campaign of disinformation spread to secure economic interests.
