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Gender bias is a recalcitrant problem in academia and society. However, dissent has been created on this issue. We focus on dissenting studies by Stephen J. Ceci and Wendy M. Williams, arguing that they reach conclusions that are unwarranted on the basis of the available evidence and that they ignore fundamental objections to their methodological decisions. Drawing on discussions from other contexts, particularly on manufactured dissent concerning anthropogenic climate change, we conclude that dissent on gender bias substantially contributes to (a) the exacerbation of biases in society and (b) an increasing number of attacks on researchers, making it both epistemically and socially problematic.

The concept of the Anthropocene has reintroduced politics of denial at the centre of critical studies of international relations. This article interrogates Bruno Latour’s explanation of climate change denial with reference to an ontological difference between Modernity and the Anthropocene, together with his advocacy for a new language beyond the Modern gaze. Our aims are twofold: to disclose how Latour’s posthuman critique risk reproducing prevalent forms of climate change denial in the global North, and to question what falls outside Latour’s dualistic frame: the heterogenous ways through which climate change and the Anthropocene is met across the globe; the ambiguous relation with nature through which modernity was formed; the modernist genealogy of Anthropocene discourse, and lastly how discourses of global governance have absorbed posthumanist critique in its attempt to naturalise postcolonial power relations. At stake, we argue, is critical theory’s paradoxical complicity in the denialism it seeks to critique.

Recent research in the area of science and technology studies focuses on climate change denial, the spread of misinformation, and public distrust in climate scientists; these beliefs are held espec...

The final years of the 2010s marked an upturn in coverage on climate change. In Sweden, legacy media wrote more on the issue than ever before, especially in connection to the drought and wildfires in the summer of 2018 and the Fridays for Future movement started by Greta Thunberg. Reporting on climate change also reached unprecedented levels in the growingly influential far-right media ecosystem; from being a topic discussed hardly at all, it became a prominent issue. In this study, we use a toolkit from critical discourse analysis (CDA) to research how three Swedish far-right digital media sites reported on climate during the years 2018–2019. We show how the use of conspiracy theories, anti-establishment rhetoric, and nationalistic arguments created an antagonistic reaction to increased demands for action on climate change. By putting climate in ironic quotation marks, a discourse was created where it was taken for granted that climate change was a hoax.

In the early days of social media, social scientists speculated that it could support democracy because large media conglomerates could not dominate it. Regarding climate change, research documents...

Widespread conspiracy theories, like those motivating anti-vaccination attitudes or climate change denial, propel collective action and bear society-wide consequences. Yet, empirical research has largely studied conspiracy theory adoption as an individual pursuit, rather than as a socially mediated process. What makes users join communities endorsing and spreading conspiracy theories? We leverage longitudinal data from 56 conspiracy communities on Reddit to compare individual and social factors determining which users join the communities. Using a quasi-experimental approach, we first identify 30K future conspiracists-(FC) and 30K matched non-conspiracists-(NC). We then provide empirical evidence of importance of social factors across six dimensions relative to the individual factors by analyzing 6 million Reddit comments and posts. Specifically in social factors, we find that dyadic interactions with members of the conspiracy communities and marginalization outside of the conspiracy communities, are the most important social precursors to conspiracy joining-even outperforming individual factor baselines. Our results offer quantitative backing to understand social processes and echo chamber effects in conspiratorial engagement, with important implications for democratic institutions and online communities., Accepted at ACM CSCW 2020

This essay is part of a dossier on Cristina Lafont's book Democracy without Shortcuts.

Climate science denial is serious. It facilitates political procrastination and brings us ever closer to a world beset by growing food insecurity, heatwaves, floods, storms, fires and extensive losses to biodiversity. Numerous studies have unmasked the private agendas and corporate links behind organized denial, yet the question of how deniers find traction with democratic publics has received comparatively little attention. Empirical surveys demonstrate a connection between people who are susceptible to the contrarian voices of denial and those inclined towards right-wing authoritarianism. In this essay, I bring Adorno’s mid-20th-century studies of right-wing authoritarian tendencies in American democracy to bear upon climate science denial. Adorno directs us away from a sole focus on how deniers manufacture doubt so as to give the impression that the science is not settled. He examines the ways that agitators not only spread misinformation but also foster emotional connections with people who seem to want to be conned. I locate organized denial within a strain of cultural life that Adorno describes as unserious. In late 1940s America, Adorno discerned a new shape of political subjectivity, which has become highly resonant today: a formally free individual who takes pleasure in lies that sound like truth.

It is a pleasure and an honor to be asked to comment on the diverse and engaging essays produced for this special issue. As a Professor of Cultural Studies, I learned much from all of them, both when they touched on areas where I knew something already and when the material was bracingly new. Rather than review them serially, as one might be expected to do, I have selected themes that emerge from reading the issue: activism versus/as scholarship; climate change denial; corporate social responsibility; communications technologies, environmental imaginaries, “technomagic,” and consumer activism, while referring to the papers in this special issue as appropriate. I treat these themes through a lens that may be new to some readers—critical political economy. Unlike bourgeois/neoclassical economics, critical political economy is based on the priority of labor and the environment rather than supply and demand. Its goals are social justice and sustainability. My goal here is to show in short form how critical political economy might contribute to understanding the topics this special issue has raised, tracking the life of science, commodities, technologies, and activism—whom they benefit and how.

El presente artículo analiza la importancia de la bioética y la educación ambiental como herramientas indispensables para la conservación del medio ambiente. Una educación ambiental que ha sido infravalorada en muchos ámbitos y que se establece como vehículo fundamental para asentar la conciencia ambiental en todos y cada uno de los estamentos sociales. Además, se discurre acerca de las problemáticas existentes que se suceden a partir de actitudes negacionistas, falta de consenso unánime y déficit de profesionales especializados en transmitir los conocimientos científicos y valores ambientales.

Despite the scientific consensus on the issue of climate change, we are yet to marshal a social consensus. Sorting this apparent dissonance is a challenge. The topic of climate change has become entrapped in so-called economic and socio-political wars. Scientific miscommunication has thwarted efforts to effectively engage with the public on this issue. If we can actively seek out the reasons that motivate denial, and try to understand the underlying structure that engenders misinformation, then perhaps we can find ways to address them. There is an acute urgency to better strategize climate change communication. The scientific community should recognize the need for new pathways of effective communication. In summary, we need to adapt. The faster we affect a change, the better chances we have at avoiding a catastrophe. Time is of the essence!

Populist right-wing politicians and voters tend to dismiss climate change. To investigate possible reasons for this, we tested correlations between climate change denial and variables linked to right-wing populism (Study 1: N = 1,587; Study 2: N = 909). The strongest predictor of climate change denial was an index capturing exclusionary and anti-egalitarian preferences (opposition to, e.g., multiculturalism and feminism), followed by traditional values (Study 1) and Social Dominance Orientation (Study 2). Populist antiestablishment attitudes correlated only weakly with climate change denial, and this correlation vanished when exclusionary and anti-egalitarian preferences were controlled for. Also, the effects of authoritarianism (Study 2) and (low) openness vanished in the full models. Climate change denial did not correlate with (low) agreeableness, which is a personality trait linked to populism. However, both antiestablishment attitudes and climate change denial correlated with pseudoscientific beliefs (e.g., anti-vaccination attitudes) (Study 1). To conclude, we did not find support for a notable linkage between climate change denial and populist antiestablishment attitudes. Thus, when addressing climate change denial, it could be more beneficial to focus on the ideological worldviews that are being protected by denial, such as endorsement of the existing societal power relations, than on the antiestablishment arguments used by some who deny.

In this article I show that the form of argument put forward by the climate change denial movement in the United States (US) closely resembles that used in Nazi Germany with regard to Nazi racial definitions. Each involves a rejection of scientific method. This rejection inherently lends itself to far-right politics, which is a philosophy of prejudice. The prevalence of such a philosophy in contemporary American political culture, exemplified through climate change denial, has arguably opened the door for a president of Trump's type. Nevertheless, the US Constitution is far more difficult to suspend than that of the Weimar Republic. As a result, US institutional safeguards against a philosophy of prejudice are likely to hold against a short-term assault on environmental justice in a way that the Weimar Republic's constitutional order did not against Nazism's assault on civil rights. The greater threat to environmental protection in the contemporary US situation is the slow erosion of democratic norms by the Trump administration.

Action on climate change is currently minimal, and woefully inadequate for steering away from its worst trajectories and impacts. Psychological science offers insights into the causes of climate change denial and reluctance to engage with solutions, and identifies avenues for enhancing climate acceptance and engagement. We review psychological processes that underlie denial, and survey promising directions for fostering support for solutions. We draw largely on studies conducted in the United States, whose population is exceptionally high on climate denial and disengagement, and where the majority of research has focused. However, these approaches provide insight into underlying psychological dynamics that can inform broader efforts to engage audiences with climate change.

In the USA, a sizable share of the population denies the human causes of climate change and opposes policies to address it. System justification, where individuals fight to protect a socio-economic order, undergirds this opposition. We argue that sexism, representing an investment in gendered hierarchies, contributes to climate change denial and policy opposition. Using nationally representative surveys from 2016 to 2018, we show a consistent relationship between sexism and opposition to climate change beliefs and policies. These results are consistent across measures of both climate change beliefs and support for climate policy. We then show that sexism is correlated with climate denial and opposition to climate policy within a wide variety of subgroups of interest: for both Democrats and Republicans and for groups sorted by ideology, gender, education, and age. We then extend our analysis back in time, looking at data from 2012, finding similar effects prior to the 2016 election. The consistent findings point to the central role that system justifying beliefs about gender play in shaping attitudes about climate change in the USA.

Public perception about the reality of climate change has remained polarized and propagation of fake information on social media can be a potential cause. Homophily in communication, the tendency of people to communicate with others having similar beliefs, is understood to lead to the formation of echo chambers which reinforce individual beliefs and fuel further increase in polarization. Quite surprisingly, in an empirical analysis of the effect of homophily in communication on the level of polarization using evidence from Twitter conversations on the climate change topic during 2007–2017, we find that evolution of homophily over time negatively affects the evolution of polarization in the long run. Among various information about climate change to which people are exposed to, they are more likely to be influenced by information that have higher credibility. Therefore, we study a model of polarization of beliefs in social networks that accounts for credibility of propagating information in addition to homophily in communication. We find that polarization can not increase with increase in homophily in communication unless information propagating fake beliefs has minimal credibility. We therefore infer from the empirical results that anti-climate change tweets are largely not credible.

Studies of Victorian work, political economy, industrialism, and realism in Hard Times have taken for granted Charles Dickens’s broad range of masculine figures represented in the text. Dickens’s novel explores the environmental costs of masculine ideologies conceived as endless struggle and competition. The novel’s depiction of an ecological crisis in Coketown functions as an ideological critique of Victorian toxic masculinity in a double sense: as a form of masculinity that harms both women and men socially, physically, and psychologically and as a pandemic deeply linked to a larger environmental crisis caused by unsustainable forms of economic expansion. All masculine characters in Coketown embody toxic forms of masculinity that cause suffering for others and for themselves. Toxic masculinity represents both a symptom of environmental disaster in the novel and a great facilitator of climate change denial. To think ecologically in the novel entails an implicit challenge to masculinist ideologies predicated on the subordination of women and the exploitation of the environment.

Social scientists have offered a number of explanations for why Americans commonly deny that human-caused climate change is real. In this paper, I argue that these explanations neglect an important group of climate change deniers: those who say they are on the side of science while also rejecting what they know most climate scientists accept. I then develop a “nature of science” hypothesis that does account for this group of deniers. According to this hypothesis, people have serious misconceptions about what scientific inquiry ought to look like. Their misconceptions interact with partisan biases to produce denial of human-caused climate change. After I develop this hypothesis, I propose ways of confirming that it is true. Then I consider its implications for efforts to combat climate change denial and for other cases of public rejection of science.

As critical research has revealed, climate change scepticism and inaction are not about science but ideas, and specifically the ideas that conform our worldview. Drawing on key theoretical approaches to climate change denial from the social sciences and humanities, this paper discusses the ideological dimension and, more especially, the anthropocentric denial underlying our failure to respond to climate change. We argue that the speciesist anthropocentrism inherent in the current dominant ethics is what prevents humanity from reacting to the main human-induced drivers of global warming. Encouraged to do so by current mainstream ethics, humans overpopulate the planet, grow at the expense of other species, and indulge in cruel, unhealthy and unsustainable practices. We counterpose this ethics against the egalitarian, non-speciesist approach of the animal ethics movement, positing that it represents the next radical reflexive movement and could be used to break the climate deadlock. Animal ethics allows links with inegalitarianism and privilege that may help address climate contrarianism and climate inaction much more effectively.

Solar, Ian McEwan’s first novel about climate change, employs a comic tone that departs from most climate fictions’ apocalyptic, dystopian and elegiac inspirations. Some critics saw in this innovative approach a lack of seriousness (Garrard 2013) and a reluctance to depict emotional engagement with the issue (Kerridge 2010), but some acknowledged that reading the novel as a satirical allegory allowed for a social critique of human nature and western societies (Traub 2018, Zamanek 2012). In this article, I argue that Solarʼs allegorical protagonist brings to light some tensions and contradictions at the heart of contemporary attitudes to climate change while avoiding the paralysing pessimistic tones of mainstream apocalyptic narratives. Set in the present, Solar reminds us that the correlation between daily lifeʼs short-term needs and their delayed impact on invisible, slow-developing climate change can be difficult to come to terms with. Astrid Bracke suggests that climate change is often met with what psychologists call “cognitive dissonance”: the inability to coordinate knowledge and action, leading to apathy and even denial (Bracke 2017). Few climate fictions have so far addressed denial, cognitive dissonance, psychic numbing and other self-protective psychological responses that come with climate change awareness. This article investigates to what extent, in Solar, allegory is used to expose these psychic states and their underlying causes, particularly thanks to the dissonant role of the protagonistʼs body and mind. If Solar seems at first glance to approach climate change too lightly, its allegorical form draws attention to crucial questions such as the psychological constraints that may hinder climate action. Solaire, roman satirique de Ian McEwan sur la crise climatique, adopte un ton comique qui le distingue de la plupart des fictions climatiques aux inspirations principalement dystopiques, apocalyptiques et élégiaques. Certains critiques ont trouvé cette approche novatrice inadaptée à la gravité du sujet (Garrard 2012) et ont déploré lʼabsence dʼattention accordée aux émotions quʼil peut engendrer (Kerridge 2010). Cependant, dʼautres ont reconnu quʼinterpréter le roman de manière allégorique permettait dʼy voir une critique sociale de la nature humaine et des sociétés occidentales (Traub 2018, Zamanek 2012). Cet article suggère que le protagoniste allégorique de Solaire révèle certaines tensions et contradictions au cœur des attitudes contemporaines envers le changement climatique tout en évitant le paralysant pessimisme des fictions apocalyptiques. Avec un récit actuel, Solaire nous rappelle combien le lien entre les besoins immédiats de la vie quotidienne et leurs invisibles conséquences sur le long terme peut être difficile à assimiler. Ainsi, Astrid Bracke suggère que le changement climatique se heurte fréquemment à ce que les psychologues appellent la “dissonance cognitive” : une incapacité à coordonner la connaissance et lʼaction qui peut mener à lʼapathie et même au déni (Bracke 2017). Peu de fictions climatiques ont jusquʼà présent abordé le déni, la dissonance cognitive, la paralysie psychique et autres réactions psychologiques d'autoprotection face à la crise climatique. Cet article examine dans quelle mesure le protagoniste allégorique de Solaire, notamment à travers le rôle dissonant de son corps et de son esprit, permet dʼexposer ces états psychiques et leurs raisons sous-jacentes. Si Solaire semble à première vue aborder le changement climatique avec trop de légèreté, ce roman soulève des questions cruciales telles que les contraintes psychologiques qui peuvent entraver la prise d'action pour le climat.

Despite the importance of overcoming the persistent delay in climate action, almost no research has investigated the psychological underpinnings of climate change denial in Asian countries. Addressing this research gap, our study compares results obtained in Hong Kong with those of samples from New Zealand and Sweden regarding correlations of climate change denial with acceptance of dominance between social groups (Social Dominance Orientation), acceptance of two additional forms of group-based dominance (humans over nature, and humans over animals), and empathic concern. Results showed that only acceptance of human dominance over nature and animals predicted climate change denial in Hong Kong. In New Zealand and Sweden, however, the results resembled those found in previous research: The strongest predictor was Social Dominance Orientation, followed by acceptance of human dominance over nature. Low empathic concern predicted climate change denial only in Sweden. Results in Hong Kong differ from previous findings and indicate that climate change denial in this East Asian society is motivated more by hierarchical attitudes related to nature than social groups. We discuss possible reasons for these distinct findings and conclude that there is a need for cross-cultural research to further investigate the psychological and culture-specific motivations to dismiss climate change.

Previous research has confirmed the prominent role of group processes in the promotion and endorsement of disinformation. We report three studies on a psychological framework derived from integrated threat theory—a psychological theory which describes how perceived threat leads to group polarization and prejudice—composed of the following constructs: group belongingness, perceived threat, outgroup derogation, and intergroup anxiety. Our pilot study suggested that need to belong and intergroup anxiety predict antiscientific beliefs (pseudoscientific, paranormal, and conspiracy theories), thus justifying the general applicability of integrated threat theory. Study 1 investigates the transition from weak to strong critical thinking regarding pseudoscientific doctrines. Besides greater outgroup derogation and perceived threats among strong critical thinkers, the model does not perform well in this context. Study 2 focuses on the intergroup conflict around anthropogenic global warming, revealing the strong predictive power of the model. These results are discussed in relation to the distinctive psychological profiles of science acceptance and rejection.

The science is clear: climate change is real. In 2015, 195 countries adopted the global climate deal in Paris. Nonetheless, numerous well-organized conservative think tanks (CTTs) deny that climate change is happening. We ask what kind of counterclaims are used by climate-sceptic CTTs and to what extent these counterclaims change over time. We analyse about 2500 blog articles from prominent CTTs in the USA and Germany between 2008 and 2016. Our results show that sceptical arguments about climate policy and science dominate the countermovement. At the same time, we detect that the prevalence of counterclaims is CTT-specific and that US think tanks show a greater variability compared to their German counterparts. In a surprising outcome, we find that the Paris Agreement did not affect the climate denial movement. Based on these insights, we discuss our contributions to social movement research in the climate change denial context and derive conclusions for pro-climate campaigns.

Beyond denial and despair begins by reaffirming the importance of an honest, evidence-based appraisal of climate crisis risks and consequences as an essential foundation for effective action. An overview of current scientific and experiential evidence of climate trends, impacts and risks is followed by discussion of the psychological and political forces driving climate change denial. The greatest challenge for many climate scientists, activists and citizens is overcoming paralysis resulting from grief and despair in confronting the likely consequences of climate change for human beings, other species and for the Earth’s ecosystems. This chapter therefore concludes by exploring learning from psychologists, health workers and activists about strategies for strengthening emotional resilience and for sustaining individual and collective action.

Notwithstanding the extensive media coverage of topics related to climate change, communication initiatives in open contradiction with the scientific understanding of climate change as a primarily anthropogenic phenomenon are still widespread. We focus here on a recent such initiative, which gained notoriety between the second half of 2019 and the first half of 2020. We show that its promoters and signatories generally display an extremely low level of scientific activity within the field of climate change. We use this as a basis to reflect upon the scientific credentials of those behind climate change misinformation and the broader context of the communication of climate change.

In spite of the well-documented links between global warming and the animal-based diet, human dietary choices have been only timidly problematized by legacy media in the recent decades. Research on news reporting of the connection between the animal-based diet and climate change shows a clear coverage deficit in traditional journalism. In order to reflect on the reasons for this failure, this paper discusses moral anthropocentrism as the human-supremacist moral stance at the roots of mainstream ethics and the climate crisis. Accordingly, the animal-based food taboo is defined here as our reluctance not only to change but to even discuss changing our food habits, a strong evidence that moral anthropocentrism is not addressed as a problem, which amounts to a type of denial. Through a literature review conducted on the most relevant comparative studies of deontological codes, this paper shows that codes of journalism do not escape moral anthropocentrism, and thus contribute to prevent journalists from stressing the relevant role diet plays in our ethics and sustainability efforts. The paper ends by suggesting ways to expand and update media ethics and deontological codes in journalism to dismantle both the taboo and the moral anthropocentric stance it is based on.

Although there are many reasons for Christian skepticism regarding climate change, one reason is theological in nature, and therefore, requires a theological solution. This essay explains the theological grounds for climate change denial and for a compromised understanding of the power and creativity of human agency. Drawing inspiration from the ecotheological implications of postcolonial poetics, it seeks to offer revised conceptions of the atonement and the fall and of what it means to read both scripture and nature. The aim is to offer a more resilient Christian theology that can inspire agential creativity in the age of the Anthropocene.

Empirical realist ecologists, such as C. S. Holling, face significant methodological contradictions; for instance, they must cope with the problem that ecological models and theories of climate cha...

[Extract] The challenge of development is becoming increasingly difficult to address. At a time when the Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and the 2020 Paris climate accord call for long-term strategic planning to address our most pressing social and environmental crises, we are confronted by enduring and deepening forms of socioeconomic inequality, climate change denial, persistent conflict, mass displacement and widening democratic deficit. New forms of poverty are emerging through the very processes that have brought prosperity; at the same time, the reconfiguration of the global development landscape through enhanced South−South cooperation (SSC) presents both opportunities and obstacles for poverty alleviation.

This study employs social network analysis to map the Canadian network of carbon-capital corporations whose boards interlock with key knowledge-producing civil society organizations, including think tanks, industry associations, business advocacy organizations, universities, and research institutes. We find a pervasive pattern of carbon-sector reach into these domains of civil society, forming a single, connected network that is centered in Alberta yet linked to the central-Canadian corporate elite through hegemonic capitalist organizations, including major financial companies. This structure provides the architecture for a "soft" denial regime that acknowledges climate change while protecting the continued flow of profit to fossil fuel and related companies.Cette étude emploie une analyse de réseaux sociaux faisant la carte du réseau Canadien des corporations de ‘carbon-capital’ dont les comités sont liés à des organisations civiles de production de savoir, incluant des groupes de réflexion (‘think thanks’), des associations d'entreprises, des groupes de défense des milieux d'affaire, des universités et des instituts de recherche. Nous avons découvert un modèle se fondant sur une tendance omni-présente (‘pattern’) dans le secteur du carbone, formant un réseau singulier centré en Alberta mais lié néanmoins à l’élite corporative à travers les organisations capitalistes hégémoniques, incluant des compagnies financières majeures. Cette structure révèle l'architecture d'un régime de déni ‘mou’ qui reconnaît le changement climatique tout en protégeant le flot continu de profit de compagnies liées au combustible fossile.

This article explores climate-change communication by the German far right – spanning a continuum which ranges from anti-liberal democracy radical-right populists, to the extreme right and to anti-...

The evidence-based medicine is rooted in the scientific truth. Oxford Dictionaries has released its 2016 word of the year: “Post-truth,” which they define as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”. In everything from climate change denial to the anti-vaccine movement, we’re seeing the consequences of a failure to engage with scientific evidence. Fake news and post-truth pronouncements are increasingly common in social media and political era and are unfortunately also progressively being applied to the medical science. We also see some evidence of post-truth signals in daily cardiology procedures and guidelines including both interventional cardiology and cardiac electrophysiology. Guideline recommendations made before the randomized-controlled trials (RCT) are published might result in a scenario that the interventions or procedures have been performed on millions of people, costing billions of dollars, leading to unnecessary use of health care resources and often, ending up being even accepted as routine procedures in certain clinical situations. “Justice delayed is justice denied” is a legal cliché meaning that if timely justice is not provided to the sufferer, it loses it importance and violates human rights. In medicine, “The RCT delayed is justice denied”, as highlighted by ORBITA (Objective Randomised Blinded Investigation with optimal medical Therapy of Angioplasty in stable angina) trial and as may happen with CABANA (Catheter Ablation versus Anti-arrhythmic Drug Therapy for Atrial Fibrillation Trial) in the post-truth era. Keywords: Evidence-based medicine, Post-truth era, Cardiology, ORBITA trial, CABANA trial

Science communicators are increasingly recognizing the potential of narratives to reach and influence audiences. However, do audiences recognize and consider this tactic when evaluating how such messages influence themselves and others? This study compares third-person perceptions of persuasive narrative and nonnarrative messages in a climate change context. Results suggest that individuals are aware of the influence of narratives and are able to resist this influence, but this is only when they perceive a message as having negative influence. Otherwise, individuals underestimate the influence of narratives on themselves. These findings add an audience-centered perspective to the current discussions on incorporating narratives within science communication.

Individual variation in attitudes is hindering our efforts to address global anthropogenic climate change. To better understand climate change deniers, we considered the relationship between climate change denial and environmentalism constructs through an individual differences perspective. We aimed to identify the personality traits associated with climate change denial, environmental self-concept, and pro-environmental behaviours. We measured personality using the Big Five Aspect Scales. Using hierarchical multiple regressions, we determined the personality profile that predicts climate change denial, ecological self-concept, and pro-environmental behaviour. At the domain level, the Openness/Intellect domain significantly predicted each of the environmental constructs, and the Agreeableness domain was predictive of ecological self-concept and climate change acceptance. At the aspect level, the Openness aspect was the primary personality predictor for each construct. Our results demonstrate that aspect level analyses could be more efficacious than domain level analysis, as they have greater specificity and explanatory power.

Most physicians accept the general scientific discoveries about anthropogenic global warming and its dangers. Occasional denial by individual physicians of climate change can be readily answered by reference to the scientific consensus. But widespread, organized, political denial of climate change is hazardous to physicians' advocacy for an effective public health and health care response to climate change. This article assumes that physician climate advocacy is ethical and celebrates the many forms of health climate advocacy already under way. It concludes by drawing attention to measures that can scale up and strengthen the health care system's organized response to growing climate health hazards.

This study uses public opinion data from 2006 to 2014 to examine the effect of unemployment and partisan identity on attitudes towards anthropogenic climate change. Results show that while Republican partisanship and conservative ideology are strongly associated with lower reported belief in anthropogenic climate change, these attitudes are also shaped by subjective perceptions of economic risk and increased local unemployment rates. I find that exposure to economic risk increases the likelihood of climate change denial among both Democrats and Republicans. These findings help explain trends in environmental public opinion over the past decade, in particular the increase in reported denial or skepticism about climate change after the 2008 economic recession.

In this article, Roy Lewicki shares his experiences and reflections on trust research from the early seminal papers through to future research opportunities. We discuss his contributions and current thinking on trust development and repair, the forms of trust, the coexistence of trust and distrust, the mechanisms of trust repair, the relationship of trust with conflict, negotiation and in current affairs (e.g. ‘alternative facts’, climate change denial). Recurrent themes are the complex nature of trust development and repair processes, the methodological challenges inherent in studying trust and distrust dynamics over time, and the value of reflective practice and developmental forums for advancing trust research. Bridging the theory-practice divide, developing more sophisticated measurement tools, and conducting interdisciplinary scholarship are identified as rich opportunities for future trust research.

With some notable exceptions, previous studies on the psychology of climate change denial have neglected to examine ultimate causes. In the present study, we employed an evolutionary approach to understand environmental attitudes. Specifically, we examined the role of status striving and hypercompetitiveness as they related to overconsumption and climate change attitudes. A mixed student/community sample (Mean age = 33.6) completed measures relating to hypercompetitiveness, insecure status striving, overconsumption of resources, and attitudes toward climate change. Participants endorsed the role of human activity in climate change to a similar level as national polls. Both insecure status striving and hypercompetitiveness were significantly related to a feeling that one deserves material possessions and pessimism about remedying climate change. Hypercompetitiveness was further related to self-reports of having more material possessions than are regularly used. Regression analyses revealed that hy...

Individual differences in the preference for group-based hierarchy and inequality, as indexed by social dominance orientation (SDO), have been shown to predict environment-relevant variables. To date the literature examining the SDO–environmentalism link has used the traditional unidimensional conceptualisation of SDO. This article reports three studies using the new measurement and conceptualisation of SDO that involves the SDO7 scale and the sub-dimensions of intergroup dominance (SDO-D) and intergroup anti-egalitarianism (SDO-E). SDO-D entails support for group-based dominance achieved via overt oppression and aggressive intergroup behaviour, and SDO-E entails support for group-based inequality subtly achieved via unequal distribution of resources. Our results show anti-egalitarianism to be the main SDO sub-dimension related to environmentalism. While SDO-D is either a weaker or non-significant predictor, individuals with high levels of SDO-E were less willing to make personal sacrifices for the environment, value environmental protection and endorse climate change beliefs. Interestingly, neither facet of SDO predicted change in environmentalism over a five-month period; but climate change denial predicted change in SDO-E while pro-environmental attitudes predicted change in SDO-D over time.

What has been labeled ‘the climate change denial industry’ has played a significant role in preventing or slowing action to address the human causes of catastrophic environment change. So, as was noted in Chap. 3, this ‘industry’ is one of the factors that have contributed to the maintenance of a trajectory toward humanity’s final hundred years. The effectiveness of the industry is also a reflection of the vulnerability to challenge that scientists create when they represent science as a source of absolute Truth. But the effectiveness of the industry also illustrates the power of specific industries, organizations and individuals to influence public perceptions and key actors in positions of political power. And, finally, the changes in strategy on the parts of those in this industry, as the signs of catastrophic human-caused environment change become increasingly obvious, provides yet another element of the politics of the final hundred years of humanity.

Those in government do not deserve all the blame and they ought not to shoulder full responsibility for the maintenance of the trajectory toward humanity’s final hundred years. For many members of the communities they governed supported and will continue to support the ongoing failure to adequately address the causes of catastrophic human-caused environment change. The most important of those who support governmental inaction are those involved in the climate change denial industry; so important that they deserve a separate chapter. Seven other ‘ideological’ reasons that explain insufficient support for government action to address the human causes of catastrophic environment change will be discussed in this chapter. These are: because the fundamental or radical changes required to address catastrophic human-caused environment change are too great for people to accept (conservatism); because the problem of catastrophic human caused environment change leading to the final hundred years of humanity is too hard to conceive (scope); because the change required to address the problem of catastrophic human-caused environment change is too much to conceive (scale); because capitalism seems normal or natural to them and political action to address catastrophic human-caused environment change is not in their individual interest (selfish individualism); because political action to address catastrophic human-caused environment change threatens the production-projection of identity through consumption (consumerism); because they have been brought up to believe in the end of the world, so catastrophic human-caused environment change is not a problem for those in positions of political power (apocalypticism); and, seventh, because people in countries of the Global South see those in countries of the Global North as responsible for catastrophic human-caused environment change (postcolonialism)

Numerous studies to date have interrogated United States (US) think tanks—and their networks—involved in climate change countermovement (CCM). Comparatively in Europe (EU), research has been lacking. This investigation therefore attends to that gap. We conducted a frame analysis on eight most prominent contrarian think tanks in six countries and four languages in Europe over 24 years (1994–2018). We found that there has been consistent contrarian framing through think tanks in the EU regarding climate change. Yet, we found a proliferation of contrarian outputs particularly in recent years. This uptick in quantity correlates with increases in CCM activities in the US. Our content analyses showed that well-worn climate change counter-frames spread by US CCM organizations were consistently circulated by European organizations as well. Moreover, we found that, as in the US, neoliberal ideological stances stood out as the most frequently taken up by contrarian think tanks in Europe. As such, we documented that CCM tropes and activities have flowed strongly between US and EU countries. This work was funded by the Spanish State Research Agency (Agencia Estatal de Investigación, AEI) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) under Grant CSO2016-78421-R.

This paper discusses different strategies of climate change denial and focusses on the specific case of Dutch politician Thierry Baudet. Much of the literature concerning climate change denial focusses on Anglo-American cases, therefore more research non-English speaking countries is necessary. The theoretical framework describes the state of the art concerning climate change denialism and its links to occurring phenomena in Western societies and politics such as post-truth and populism. Afterwards, by conducting a deductive analysis of Thierry Baudet’s climate denialism in the Netherlands, a more thorough understanding of the different strategies proposed by Stefan Rahmstorf and Engels et al. is reached. Although all four categories are detected in Baudet’s denialism, consensus denial seems to be the most prevalent. The analysis of his usage of the notion of a climate apocalypse, combined with the analysis of his specific focus on consensus denial, broadens the understanding of how climate change denial can relate to populism.

The different ways that maps are framed by the media can lead to different emotional responses to the same information. Framing shapes the way in which information is presented, and frames are used by authors and designers to focus the reader’s attention in order to lead them to a particular interpretation of the information being communicated. This framing thereby shapes attitudes. In maps, frames can be invoked through both the map’s design and the text included within and surrounding the map. Framing is what allows communicators to focus their message and make particular aspects of information salient to their readers. Emotional framing, as a subset of all frames, involves conveying emotions through the message. These can have a positive or negative valence and may even convey a particular emotion. In the case of climate change, communication scholars argue that it is impossible to represent climate change information in a neutral manner without some sort of emotional framing. In addition, other risk communication literature shows that the emotional framing of a risk has impact on the behavioral response of those for whom the message is intended. This emotional framing has been noted by climate change communication researchers as being key to prompting behavioral changes like mitigation and adaptation.Little research has been done in the field of cartography to evaluate emotional responses to climate change maps and the framing of mapped climate change information. Cartographers and GIScientists have much to offer for communicating climate science to audiences. Cartographers are tasked with designing maps to make climate change understandable to lay audiences. Maps can illustrate the multidimensional causes and impacts of climate change using static and dynamic graphics that can be widely disseminated across the web to diverse audiences. It is unclear, however, how the framing of these maps affects how readers interpret the message of the map or how different frames might lead to different emotional responses and potentially, different behavioral responses. This study empirically evaluated emotional responses to climate change frames and maps to examine how different frames might lead to different emotional responses. Specifically, using emotion recognition software and Amazon Mechanical Turk, we answered three research questions:Is it possible to measure emotional responses to maps and their frames using facial emotion recognitionsoftware?What emotions are elicited by different maps and different framings?Do particular emotional responses lead to different behavior changes? In 2009, the United States Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) submitted its report on climate change impacts in the United States to congressional lawmakers in Washington, D.C. This report contained scientific evidence of climate change impacts on the United States as a whole as well as specific impacts on regions within the United States. The report was compiled by 28 scientists at US universities, national labs, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) based on peer reviewed scientific articles. The report was edited by another three scientists and had input from 22 other scientists. In 2012, the CATO Institute, a conservative think tank, produced what they called an “Addendum” to the original report. The report was compiled by only five authors. Only two of the five authors were from universities while the rest of the authors were from think tanks that have known political biases. The report was edited by only one individual, an employee of the CATO Institute. The report clearly has a political leaning and has contradictory information including: 1) climate change denial, and 2) an acceptance that climate change is happening but that it can be reframed as a positive change for the American public and businesses. The CATO report uses many of the same figures and maps that appeared in the USGCRP Report. These maps are sometimes edited slightly to change their meaning, and the text surrounding the images often uses a different frame. Figure 1 exemplifies the difference between the two reports in their maps and their frames. The version that was produced for USGCRP report illustrates ski areas at risk, while the CATO report swaps colors in the map to show the potential for ski areas to become golf resorts in a warmer climate. To answer the research questions posed above, we are conducting a map reading study using Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). During the study, participants turned on their webcam and recorded their facial expressions while reading the maps and taking the survey. Participants were divided randomly into one of two groups. The first read maps from the USGCRP report, and the second read maps from the CATO Institute report. Each group viewed three maps and read three news stories that used one of two different emotional frames. The USGCRP report portrays climate change with a negative frame, while the CATO Institute portrays climate change as a potential positive. The news reports were written by the researchers to invoke the emotional frames from each of the two reports when succinctly summarizing the message of each of the maps. After reading each of the stories, participants self-reported their emotional responses to the stories and maps by selecting from a list of emotions. After the participant viewed all of the news stories and maps, the participant answered demographic questions as well as provided information about their political ideology, and their views about climate change. Finally, at the end of the survey, participants were asked whether they would like to donate their MTurk earnings to an environmental organization from a short list, our behavioral response measure. At the end of the survey, the participant sent their webcam recording to the researchers for analysis with emotion recognition software. We analyzed the webcam footage to identify different types of emotional responses to the stories and maps using the Affectiva emotion recognition algorithm implemented in iMotions 7.1. Finally, we compared the emotion recognition results to the emotion self-reports, demographic information, and behavioral response measure. Preliminary results from analysis of five participants in this research indicate that emotional responses can be collected remotely by having participants turn on their webcam and upload their videos to be analysed using facial emotion recognition software.

There is a large consensus among critical investigators and scholars that climate change denial is mostly an ideological battle. This chapter argues that, in spite of the opposing stances adopted by climate change advocates and denialists, they all share what the author calls a major ideological denial, the refusal to accept that some ideas are systematically kept out of the discussion. This chapter elaborates on how this ideological denial feeds the messages and discourses of interest groups. It first looks at what climate change denial is by examining the different conceptual approaches used to scrutinize this massive public relations campaign. Then it summarizes alternatives for addressing the issue advocated by defenders of the anthropogenic-roots of climate change; that is, the main solutions lobbied by climate advocates. Finally, it introduces these underdiscussed ideas, which are not new but reflect a sort of historical taboo and are directly related to the human-supremacist lens that permeates the arguments of both climate change denialists and advocates. They are the taboo subjects of human overpopulation, the human diet, and the human technology myth.

In 2006 the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) issued a report titled “Livestock’s Long Shadow”, concluding that animal farming presents a “major threat to the environment” with such “deep and wide-ranging” impacts that it should rank as a leading focus for environmental policy. Unfortunately, this call for action on the environmental effects of meat eating is not more well-known because of a taboo on the discussion of the topic of meat and climate change, which this chapter refers to as meat eating denial. The term is meant as an analogy to the concept of climate change denial, i.e. the concept that large-scale businesses with specific interests in influencing public policy internationally misrepresent scientific studies, via a series of rhetorical strategies, in order to influence public opinion. Specifically, the chapter focuses on research by Dr. Frank Mitloehner as a representative example of the growing manner in which animal agribusiness has been able to utilize the strategies earlier used by climate change deniers in order to distort the debate on livestock production and its environmental effects.

Climate change denial is motivated in part by ideology, with research showing that a greater tolerance of social inequality is consistently linked to lower pro-environmentalism. We report findings from two mixed-methods studies. In Study One, we provide insight into how individuals with varying levels of social dominance orientation discuss environmental issues by analyzing 59 interviews. These analyses revealed that many individuals were concerned about the causes, consequences, and potential solutions to climate change; however, many were also armed with justifications excusing their and others’ inaction on the problem. To establish further how the ideas shared in the interviews related to social dominance, we reworked the ideas into statements for survey-based research in Study Two. Social dominance orientation and its composite dimensions related to most interview-based statements, with those scoring higher on dominance attitudes more opposed to top-down action on climate change, and those more tolerant of inequality more opposed to individual action. We discuss implications for climate change communication.