DENIAL (OF CLIMATE CHANGE)
Teresa Moreno Olmeda
The terms “denial” and “scepticism” have been used for the last 30 years in the debate on climate change to refer to many different attitudes and discourses. In general, they are used in allusion to the rejection and/or questioning of the broadly accepted views on climate change, its anthropogenic origin and its implications for life on the planet Earth.
Both concepts, especially denial, are often used informally. However, in the scientific literature of the last few years, this debate has had two consequences. On the one hand, the discourses and dynamics encompassed within this concept have multiplied. On the other hand, criticism of these terms has arisen in our drive toward expressions such as “climate obstruction” or “delay”, owing precisely to the potential inadequacy of “denial” to cover every aspect of this phenomenon.
At present, the early terminological proposals still seem to coexist with the newly coined terms: scepticism, denial and also, for instance, contrarianism. To these we must add the idea of a “climate counter-movement” to designate the constellation of actors who have played an active part in the past in the obstruction of climate policies, over and above individual attitudes.
This classifying and conceptualising task began in the 1990s, when a minority of scientists who published opinions contrary to the general consensus assumed the name of “sceptics”. The first article on this subject was probably “The Heat is On: The warming of the world’s climate sparks a blaze of denial”, written by the journalist Ross Gelbspan (1995).
Attention was initially centred on the outright denial of scientific evidence and the arguments substantiating it. In this sense, one of the first taxonomic proposals was put forward by Stefan Rahmstorf (2004), who made a distinction between trend sceptics (who denied the existence of global warming), attribution sceptics (who accepted the warming trend but attributed it to natural causes), and impact sceptics (who believed that global warming would be harmless or even beneficial). This was a basic differentiation to which further divisions have been added that analyse the phenomenon in greater complexity or incorporate new elements, but they do not reject this classification of core arguments.
For example, in the case of the conceptual reassessment made by Van Rensburg (2015) the three types of argument mentioned above are encompassed in “evidence scepticism”. To this are added a further two scepticism targets: “processes” and “responses”. These refer, firstly, to those who do not strictly question whether climate change exists or is caused by human activity, but reject and mistrust the scientific, bureaucratic and political processes behind mainstream climate science. Secondly, Van Rensburg mentions those who are reluctant to accept the responses, and reject the political instruments involving heavy government regulation or major social transformations.
In the same line, other more recent terminological proposals have emerged, such as “climate obstruction” or “delay”. The principal aim is to stress the effects of these discourses in blocking truly transformative climate policies and their underlying ideology upholding the neoliberal status quo.
Thus, proposals such as that of Ekberg et al. (2022) distinguish between primary obstruction (similar to “evidence scepticism”), secondary obstruction (implying that the science is accepted, at least tacitly, but the climate action is obstructed for ideological or economic reasons) and tertiary obstruction (that refers to cultures, hierarchies, values or infrastructures existing on a social level that favour paralysis and ‘business as usual’). As stated in Almiron & Moreno (2022, p. 11), there is not “two sides to climate inaction (denial and non-denial) but rather a conglomerate of stakeholders, some of whom deny, many others obstruct and a huge majority either fails to collaborate or unknowingly boycotts climate action”.
The argument in favour of these new conceptual forms, therefore, is that using “denial” as an umbrella concept carries the risk of over-simplifying a complex reality, polarizing the public debate and invisibilizing those who contribute to climate inaction without strictly denying science. Furthermore, “obstruction” and “delay” deliberately underscore the role of certain industries in boycotting the policies, and in particular the ideology underlying these dynamics, based on an “anthropocentric, industrial and patriarchal cosmovision” (Almiron & Moreno, 2022).
Critics of the term “scepticism” point out that this confers an aura of scientific legitimacy on positions that do not meet the necessary requirements. Nonetheless, Van Rensburg (2015) defends this label, with which certain groups of climate sceptics identify themselves, as a bridge to reach a constructive dialogue to prevent the other party from being reduced to a mere stereotype.
It should be borne in mind that most research is conducted in the English-speaking world, mainly the United States of America, where in the past the “climate counter-movement” has been strongest, and where a great many studies have focused on what has been called “the denial machine” (Piltz, 2008). This concept describes a constellation of actors engaging in a coordinated effort to sow doubts on the conclusions of climate change science, presenting it as an issue still under discussion and that, therefore, political actions seeking to mitigate its effects would be hasty and counter-productive. A pioneering and often cited book in this line is Merchants of Doubt (2010), by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, that addresses the strategy of the fossil industry set in motion by tobacco companies in the mid-20th century to blur the connection between their product and lung cancer.
Subsequently, Dunlap and Brulle (2020) have taken this approach deeper, based on the active production of ignorance, classifying the players involved as “sources” and “amplifiers”, and according to their apparent principal motivation (economic or ideological). These actors included corporations and business associations in the fossil industry, as well as a network of front groups and coalitions, advertising companies, foundations, etc. at the service of said industry; a small cluster of dissident scientists; conservative think tanks; politicians (in the case of the USA, the Republican Party); the “echo chamber” created by the communication media; and, lastly, “denialist bloggers”.
In addition to research on these specific agents with an active role to play in obstruction, other reflections are also emerging on the political failure to address climate change (and the ecological crisis in general), on a social and global scale. This perspective is noted for example in the idea of tertiary obstruction put forward by Ekberg et al. (2022), and is further developed in conceptual proposals such as those referring to the “imperial mode of living” (Brand & Wissen, 2021), or attempting to explain resistance to large scale social change associated to climate change as an effort to avoid cultural trauma resulting in “social inertia” on individual, institutional and social levels (Brulle & Norgaard, 2019).
It is precisely from the field of psychology that an explanation for the motives leading individuals to deny or reject both scientific consensus and the need for immediate and transformative action is being sought. It appears that the idea of ignorance as a psychological defence mechanism is key (Norgaard, 2006), and is reflected in the application of the three stages of denial described by Cohen (2001) occurring among people exposed to events that cause suffering.
The field of philosophy, for its part, provides approaches that are mostly epistemological. Among other contributions, analyses have been proposed of the concept of climate scepticism or pseudo-scepticism (Torcello, 2016), of denialism as voluntary or culpable hermeneutic ignorance (Mason, 2020), or of conspiracy theories associated to these stances (Uscinski, Douglas & Lewandowsky, 2017).
To sum up, the denial of climate change is a phenomenon that has been studied from every perspective: what is being denied or questioned (initially this was evidence and scientific consensus, but subsequently grew to encompass the full range of political action); who does it (the “denial machine” with its sources and amplifiers, sectors of the political spectrum or human societies in general); and why it is done (economic, ideological or psychological motivations). All of these give food for thought on the gap between the urgency in the warnings issued by scientists and the paralysis in setting the ecosocial transition in motion to prevent the worst scenarios deriving from the climate crisis.
Bibliography:
Almiron, N., & Moreno, J. A. (2022). Más allá del negacionismo del cambio climático. Retos conceptuales al comunicar la obstrucción de la acción climática. Ámbitos. Revista Internacional de Comunicación, 55, 9-23. https://dx.doi.org/10.12795/Ambitos.2022.i55.01
Brand, U. & Wissen, M. (2021). The imperial mode of living: Everyday life and the ecological crisis of capitalism. Verso Books.
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Cohen, S. (2013). States of denial: Knowing about atrocities and suffering. John Wiley & Sons.
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