I think when people express concern over climate change denial, the concern usually isn't over the fact that climate change denial is physically and legally possible. The concern is usually more about the consequences of denial and the fact that denial seems to have a disproportionate influence over political outcomes.
I'm sure there are some extreme people. But when I look at right-wing TV and journalism, I don't see climate change denial, nor human-causing-it denial. Instead, I see denial of the severity of the uncertain effects, criticism of the exaggerations of activists and criticism of the proposed policies around it. I've met people who would likely be called deniers because they say things like "it's not going to affect me or my kids, so I don't care". I think this attitude of accepting it but not being worried about it is extremely common and also commonly confused with denialism.
Climate change denial has moved beyond explicitly denying its existence at this point. At least the kind that can sway otherwise reasonably intelligent people.
> It's not happening
> Okay maybe it's happening but we didn't cause it
> Okay maybe it's happening and maybe we did cause it but we shouldn't do anything about it because insert easily debunkable bullshit about electric vehicles and renewables being impractical or whataboutism involving other countries here. <== WE ARE HERE
> Okay it's happening and we caused it but it's too late to do anything now so lets just keep the status quo.
I know a lot of people that are skeptical of climate change. Not a single one denies it. It's more a along the lines of 'how big a deal is this actually'?
They view a lot of messaging from the government and regulatory bodies as alarmist. Which honestly is fair given the fact that most of them have much bigger day to day problems with healthcare, economics, and housing playing out in the short term. It's all relative right?
I see that the reason for climate change denial is two-fold; on one hand, climate change wrecking chaos is mainly restricted to projections, and on the other, climate change activists as a group express many qualities which make people not want to give weight to their claims, mainly naivete and arrogance. Since we're not seeing too significant effects of climate change yet, people would need to research the subject in order to get an accurate image of possible future scenarios. But how they see climate change activist group expressing themselves puts them off the subject. Psychologically the best option in this cases is denialism of some amplitude.
I'm not trying to crucify any group here by the way. This is just how I see the issue.
Relative to what things looked like 10-20 years ago, is there still a meaningful contingent of climate change deniers? As far as I can tell, most of those people have accepted the reality but disagree on how we should approach it. Even in the most extreme case--looking at Republicans in the US Congress, steeped in fossil propaganda and owing many of their elections to gerrymandering--and using a broad definition of climate change denialism, deniers are (very slightly) in the minority
"Climate change denial" is not a coherent platform. There may be some who hold logically consistent views (whether they are real or not), but they are not necessarily consistent with each other, and in any case the majority of people don't care.
As long as one can say that mankind should not take any action to avert climate change, most "climate deniers" are happy, and whether the myriad of supporting arguments contradict each other is not their concern.
For example, what's Trump's opinion on whether the Earth is warming or not? Does he even care?
I believe in it, but think that any chance to move the needle on it comes to policy makers so I end up caring very little about the issue practically either way.
This user seems to be conflating skepticism with denialism. These two groups would take completely different positions on the issues listed (eg. climate change).
Climate change is a political and verging in religious question in the US; it's something that you believe or don't believe in. This isn't really the case elsewhere (there is SOME climate change denialism in Europe and elsewhere, but it's way more fringe, and in politics mostly confined to libertarians and other weirdos).
The US's current political problem RE climate change could be regarded as temporary and will quite likely be resolved in 2020, but until the unique dynamic where half the country refuses to believe that climate change is a thing goes away, the US is always going to struggle on this stuff.
It's an interesting and valid point, I think. Fear may motivate some to start changing and looking for solutions, but it has the opposite effect on many: denial is one of the most pervasive defense mechanisms in psychology. And climate denialism has got to be the most astounding example of it.
The more I read these kind of articles the more I realize that it really has nothing to do with science, or science denial. Nobody in these kinds of discussions really cares about the science. It’s all about politics and ideology.
Why aren’t these same people who are talking about science denial never speak up and make a fuss about the denial of climate change by a huge swath of the US population including the elected (e.g. POTUS)?
I noticed climate change denialism is being replaced by "it's happening but it's not a big deal" or "others are polluting more so we shouldn't do anything".
Unwillingness to build nuclear power, which could possibly solve the problem, is a driver of suspicion, which is a driver of denial.
Politicization of social sciences and campus activities, severely damages credibility, which drives denial.
Corruption of global institutions (such as the WHO, in light of COVID origins) and the understandable yet also uncomfortable 'Don't Look Here' approach to NIH, Lancet relationship with Wuhan Biolab Research (it's complicated) generates deep suspicion, and fosters denial.
Big Pharma + McKinsey designed scheme to addict millions with opioids without real consequences, and subsequent embracing of Big Pharma during COVID on totally unquestionable terms aka 'Trust The Science!', although rational from a policy perspective (it's a national emergency), is again, a huge driver of suspicion and therefore denial.
Political voices basically have no credibility in most situations and won't be able to convince anyone remotely skeptical.
I think things like 'Housing Insurance' frankly is one of the better means of social interdiction, it hits people right in the pocket book, and I would hope insurance companies just send out the letter with the graph saying 'well, this is where the weather is going, this is the expected damage, so this is your rate'. That's not political logic.
My understanding is "denying climate change" is less so about the science of it and the reality that it's a nod to supporting industries that would be regulated away due to their climate impact.
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