Climate denial in American politics

Climate denial is a sinister movement denying the science of climate change that has deeply infiltrated American politics and still thrives today. Widespread oppression of science in the United States is a rarity in modern history (with the exceptions of Germany and Russia during the 1930s) and has never before been seen in a democracy of this magnitude.

The tragic result of political climate denial in the United States was that Congress never adequately addressed greenhouse gas emissions, even though the United States is the largest economy in the world, allowing the climate crisis to unfold. first of all. If the United States couldn’t do its part, how can other countries do it?

The climate crisis is a global crisis and the world is running out of time to stay within the global warming limits of the Paris Agreement. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned about the consequences of extreme weather of global warming in the Paris goals. Additionally, every several years, the IPCC summarizes the latest scientific consensus on climate change, written by the world’s leading climate scientists to governments to develop climate policies.

The “Summary for Policymakers” (SPM) section of the Synthesis Report is specially reviewed and approved by government appointees to ensure that all nations accept the report’s conclusions. The latest SPM (AR6) of the IPCC starts with: “Human activities, primarily through greenhouse gas emissions, have unequivocally caused global warming…”

Surely then most American politicians must agree with the IPCC’s conclusions, since their own government approved the SPM. Mistaken. Republicans in the United States brazenly attack IPCC reports, including the SPM, contradicting their national government even though the US representative to the IPCC was chosen by a Republican administration.

Republicans don’t like climate science for unscientific reasons and have become a dangerous party of climate deniers, dangerous because they are out of touch with reality and make political decisions based on the propaganda of the energy-industrial complex (fuels fossils and related industries). ), instead of evidence-based science.

Too many elected officials in the United States live in another world where man-made global warming does not exist. They also baselessly question the scientific consensus on climate change or simply ignore the science. This alternative reality is based on alternative facts and alternative (i.e. false) science. We have been too tolerant for too long of this deviant behavior from elected officials; The time has come to vote these politicians out of office.

What people are reading

The Republican Party, also known as the GOP (officially, the “Grand Old Party”, but in parody, the “Grand Oil Party” or “Gas and Oil Party”), has been a climate denial organization since President George H.W. Bush. During the new millennium, under President George W. Bush, there was a literal reign of terror by the Republican political elite against climate science in Congressional hearings, where scientists were persecuted and prosecuted.

Climate denial reached new heights in Washington under the administration of Donald Trump, who was criticized by world leaders for withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement. (President Joe Biden reversed this decision.) The Trump administration’s environment and energy portfolios appeared to be puppets under the control of “oligarchs,” the power brokers of the energy-industrial complex. As the US election looms later this year, the thought of another Trump presidency sends shivers down many members of the scientific community.

How did this happen in the most powerful democracy in the world? The root cause of climate denial will not be found in politicians, who were misled by gaslighting. An anti-climate science infodemic spread easily among conservative ranks where climate legislation was seen as an attack on their ideology, including their belief in the sanctity of free markets and small government.

The source of the misinformation was the energy-industrial complex, which had launched one of the largest propaganda campaigns in history against the science of climate change. This corporate giant chose shareholders over society, profits over people, and propaganda over science, and Republicans were fooled more than most.

Was this massive campaign to light Americans with gas for the energy-industrial complex successful? You can judge for yourself. According to my recent calculations, the number of climate deniers in the United States exceeds 100 million. This group of anti-science supporters, primarily Republicans, does not recognize the scientific consensus on climate change and does not accept the IPCC SPM statement: “Human activities, primarily through greenhouse gas emissions, have unequivocally caused global warming…”

As long as their alternate reality remains unchallenged (and so far, very few have dared), Republican politicians will continue to filibuster climate legislation in Congress. Congress’s job is to legislate the best way to address the climate crisis, not to deny science or scientific consensus. Until Republicans can at least accept the science of climate change, there will be no political will to act on their part and climate change hearings are nothing more than a political circus.

More scientific evidence will not change the staunch climate deniers, who loudly promote propaganda in service of the energy-industrial complex, in addition to supposedly protecting those conservative values ​​intertwined with it. Instead, high-profile, staunch climate deniers must be marginalized—discrediting them, their messages, and their sources—before there can be any chance of developing bipartisan climate policy.

Gerald Kutney has recently written a critically acclaimed and peer-reviewed book, Climate denial in American politics: #ClimateBrawlpublished by Routledge, which was a major source for this column.