The Far Right and Climate Change Denial

2019 ◽  
pp. 121-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Hultman ◽  
Anna Björk ◽  
Tamya Viinikka
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Climate Change Denial

scholarly journals Climate change denial as far-right politics: How abandonment of scientific method paved the way for Trump

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-60
Author(s):  
Gavin Byrne
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Scientific Method ◽  
The United States ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Climate Change Denial ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Constitution ◽  
Democratic Norms ◽  
Trump Administration

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.

scholarly journals Climate Change Denial among Radical Right-Wing Supporters

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (23) ◽  
pp. 10226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirsti M. Jylhä ◽  
Pontus Strimling ◽  
Jens Rydgren
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
Sociocultural Attitudes ◽  
Climate Change Denial ◽  
Party Support ◽  
Political Right

The linkage between political right-wing orientation and climate change denial is extensively studied. However, previous research has almost exclusively focused on the mainstream right, which differs from the far right (radical and extreme) in some important domains. Thus, we investigated correlates of climate change denial among supporters of a radical right-wing party (Sweden Democrats, N = 2216), a mainstream right-wing party (the Conservative Party, Moderaterna, N = 634), and a mainstream center-left party (Social Democrats, N = 548) in Sweden. Across the analyses, distrust of public service media (Swedish Television, SVT), socioeconomic right-wing attitudes, and antifeminist attitudes outperformed the effects of anti-immigration attitudes and political distrust in explaining climate change denial, perhaps because of a lesser distinguishing capability of the latter mentioned variables. For example, virtually all Sweden Democrat supporters oppose immigration. Furthermore, the effects of party support, conservative ideologies, and belief in conspiracies were relatively weak, and vanished or substantially weakened in the full models. Our results suggest that socioeconomic attitudes (characteristic for the mainstream right) and exclusionary sociocultural attitudes and institutional distrust (characteristic for the contemporary European radical right) are important predictors of climate change denial, and more important than party support per se.

Why scientific evidence is no longer enough in public debate

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toby Pilditch
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
Climate Change Denial ◽  
Overwhelming Evidence ◽  
Global Problems

Many of the global problems humanity is facing concern acting appropriately given the available evidence. However, issues including climate change denial (McGlade and Ekins, 2015; Steffen et al., 2015) and anti-vaccination movements (Hargreaves, Lewis, and Speers, 2003; Petrovic, Roberts, and Ramsay, 2001) appear to run contrary to overwhelming evidence. The investigation of these issues has pointed to two possible causes; either insufficient exposure to the evidence at hand, or ulterior / biased motives5. Here I show such explanations are unnecessary, and further, why current counterarguments focussed on scientific evidence may not only be ineffective, but may backfire. I highlight that denialist arguments focusing on credibility-based attacks can provoke rational scepticism of the issue at hand, requiring a shift in counterargument strategy – away from the evidence itself. I show the maximally effective counterargument strategy is to separately and directly address credibility-attacks, salvaging both the immediate issue, and future debate.

scholarly journals Climate Change Denial Books and Conservative Think Tanks

2013 ◽  
Vol 57 (6) ◽  
pp. 699-731 ◽  
Author(s):  
Riley E. Dunlap ◽  
Peter J. Jacques
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Think Tanks ◽  
Climate Change Denial

scholarly journals Alan Betts: Green Energy Times, 2018

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Betts
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Energy Policy ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Green Energy ◽  
Collective Decision ◽  
The Public ◽  
Systems Perspective ◽  
Climate Change Denial ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Future

This is a collection of my 2018 articles in the Green Energy Times (http://www.greenenergytimes.org/ ).This series started in 2016. Many of these articles have been edited or updated from articles I wrote forthe Rutland Herald, sometimes with different titles and pictures.They blend science and opinion with a systems perspective, and encourage the reader to explorealternative and hopeful paths for their families and society. They are written so that a scientist willperceive them as accurate (although simplified); while the public can relate their tangible experience ofweather and climate to the much less tangible issues of climate change, energy policy and strategies forliving sustainably with the earth system.The politically motivated attacks on climate science by the current president have sharpened my politicalcommentary this year; since climate change denial may bring immense suffering to our children and lifeon Earth.I believe that earth scientists have a responsibility to communicate clearly and directly to the public1 –aswe all share responsibility for the future of the Earth. We must deepen our collective understanding, sowe can make a collective decision to build a resilient future.

scholarly journals Strategies of Climate Change Denial: The case of Thierry Baudet

MaRBLe ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roelien Van der Wel
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
The State ◽  
Climate Change Denial ◽  
Specific Focus ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Anglo American

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. 

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