Climate deniers

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It’s difficult to figure out who’s funding climate denial, because many of the think tanks that continue to question established climate science are nonprofit groups that aren’t required to disclose their donors. That’s true of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free-market research organization in Washington that disputes that climate change is a problem. So, the program for a recent gala organized by the institute, which included a list of corporate donors, offered a rare glimpse into the money that makes the work of these think tanks possible.

Following the Money That Undermines Climate Science - The New York Times

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“Exxon knew.” Thanks to the work of activists and journalists, those two words have rocked the politics of climate change in recent years, as investigations revealed the extent to which giants like Exxon Mobil and Shell were aware of the danger of rising greenhouse gas emissions even as they undermined the work of scientists. But the coal industry knew, too — as early as 1966, a newly unearthed journal shows.

Coal Knew, Too | HuffPost

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Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters.. A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world. The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents. 'Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. 'Once again, warfare would define human life.' The findings will prove humiliating to the Bush administration, which has repeatedly denied that climate change even exists. Experts said that they will also make unsettling reading for a President who has insisted national defence is a priority.

Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us | Environment | The Guardian

• This was from 2004..
  
• Yet no Siberian climate in sight in Britain, so they didn't get everything right.
  

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The Israeli public broadcaster has come under fire from angry listeners after broadcasting an interview with Tony Abbott in which he said the world was “in the grip of a climate cult”. During the interview, recorded on 15 December while his home state of New South Wales was fighting terrifying bushfires, Abbott denied that carbon dioxide was driving global warming. The interview was broadcast on New Year’s Eve in a special show reviewing key international issues of the decade. Abbott said: “While we still seem to be in the grip of a climate cult, the climate cult is going to produce policy outcomes that will cause people to wake up to themselves.” After claiming, incorrectly, that a focus on emissions reduction in Australia had caused blackouts and rising power prices, Abbott said: “Sooner or later, in the end, people get hit over the head by reality.”

Tony Abbott, former Australian PM, tells Israeli radio the world is 'in the grip of a climate cult' | Australia news | The Guardian

Amazing..

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The impacts of the climate crisis are now clearly manifesting in ways beyond rising temperatures. In Australia, the conditions for severe bushfires are occurring far more regularly (hot days, dry land and high winds). And the country is now suffering its most intense bushfire season ever. The quantity of land burnt, the smoke pollution impacts, the temperatures and number of homes lost are all breaking historical records.

At the same time, Australia is pioneering the denial of climate disaster. There is some interesting research around denialism. Researchers have essentially discovered a strong political divide when it comes to climate science: progressives are much more likely to accept it as fact than conservatives. And presenting climate deniers with scientific information in the hope that they’ll change their minds actually reinforces their rejection, because they are so taken aback by the information.

This phenomenon affects solutions, too. If a policy proposal to reduce emissions conflicts with someone’s pre-existing beliefs – if it requires more government intervention in markets, for example – they tend to deny that the problem exists in the first place. Over the course of the past decade, Australia was a laboratory for this type of thinking. Research has shown that “climate scepticism gets substantial favourable exposure in mainstream Australian media”. As a result, Ipsos polling finds that Australia lags behind other nations in “acknowledging the threat of climate change”. And a renewable energy target of 42% – proposed in a landmark report by Australia’s chief scientist – was rejected by the conservative government partly because the number sounded too close to the opposition’s 50%.

Rightwing media outlets in Australia have responded to the current bushfires by either refusing to give the story its due prominence or by spreading falsehoods. Specifically, there is a claim emerging that environmentalists have blocked hazard reduction efforts by supposedly opposing dry fuel loads being burned or manually removed. It isn’t one of those half-truths – there’s no truth in it at all. Once spread by a rightwing journalist over 10 years ago, it has been given a new lease of life as a meme on social media.

There is a trajectory for memes like this: the idea emerges in the fever swamps of denialist groups, it slowly seeps into fringe blogs, and from those blogs into Australia’s rightwing media. Then fringe political players take it up, and it’s consequently absorbed by leaders from major parties.
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There is precedent for this phenomenon. In 2018, a [url=https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/zmgkjw/starbucks-hoax-coupon-4chan-pol-politically-incorrect]fake Starbucks campaign supposedly offering free coffee to people of colour in the US was orchestrated on the 4chan message board; it was then featured on Fox News. There is already evidence emerging of 4chan boards trying to spread misinformation that fires are being started by Muslim terrorists. The latest story doing the rounds is that the fires have been caused by arsonists or even climate activists – and it has been particularly potent.

Something else is out of control in Australia: climate disaster denialism | Ketan Joshi | Opinion | The Guardian

• Yea, the fires were deliberate arson attempts by climate activists, that's what Bolsonaro also said
  

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Fewer than half of Conservative party members believe that human activity is responsible for climate change, according to a new survey. The poll of more than 1,100 Tories found that almost one in three (32.9 per cent) think that “global warming is happening but human activity isn’t driving it”, while nearly a tenth (9.7 per cent) said they did not believe that climate change was happening at all.

One in three Tory members believe human activity not responsible for climate change, survey finds | The Independent