How do we still have climate science deniers in 2026?

It is astounding to me that people (particularly in the USA seemingly) still seem to be bought into climate science denialism.

Perhaps it isn't as many as it appears, since it might be largely online bots. However, clearly the far-right in the UK and USA are heavily invested in climate misinformation. Donald Trump and Richard Tice are prime examples of this.

Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech

If you are a physicists you can review the scientific materials yourself.

For the rest of us, I have found explainers by physicists Myles Allen, Sabine Hossenfelder and Simon Clark to be helpful.

Or you can look further back to this very good verbal explanation from Carl Sagan from 1985.

I was taught about climate change in school in the 1990s. How do people still believe this denialist nonsense?

Choose your conspiracy!

Essentially, if you don't want to actually understand the science on this there are two rival conspiracy theories to choose between.

Conspiracy 1: Climate science is based on a massive conspiracy of scientists who want to convince the world that CO2 causes warming for reasons unknown (insert some nonsense about communism). The motive here is completely unobvious. For some reason scientists who know the "real science" are unable to get their superior science published despite the fact it would win them eternal fame and a nobel prize.

Conspiracy 2: Climate science is unanimous but a small group of fossil fuel interests and right-wing weirdos have been pumping out misinformation on an industrial scale to make it seem that there is some doubt on the issue. This delay tactic was done by the same people using exactly the same techniques on other issues such as tobacco. There is clear motive here.

But why would they lie? 

Fossil fuel companies hired scientists to look into the issue in the 1970s but rather than publish their superior science (since it didn't challenge the mainstream) they just kept quiet and funded misinformation campaigns instead.

Ask yourself - does your view present itself with scientific findings in journals and reports, or is it based on memes from right-wing "think tanks" (sometimes labelled junk tanks because they spew out spam). Essentially what we have here is science vs. a PR campaign.

Note that there are plenty of receipts on one of these conspiracies and nothing but desperate attempts and insinuations regarding the other one. Oreskes and Conway set it all out in their book Merchants of Doubt and I have heard Oreskes on several podcasts explaining the history of doubt-based denialism very eloquently. Or watch this video about a PR person caught in the act of offering to promote denialism. 

Those of us who are not scientists have to look at the facts and consider which conspiracy is the most likely. One side presents memes and out-of-context facts while the other engages with published materials and the weight of scientific opinion?

Does science ever offer truth?

Of course, the expert scientists might be wrong. They might have forgotten something important, like to carry the one or something.

As a philosopher I'm well aware that science doesn't actually offer truth. However, it does offer the best process we know of to seek out errors. It is a self-correcting process and it is the best approach we have to understand a Universe despite our limitations as fleshy beings alive for a few years in a small part of the Universe and with only a few senses available to us.

A scientist who discovered such an error would earn immediate fame and adulation from those who don't want to have to stop burning fossil fuels. Apparently they don't do this due to some bizarre conspiracy.

The big wager

Another thing to ask yourself - would you be willing to bet the prospects of future generations on your conspiracy theory being the right one?

If the scientists are correct then the impact of climate change appears dire, the impacts outlined in these summaries are extremely serious.

And if the scientists are right, we need to urgently reduce our emissions (which is sometimes very cheap or beneficial to do), suck up excess emissions (at great expense) and help the vulnerable to adapt to the new world we are putting them in.

Many people have been offsetting their emissions (thus achieving personal net zero) for decades because they don't want to make the world worse. People were getting criticised for cheating by using offsets to get to net zero in 2007!

At the end of the day any responsible human has one choice at this point. I don't know how a climate science denier can look a young person straight in the eye.

My Zero Carbon Action!

Another announcement from me: I'm now the trustee of a charity!

The charity is a development of the work of my friend and neighbour Ingo Schüder in spreading positive messages about the net zero transition and the little changes each of us can do to help get there. 

Last month we heard from the charity commission that we were successful in the application to become a charity. 

I see the achievement of net zero as a moral necessity, but achieving it is a huge undertaking from where we were (and still are). 

If you would like to donate money or put yourself forward as a volunteer/director then do go to the website. 

Make sure to follow MyZeroCarbon on your preferred social media platform and like and share the posts!

 

Good video explainers of Climate Change

Someone on twitter once asked me for good videos on climate change.

I didn't have a great answer then, but I think I would now. 

A simplistic understanding?

I recently watched some videos that demonstrated that I, like most people, had the sort of 'high-school' level understanding of climate change. 

Sabina Hossenfelder is a top physicist and she recently admitted she had just the basic understanding until recently. In a recent video she explains the basic and more accurate versions. 

Denialist tricks

You'll notice that climate science deniers are often very adept at challenging the simplistic 'school-level' version of climate change. 

They often make claims about climate science that no scientist would support or believe, like that carbon dioxide is the only thing that affects the climate. However, their demonstrations that CO2 isn't the only thing that matters does not debunk the key claim which is that our CO2 emissions are having a serious impact.  b

Denialists aren't engaged in honest science - they simply cherry pick anything that appears to support their pre-determined agenda. They are driven by politics rather than science. 

We have clear evidence that the Earth has been warming in recent decades. Denialists can't deny this any more, so they have to come up with other explanations for the warming - often that it is due to the sun. 

Simon Clark has a very good video explaining why the sun CANNOT be behind global warming. 

I think this was the video that helped me to understand the point about how climate change really works. The warming of the atmosphere due to the greater amount of CO2 (and other GHGs) puts the system out of balance. Since it isn't possible to emit all that extra energy out to the void of space it has to come back down to Earth. 

It is no doubt hard to know for sure what impacts all that extra heat energy is going to do, but it seems hubristic to think that adding a load of heat to finely balanced systems around the world is going to work out well.

A very good lecture

For a very straightforward (and well-produced) full lecture explaining climate science I can recommend Myles Allen's Gresham College lectures, particularly The Atmospheric Physics Behind Net Zero. 

Do add further suggestions below! 

Book Review: Elizabeth Cripps - What climate justice means and why we should care

 

This week I got hold of a few books I've had my eye on for a while. 

Although I've got an infeasibly huge pile of research and teaching reading to do I thought I would take a little look at one of them - What Climate Justice Means And Why We Should Care by Elizabeth Cripps. 

I ended up reading the whole thing over two consecutive afternoons. 

This really demonstrates one of the great things about this book - the writing. Cripps is a former journalist and it is written in an extremely clear and engaging way. She introduces real-life cases and examples wherever possible to illustrate the impacts of climate change. 

The book is extremely accessible for a book on morality and justice.

The Moral imperative

This accessibility  is important because it is the impact that climate change will have - is currently having - on vulnerable individuals and groups around the world that makes it such a pressing moral issue. The climate tragedies will occur on a small - human - scale. People's lives will be ruined by droughts, floods, storms and so on that would not have occurred were it not for climate change. These tragedies are completely out of sight when we drive our cars or heat our homes or buy our products. 

Indeed, the issue of scale is one of the big problems with climate justice. Climate change is caused by cumulative emissions consisting of (usually) small amounts of emissions from billions of people - it is a macro problem. However, the impacts will be felt by vulnerable individuals in the future. Cripps reminds us to think about those individual stories.

Our own attempts to do something about it can seem tiny and insignificant, but we all have a moral duty to make those attempts. Cripps sets out the arguments here with admirable clarity. She also does the great service of listing and responding to some of the common counter-arguments. These really do not give us any moral excuses. 

Our own duties

What are our duties as individuals when it comes to climate change? Cripps' previous book was on the topic and so she covers this very well in the final chapter. 

Part of it is considering our own lifestyles and whether we can take reasonable steps to reduce our greenhouse contributions (think cows, planes, cars and draughty houses). 

However, since the issue is really a global one that no individual can resolve we also have the duty to act politically as well. This means supporting parties that take climate change seriously and will act on it. However, it is a flexible duty - it depends on our own position in society and our own skills. We can't all be Greta Thunberg but we can all make our small difference. This could be by changing our pension investments, challenge climate falsehoods when we hear them expressed, installing solar panels and heat pumps when we get an opportunity. 

Cripps sets out six highlights from the book at the end, and seeks to inspire us all to take the steps needed. 

Too emotional?

The book was very accurate when it comes to the issues and arguments. I had a slight concern that it tipped into the bombastic with a couple of comments that climate inaction or denialists 'might just kill us all.' 

Critics (wrongly) accuse climate activists of being irrational and overly-emotional. (The likes of Greta Thunberg can't win can they - too nerdy/robotic/scientific when presenting the science/facts and too emotional when demanding necessary actions). So there is a concern that this kind of language plays into the hand of the critic. 

On the other hand, Cripps does use the word 'might'! 

While it seems unlikely that climate change will end humanity, there might be some extreme scenarios where it triggers something like a nuclear war or mass extinction or something that ends civilization. Perhaps a few humans might survive even that but it would in fact pretty much be the death of all of us. 

I don't think that this will happen and Cripps' argument generally rests on the point that vulnerable people will die because wealthy people refused to take reasonable steps to limit their emissions (and in some unforgivable cases even spread misinformation designed to block such action). 

Summary

I didn't read every word of the book - I've taught this topic several times myself and so I'm familiar with a lot of the arguments. I felt I could skim over the summaries of those arguments. I didn't take the book to be aiming to give novel arguments for philosophers. Rather, it is aiming to explain to those unfamiliar with those arguments why we have a moral duty to act. Why a failure to act is unjust and therefore wrong. This is the latest test for humanity and we aren't quite covering ourselves in glory. 

In general, I like to think that this book would be suitable for someone who does not pay too much attention to the issue of climate change and thinks that there is no need for them to consider it. They are the people who need to get the message and Cripps has put her considerable research and writing skills to their best possible purpose by presenting that message in clear form. 

Where is the fairness in the climate talks?

Carbon Emissions talks are very fraught.

They often end in fudges and disappointment, as has happened again recently at the latest round of COP talks. Some important issues have been postponed to future talks, all while humanity continues to pollute at record levels.

It is in everyone's interests to have fewer carbon emissions, but rarely in anyone's interest to reduce their own emissions. Everyone wants everyone else to do something about climate change.

Further, the benefits of reducing CO2 arise in the future, and those who have to alter their lifestyles (or pay more) are in the present. We are a myopic species, though unlike other animals we can think our way out of our myopia.

Climate talks are particularly fraught because there are so many dimensions at play. There is the inter-generational dimension - we can do more, less or nothing for the benefit of our successors. Different states care more or less about these future generations. Governments also want more for their own citizens at the expense of the citizens of other states. This leads to greater intransigence, particularly where countries extract or use a lot of fossil fuels or have a very populist nation-first attitude. Perhaps it is no coincidence that one of the latest stumbling blocks is Brazil, which has recently voted in Jair Bolsonaro as President.

You can see carbon talks as a power game where all states try to get the best deal for their own states with the prospect of undermining the whole process if unsuccessful. That is not only dangerous because it risks a complete breakdown. It also means that the overall package is going to be much less ambitious than it might be otherwise.

It is this kind of attitude--everyone out for themselves and damn the consequences--that has got us into our current environmental mess.

We need ethical principles - of fair distributions - as a baseline in order to proceed in a sensible manner.

That isn't to say that philosophers (and others, such as economists) agree on the fair distribution of benefits and burdens. Matters are complicated even more because there are so many empirical inputs into economic climate modelling. Changing those inputs slightly will have a huge effect on the equation.

Those who wish to challenge economists and policymakers on questions of climate change therefore need to understand the different theoretical approaches by which to do so.

My Summer School course on Environmental Justice sets out some of the ways of thinking about how we should think about the environment and fairness to future generations. Whether you can attend the course or not, I recommend the book Climate Ethics: Essential Readings (edited by Gardner et. al.) as a good starting point.