Pseudoscience: Consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that are claimed to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method (unproven, not testable, or opposed to the consensus of traditional science).
Climate Change Denialism
Definition: Climate Change Denialism is the rejection of the idea that changes in the Earth’s climate or weather patterns are caused by human activity. Climate Change Deniers cite several reasons such as CO2 not being a greenhouse gas as well as claims of government and economic conspiracies to destroy capitalism. Other claims are that natural processes have more effect on climates such as solar intensity and oceanic oscillations, which is true, but they do not mitigate the human influence on global warming. Finally, some claim that regional and local cold snaps are evidence that the climate is not warming as a whole.
Reasoning: There is near-universal consensus among climate scientists and organizations such as NASA that climate change is greatly influenced by human activity through the use of fossil fuels. According to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicines “Scientists have known for some time, from multiple lines of evidence, that humans are changing Earth’s climate, primarily through greenhouse gas emissions,” and that “Climate change is increasingly affecting people’s lives.” Further, according to a research study in 2019 “The consensus among research scientists on anthropogenic global warming has grown to 100%, based on a review of 11,602 peer-reviewed articles on “climate change” and “global warming” published in the first 7 months of 2019.” Finally, there is a multi-million dollar funding campaign to promote climate change denial. There is also direct evidence that fossil fuel companies such as Exxon have promoted climate change denialism for decades, despite their own research aligning with the consensus.
More Information
- Common Denier Arguments
- The five corrupt pillars of climate change denial
- Isn’t there a lot of disagreement among climate scientists about global warming?
- Heartland Launches Website of Contrarian Climate Science Amid Struggles With Funding and Controversy
Conclusion: There is near-universal consensus among climate scientists that climate change/global warming is directly influenced by human activity. Further, there is overwhelming evidence that the fossil fuel industry has sought to sow doubt and promote dubious science to protect their financial interests. In short, climate change denialism is pseudoscientific as it strongly disagrees with the overwhelming consensus of science.
Last Updated on September 27, 2020 by Media Bias Fact Check
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