By Tim Churchill
Somehow, it’s a debate.
Science extends our lifespans, lights our houses and fills our stomachs. Science revolutionized transportation and connected a global community. Science is the reason a robot roams the red rocks of Mars, and how we even know Mars has red rocks. Science is responsible for the incomprehensible increase in global energy consumption of the human population, and also how we know that things are getting out of control. It is absolutely essential to just about every part of daily life. So how is it possible that the integrity of science is still up for debate?
"The effects of climate change are real, and must be acted on." - President Joe Biden1
However, despite the overwhelming consensus within the scientific community regarding the realities of climate change, too many people continue to dismiss its existence or underestimate its impacts. Even with global concord, this would be a difficult problem to tackle, but the phenomenon of environmental denial only adds another barrier to climate action. Understanding the psychological mechanisms behind this denial is crucial for fostering awareness and eliciting an impactful global response.
Understanding the why
To truly unpack exactly why so many individuals believe that nothing is wrong with our planet, we must look at psychological phenomena, economic factors, and malicious (or ignorant) media. All of these factors can contribute to a destabilization of truth among misinformed or malicious people.
The Cognitive Dissonance Conundrum
The concept of “Cognitive Dissonance” posits that attempting to hold contradictory beliefs results in psychological discomfort, leading individuals to modify their beliefs. By focusing on restoring psychological harmony, people succumb to easier, more comfortable beliefs over truth. Festinger and Carlsmith were the first to experiment with Cognitive Dissonance in 1959, when they studied whether financial incentive could make an hour long boring task feel easier.2 They found that when paid 20$, participants rated a dull task as more boring, while those only paid 1$ felt they needed to justify their wasted hour by tricking themselves into thinking it was at least vaguely interesting. The dissonance was between their belief that the task was boring and their belief that the task was worth 1$ (and thus should be pleasant). They resolved this by convincing themselves that the task was in fact worth the hour. Similarly, when climate change action clashes with pre-existing beliefs or lifestyle choices (such as energy use or driving habits), dissonance is created. To alleviate this psychological discomfort and restore harmony, individuals may deny the existence of climate change.
Lawler, Moira. "What Is Cognitive Dissonance?" Everyday Health, Medically Reviewed by Seth Gillihan, PhD, 21 September 2022, https://www.everydayhealth.com/neurology/cognitive-dissonance/what-does-cognitive-dissonance-mean-theory-definition/.
The Illusion of control
This phenomena presents itself when people are faced with a risk that they don’t understand. When there is an extreme disconnect between a threat's actual danger and its perceived danger, it can cause people to underestimate that threat. This leads to a false sense of security and a subconscious dismissal of the threat. In the case of climate change, as with anything, a single false broadcast, depicting climate change as a hoax or discounting its severity, aired on TV plants seeds of doubt that blossom into widespread subconscious dismissal of scientific evidence to the contrary. As the illusion of control stems from misinformation, inaccurate media coverage is closely tied to this phenomenon.
Media & Misinformation“Misinformation is not just word of the year… it's a call to action.” (Dictionary.com, 2018)3
Misinformation is an often misunderstood concept, but at its essence, it is misleading information. That means any false information–intentional or not–falls into the category of misinformation. Only 12% of Americans, for example, thought that the scientific consensus on the reality of climate change was over 90%, when it is in reality 97%.4 The role misinformation has in climate denial cannot be overstated. It is the backbone of the denial movement because without it, there is no illusion of control, there is no cognitive dissonance, and as you will see, even common defense mechanisms like rationalization are stifled.
The Defense Mechanism: Rationalization
Another psychological phenomenon that contributes to climate denial is rationalization. Ironically, rationalization occurs when an individual irrationally tries to counter evidence with true, though misleading, facts. A commonly cited example of rationalization is the phrase “But the climate has always been changing!” By suggesting an objectively correct but semantically irrelevant fact, rational defenders fall into the illusion of control and drag others there with them. More importantly, though, clouding the facts with generalizations and manipulating statistical presentation can give malicious media the power to take control of people while avoiding the scrutiny of fact-checking experts.
“I’m not a believer in man-made global warming. It could be warming, and it’s going to start to cool at some point. And you know, in the early, in the 1920s, people talked about global cooling…They thought the Earth was cooling. Now, it’s global warming" - President Donald Trump
A Path Forward
Without consensus, funding can’t be allocated as effectively, research is dismissed, and individuals underestimating the danger fail to contribute to a solution. So what do we do? Unfortunately, there is no simple solution without monopolizing the nation’s media. As long as news outlets have financial incentive to lie or mislead their viewers, misinformation will always be accessible. Targeted communication, education reforms, and inclusive dialogues are just some of the strategies that will inevitably play a pivotal role in toppling the climate denial crisis.
Works Cited
1Biden, Joe. Quotation. BrainyQuote. Accessed 8 October 2023, https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/joe_biden_676841.
2Festinger, L., & Carlsmith, J. M. (1959). Cognitive consequences of forced compliance. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 58(2), 203.
3Dictionary.com, 2018
4Maibach, Edward & Leiserowitz, Anthony & Rosenthal, Seth & Roser-Renouf, Connie. (2014). Climate Change in the American Mind. 10.13140/RG.2.2.18105.77926.