Foundations of climate change denial: Anti-environmentalism and anti-science

operate like genetics, or the fundamental rationales, for climate denial. They provide, “a certain thematic [which] is capa- ble of linking, and animating a group of discourses, like an organism with its own needs, its own internal force” [33]. 5.2 Anti-environmentalism Climate denial rhetoric expresses a deep anti-environmentalism, consistent with increasing polarization over AGW [4,86]. There is open animosity toward environmentalists, often affiliated with former Vice President Al Gore whose “Inconvenient Truth” film, book and Nobel Prize generated a lot of opposition from the CCCM. There is a general sense that environ- mentalists are socialists in disguise, working to achieve global power at the expense of individual freedom, capitalism, US power, and Western progress. For example, Vaclav Klaus, former President of the Czech Republic, in a 2007 book published by the Competitive Enterprise Institute warns that reducing greenhouse gases will be disastrous for humankind/civilization/Western progress and will send civilization back to the Stone Age. The force that threatens to do this is environmentalism. • Environmentalism is the new socialist enemy to freedom. • Environmentalism is anti-capitalist. Horner (2007) in his chapter entitled, “Green Is the New Red, The Anti-American, Anti-Capitalist, And Anti-Human Agenda of Today’s Environmentalists” writes: Spawned from the 1970s split of anti-modernists from the decades-old conservationist movement, “environmentalism” has

matured into a nightmare for anyone who believes in private property, open markets, and limited government. Environ- mental pressure groups have no use for limiting governmental powers or expanding individual liberties. Instead, environ- mental claims are without fail invoked to advance the statist agenda (p. 3). • The lies of environmentalism will lead to human and environmental tragedy and environmentalists have a secret, corrupt agenda. • Environmentalists are simply using AGW to accumulate power.

PLOS One | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0334544 November 12, 2025 15 / 23 • Environmentalism is akin to totalitarian fascism. This probably comes from resource nationalism, where hydrocarbons are fetishized and limits to using them endangers national identity [87]. • Environmentalism is opposed to modern society or civilization: Environmentalism is anti-human. Fig 1. Summary of Climate Denial Claims. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0334544.g001

PLOS One | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0334544 November 12, 2025 16 / 23 Environmentalism is anti-Christian, an evil religion and is analogous to genocide: Because they are not prepared to look at the truth of Jesus Christ, people are being deceived by falsehoods. Yet even the science they claim to believe in is telling them that they are accepting lies. When concern for the environment got out of control decades ago now, it rapidly assumed the status of religion. But it is a false one, perhaps the false one. “By their fruits you will know them” and what do we see? (Foster, 2009, 188, emphasis in original). • Environmentalism is unethical in its concern for nature. There is a “deep anthropocentric” ethic in the data consistent with anti-environmentalism, where humans are the only subject of value [see 88]. Roy Spencer, another key figure in the CCCM, argues for a deep anthropocentrism. This ethic informs what policy norms are acceptable, and posits environmentalism as an illegitimate religion: In general, environmental policy decisions that favor nature over people are based upon worldviews or religious beliefs that are separate from the science…. Any rights that we confer upon nature through environmental policies should only be those that benefit humanity. Anything else verges on a state-supported Pagan religion (Spencer, 2008, p. 180). This ethic also contends that changes to the environment are not negative if they improve human lives. The logic is that

AGW has been inconsequential because “nature” has no value other than for humans, and for Spencer, an industrialized capitalist economy is far more important. 5.3 Distrust in the integrity of climate science Authors argue that climate science—facilitated by media and government—is not reliable because it is a political tool cre- ated by a real conspiracy of scientists, co-opted by a radical, zealous, environmentalism that aims to exert religious-social control as noted above while at the same time about 99% of these books are published without peer-review. There is a belief that climate science is deeply corrupt, and this corruption goes to the highest levels of the IPCC, the US government, and media. • Climate scientists lie to the public. Ralph Alexander wrote the 2009 book, Global Warming False Alarm: The Bad Science Behind the United Nation’s Asser- tion that Man-Made CO2 Causes Global Warming, and in his first chapter, entitled “Global Warming Deceit” writes: The alarmists have spun such a web of deception that any science contrary to the view of human-induced global warm- ing is either ignored, played down, or deliberately distorted (Alexander, 2009, p. 1-2). Orthodox climate science is propaganda by a real conspiracy. • The consensus on AGW is a political tool for social control and closure of debate. • Scientists manipulate data to scare the public for personal and professional profit. Fig 2 summarizes the key beliefs that underlie the rejection of climate science in the two major elements of anti-reflexivity

(anti-environmentalism and anti-impact science) as conceptualized by McCright and Dunlap [26]. 6.1 Conclusion and discussion We have used a two-stage analytical approach to examine over 100 climate denial books involving first a deductive then an inductive process. The goal was to understand the genetic narrative—the “DNA” of AGW denial at a level of detail heretofore unreported in the literature, providing new insights about denial, and the CCCM.

PLOS One | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0334544 November 12, 2025 17 / 23 Fig 2. Anti-Reflexivity in Climate Denial Books. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0334544.g002 Using existing theory to identify climate denial claims in the books [29], we confirm the major denial claims reported in the literature. We find that while the two most frequent claims are attribution denial and policy denial, a majority of the books exhibit most of the types of AGW denial—even as they are modified somewhat in reaction to scientific and societal events. This indicates a robust consistency and durability of denial themes across more than three decades. The most important findings are from our analysis of the semantic ecosystems in which these long-known catego- ries of climate science and policy rejection exist where we discover new lines of reasoning, in particular strident anti- environmentalism. We find support for the findings of Boussalis and Coan [24] and other recent studies that AGW denial includes systematic attacks on the integrity of science and scientists, here framed as a branch of impact science. While Boussalis and Coan correctly note that this theme has grown stronger in the overall body of denial literature (reports, policy briefs, PR releases, etc.) used in their large computational studies, it was present in a few denial books from the beginning. We add to this an extreme opposition to environmentalism that has not been accounted for in the literature.

Together, the opposition to the global environmental movement and attacks on impact science constitute the core ele- ments of “anti-reflexivity” [35]. Anti-reflexivity is a powerful defensive mechanism employed by dominant interests to

PLOS One | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0334544 November 12, 2025 18 / 23 protect power and privilege ensconced in global capitalism fueled by cheap hydrocarbons and is consistent with far right nationalism, the protection of “petro-masculinity,” and white power. Dagget writes: “For many, extracting and burning fuel was a practice of white masculinity, and of American sovereignty, such that the explosive power of combustion could be crudely equated with virility” [15]. Likewise, Anshelm and Hultman [89] report, “These climate sceptics tried to save an industrial society of which they were a part by defending its values against ecomodern hegemony” (p. 84). Allowing mean- ingful restrictions to fossil fuels endangers the power of petro-privilege. Hultman et. al. agree: “…far-right nationalism and AGW denialism [are] based upon the ideological similarities in viewing the world from an industrial masculinities viewpoint, not wanting to let go of the colonial extractive logic that has served these men well, but violated the planet” [90]. As Malm and the Zetkin Collective [14] show, following Griffin [91], far-right ideology, including fascism, has a historical relation with denial, lies, and misinformation since Mussolini. This helps us theoretically ground misinformation (not intended to deceive) and disinformation (intended to deceive)as forces that are capable of redistributing power and obscuring alternatives, “as when a traveler is falsely told a bridge collapsed” [92] notes Bok, and in this case our bridge is limiting fossil fuels to preserve a habitable planet.

Also, far-right ideology is palingenic, that is, obsessed with re-birth, and AGW denial can be a re-birth of that privilege that comes through the data with nostalgia for a time when white patriarchy was fueled with abundant fossil fuels. Under this lens, greatness and progress need to be defended and reclaimed from environmentalists and scientists. Anti-reflexivity provides a rationale to reclaim this “stolen pride” —something supporters of US President Donald Trump directly articulated to sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild, speaking from the poorest county in the US while the president’s 2025 budget removed social safety-net essentials to pay for tax credits for the wealthy [93]. As conservative identity is forged around system protection and justification [67], attacking and delegitimizing AGW is expressed alongside a deep fear of losing essential conditions of the current dominant system, the neoliberal capitalist economy and white male dominance. Thus, it makes sense that the far-right joined the fossil fuel industry in organizing the CCCM, which in turn has forged a strong bond with the US Republican Party. While the GOP has adopted an increas- ingly anti-environmental record since the Reagan era, its opposition to environmental and especially AGW policies have escalated. The Bush 43 Administration, which was the primary focus of McCright’s and Dunlap’s [26] original analysis of anti-reflexivity, was extremely hostile to AGW policies but employed strategies designed to draw limited attention from the

public. For example, it misrepresented and suppressed research highlighting the threats posed by AGW, it portrayed AGW policies as threatening our national well-being, promoted the work of a small number of contrarian climate scientists and pseudo-scientists, and supported attacks on the work of mainstream climate scientists in Congressional Hearings run by the GOP—sometimes resulting in vicious threats against the scientists [94]. Yet, the Trump Administration in less than two terms has exceeded all prior efforts to deny the reality and dangers of AGW by openly and aggressively attacking AGW policies, withdrawing the US from the Paris Agreement, and sabotaging international cooperation to reduce carbon emissions, putting AGW deniers like Scott Pruitt in charge of agencies such as the Environmental Protection agency in the first term, promoting energy production with no regard to environmental con- sequences, and much more [95]. And crucially, Trump normalized labeling AGW a “hoax” and a “scam” among Republican politicians, reflecting the success of the CCCM’s efforts to instill hardcore denial into one of our nation’s two major political parties (or at least what remains of the GOP under Trump). In July of 2025 during his second term, the Trump adminis- tration hired two authors in our data, John Christy and Roy Spencer, to the Energy Department. Immediately the Energy Department published a report authored by them and three others [96] questioning the validity of the “endangerment”

ruling by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2009, twice affirmed by the US Supreme Court. Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA is authorized to regulate air pollutants that endanger the public, thus an endangerment ruling under the guidance of a scientific committee, is needed for the US to regulate CO2:

PLOS One | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0334544 November 12, 2025 19 / 23 High impact weather extremes, usually related to temperature, precipitation and/or high wind, can disrupt infrastructure and therefore endanger human health and wellbeing. The issue is not whether extremes occur. Rather, it is whether there are long-term (decadal scale) changes in the frequency or character of extremes (“detection”), as well as the extent to which such changes and the attendant changes in hazards are caused by anthropogenic emissions of green- house gases… However, it is naïve to assume that any recent extreme event is caused by human influences on the climate (p. 46). The EPA used this report to justify revoking the endangerment ruling and removing the authority for it to regulate and mit- igate climate change. The policy process is ongoing as of this writing but the power of climate denial and the CCCM are obviously important. All of this speaks to an agenda to defend the structures of Western, white power from a global problem many believe cannot be solved if that very system remains in place [97,98]. Indeed, these far-right moves have led the Polity project, which rates countries for democratic or authoritarian characteristics, to rate the US a non-democracy during both Trump terms [99]. Going beyond politics, some analysts argue that AGW denial helped lay the groundwork for the emergence of “alter- native facts” and “post-truth,” phenomena that undermine scientific and other expertise and faith in institutions such as

“mainstream media,” universities, and government agencies [100,101]. This opens the door to disinformation and con- spiracies [102] such as “Covid is a hoax” or that vaccinations are dangerous widely spread by right-wing (and sometimes left-wing) media, websites and spokespersons, including the second term Trump Health and Human Services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. The result of these epistemological attacks is that many people suspect basic facts, making it difficult for democracy to function while endangering people with falsehoods. Recognizing the danger of disinformation, individual researchers, universities and some NGOs have developed pro- grams to study and develop techniques to counter disinformation, but their efforts have received a hostile reception among those who spread it —including efforts to intimidate disinformation research which the far-right labels as censor- ship, such as the US House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government in the 118th Congress. These kinds of hard-core actions by key forces of anti-reflexivity have taken efforts to undermine AGW science and pol- icies to a new level, defending disinformation of all types including those about election integrity. These escalating attacks on facts, science, and reality writ large represent “anti-reflexivity on steroids.” Thus, the efforts beginning in the 1980s of a small group of dissenting scientists, pseudo-scientists and far right journalists (including those who produced the books

in our analyses), often funded by the fossil fuel industry and conservative think-tanks and promoted by ideological media, have certainly borne fruit—to the detriment of the environment and humankind. Supporting information S1 Appendix. ABS.D&J.Appendix.Final. (DOCX) Author contributions Conceptualization: Peter J. Jacques, Riley E. Dunlap. Data curation: Peter J. Jacques. Formal analysis: Peter J. Jacques, Riley E. Dunlap. Investigation: Peter J. Jacques, Riley E. Dunlap.

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