Climate denialism is an illness, the pathogen being an infectious strain of propagandist misinformation or, rather, a lack of information and scientific literacy that has only evolved and become more resistant to public aversion over time. But the good news is that this illness is not terminal; in fact we have the ability to terminate it, and one step at a time. Henceforth, I have hypothesised ‘The 5 Stages of Terminating Climate Denial’, a sustainable framework consisting of goals and corresponding incentives that governments can implement, and inspired by The 5 Stages of Grief (Kubler-Ross, 1960) which contrastingly was developed in response to the behaviours exhibited by terminally ill patients. Nevertheless, ‘Person A’ stands as a microcosm of a wider society of climate denialists, accounting for around 8% of the general population, and therefore any incentives established do not consider one person in isolation.

 

  1. IDENTIFICATION

Firstly, ‘Person A’ must be identified, or more specifically the differing circumstances crafting their belief of climate denialism. In this light, range of subsequent possibilities can be explored:

→ Media Misinformation:

Around 5-8% (Bohr, 2022) of the population do not believe in climate change. However this minority can cast an immense amount of doubt, significantly through social media platforms like YouTube, where there were over 12,000 videos across 96 YouTube channels (Ramirez, 2024) promoting climate denial and misinformation, of which younger viewers can be extremely susceptible to.

→ Lack of scientific literacy:

Nationwide surveys of 1,500 middle and high-school science teachers across the US found that ⅔ were not using scientific evidence to educate about climate change, and worse still 33% (Babler-Madrid, 2020) of educators either misinformed children about the causes of climate change or disregarded them entirely, which may cause school-aged children to not believe in climate change if they can’t understand its context.

→ Politics, job-losses and scientific distrust:

Often, in North America, Republican voters are climate denialists, shaping their policy decisions as a result of propaganda from the energy-industrial complex, rather than scientific evidence. However, this is often no fault of politicians as they are gullible to misinformation, or in other words the anti-climate science info-demic (Kutney, 2024) that spread through conservative ranks that choose profits over people in regards to the fossil fuel industry in fear of job-losses in this energy production sector.

→ Cost of living

In a similar vein, in regards to economic concerns, the price of energy has swung wildly, causing a cost of living crisis across many parts of the world where household bills rose as much as £1000 pounds in 2022 (Stiell, 2023), hence causing many people to deem climate change as unaffordable and running against the interests of many working people, henceforth why some individuals may deny the existence of climate change altogether in an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ phenomenon.

 

  1. INITIATION AND OPENNESS TO CONVERSATION

Evidently, if you are trying to ease someone out of a denialist mentality, they do not share the same views as you. Conversations can be deemed most constructive when you aren’t lecturing others with your own views as this can cause others to feel guilty and attacked and withdraw from the conversation. Instead, try asking them about what they care about, or what they believe in, in order to better understand how to engage them in the climate conversation. This could be the economy, cultural heritage, or biodiversity, for example. Ask open questions in response to these interests instead of ‘why’ someone feels the way they do as this can be deemed judgemental (Speak up for the planet, 2020). Progressively, as you engage in further conversation, ‘Person A’ may realise they don’t know as much as they think they do, and therefore may open themselves to opposing viewpoints or arguments.

 

  1. EMPATHY

Climate anxiety is defined as: ‘the chronic fear of societal doom’ (American Psychological Society, 2021), with some sources even denoting it as a mental health disorder. Therefore, people may choose to deny climate change as they are fearful and overwhelmed by its outcomes and may see the issue as insuperable. As a result, it is crucial to offer reassurance, for example how taking climate action will be beneficial to economic growth due to infrastructure and investments in a net-zero society, and how the zero-carbon sector is one of the fastest growing to date, or alternatively, regarding anything that interested ‘Person A’ in the prior step.

 

  1. ACCESS AND ALLOCATION

As we delve deeper into understanding ‘Person A’, we must appreciate that they may not necessarily live in a HIC. In fact, In many LICs like Malawi, the most marginalised and vulnerable communities to climate change receive the least allocation finance (Barrett, 2024). However, Governments of HICs can possibly incentivise funding to developing nations, that could be used in research and development campaigns, and community projects to involve local and indigenous people for a more sustainable, bottom-up approach. Additionally, Governments could also allocate and fund volunteers to these countries to advocate and spread awareness about climate action through grassroot movements, as many individuals may have a lack of scientific literacy if they have not completed primary school which may be why they deny climate change; simply because they do not understand the immensity of it.

On the contrary, specifically in HICs with little developmental hindrances, responsibility could be allocated to influencers who are sponsored to spread necessary information about climate change or advertise climate-related products, which would prove to be effective considering many people follow influencers based on trust, and therefore believe that their information is accurate (Hoos, 2019). Furthermore, specific influencers could be targeted, I.E those with a high following of republicans or climate denialists.

 

  1. PROSPECTIVE EDUCATION

Many education systems fail to inform about the global future of climate change, which is why climate denialists like ‘Person A’ exist, as people fail to see the past impacts of climate change like the shrinking Greenland ice sheets. To combat this problem, in conjunction with the allocation step above, volunteers can run workshops that inform about the prospective nature of climate change, phrased accordingly and translated for each country specifically. For example, one can urge individuals into taking action- not necessarily frightening them off but informing that the following, such as raised future sea levels by 1-4 feet by 2100 and increased frequency and intensity of droughts and other natural hazards which will impact food security and water resources, can be prevented by climate action. In addition, this can be correlated to ‘Person A’s’ interests in order to better compel them, as always, into taking action and reforming their views.

To conclude, the task of metamorphosing the illness of climate denial into the growth and fruition of climate advocacy is a rather complex endeavour that can be likened to the 5 stages of human grief. However, this is not a grieving matter, as once the root of denialism is recognised, I.E belief through misinformation or disinformation about climate change as well as Person A’s core interests, this illness can be easy to treat through an amalgamation of constructive dialogue, empathy and prospective education that take into account developmental capacities, ensuring that everyone, regardless of income or belief, cares about our collective future.

 

References List

  1. Bohr, J. (2022). The Structure and Culture of Climate Change Denial – American Sociological Association. [online] American Sociological Association. Available at: https://www.asanet.org/footnotes-article/structure-and-culture-climate-change-denial/.
  2. Ramirez, R. (2024). Climate deniers are turning to new tactics, spreading a wave of misinformation on YouTube, watchdog says. [online] CNN. Available at: https://www.google.com/url?q=https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/01/16/climate/climate-denial-misinformation-youtube&sa=D&source=docs&ust=1720930043014437&usg=AOvVaw0bLtnxhyPHRP3UVgCJR4Co
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