2017 ASHS Annual Conference

Global warming was widely recognized as a problem by the early 1990s, but a long-term and ever-evolving campaign to deny its reality and seriousness has turned anthropogenic climate change into a major controversy. The basic findings of climate science are constantly challenged by a growing set of interconnected actors who portray climate change as uncertain, even a hoax, leading large segments of the public and many policy-makers to dismiss its importance—and thus the need to take action. Key actors in what is termed the “denial movement,” the economic and ideological interests motivating them, and the primary strategies and tactics they employ will be outlined and traced over time. The success of the denial movement has contributed to the emergence of “alt-science” and our “post-fact” and “post-truth” era, posing profound challenges to science, evidence and reason more generally in contemporary America.