Has Climate Denial Switched Tactics?

Above from my recent interview with Andrew Dessler.
I would agree that climate denial is a little less overt than it was 15 years ago, but there’s still a lot of just plain silence around climate issues, sadly in the media, especially local reporting, which is some of the most trusted media by the general public.
Agree also that disinformation about clean energy solutions has become a major part of the fossil fuel toolbox.

Guardian:

Fossil fuel companies are running “a massive mis- and disinformation campaign” so that countries will slow down the adoption of renewable energy and the speed with which they “transition away” from a carbon-intensive economy, the UN has said.

Selwin Hart, the assistant secretary general of the UN, said that talk of a global “backlash” against climate action was being stoked by the fossil fuel industry, in an effort to persuade world leaders to delay emissions-cutting policies. The perception among many political observers of a rejection of climate policies was a result of this campaign, rather than reflecting the reality of what people think, he added.

“There is this prevailing narrative – and a lot of it is being pushed by the fossil fuel industry and their enablers – that climate action is too difficult, it’s too expensive,” he said. “It is absolutely critical that leaders, and all of us, push back and explain to people the value of climate action, but also the consequences of climate inaction.”

He contrasted the perception of a backlash with the findings of the biggest poll ever conducted on the climate, which found clear majorities of people around the world supporting measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The survey found 72% of people wanted a “quick transition” away from fossil fuels, including majorities in the countries that produce the most coal, oil and gas.

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All that said, there is still a good size constituency for red meat climate denial among Republican legislators in the US.

Kat So for Center for American Progress:

The Center for American Progress has periodically analyzed statements by sitting members of Congress to determine whether they deny the existence of human-caused climate change.¹ This analysis of the 118th U.S. Congress found that 123 elected officials are climate deniers—23 percent of 535 total members. These 100 representatives and 23 senators wield significant influence on public perceptions of climate change as well as on the speed and direction of climate policy in the United States. Members of Congress also receive publicly disclosed contributions, which may provide a window into the possible influence of the fossil fuel industry.

Additionally, this analysis explores rhetorical shifts from outright climate denial to subtler types of obstruction, which may further delay action on the climate crisis as well as prolong the influence of the fossil fuel industry on environmental and energy policy in the United States.² While “climate denial” is arguably the most commonly understood and historically used term, it only describes one type of an ever-widening array of tactics.

This analysis finds:

• Currently, 123 members of the 118th Congress are climate deniers.
• Among the 90 newly elected or appointed members of the 118th Congress, 18 are climate deniers.³
• The climate deniers in the current Congress have received $52,071,133 in lifetime campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry.
• The number of outright climate deniers in Congress continues a downward trend from 150 in the 116th Congress, 139 in the 117th, and now, 123 in the 118th Congress.⁴
• There are still prominent instances of outright climate denial, including from the majority leader in the house, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA). When asked what the GOP is doing to combat climate change, Rep. Scalise responded: “We’ve had freezing periods in the 1970s. They said it was going to be a new cooling period. And now it gets warmer and gets colder, and that’s called Mother Nature. But the idea that hurricanes or wildfires were caused just in the last few years is just fallacy.”⁵

Some members of Congress have shifted from outright climate denial to other rhetorical tactics. Examples include redirecting responsibility for addressing the climate crisis, such as deferring U.S. actions to reduce greenhouse emissions until other countries act first; portraying climate activism as alarmism; or spreading misinformation.

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Meanwhile, as warming keeps ratcheting up, the chasm between rhetoric an observed reality gets more jarring, especially in some vulnerable but very conservative regions.

Guardian:

Pop quiz time: Which US state is the most vulnerable to climate-fueled weather disasters and soaring home-insurance costs but is also growing rapidly and has a government hostile to the very concept of climate change? The most obvious answer is Florida, with its hurricanes and floods and anti-woke, stunt-loving governor. The correct answer, however, is Texas.

No other state has suffered more climate-related damage over the past several decades than the Lone Star State — not even Florida, California or Louisiana. Home-insurance costs rose more in Texasthan in any other state last year and over the past five years, according to S&P Global. And though Governor Ron DeSantis has outlawed the mention of climate change in Florida, Texas’ aggressive pro-global-warming policies have real teeth and will continue to do real harm. Especially to Texas.
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In fact, Texas tops every other state in damages because of billion-dollar weather disasters since 1980, according to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. Through early June, it had suffered more than $417 billion in losses because of such events since NOAA records begin, topping Florida’s $398 billion, Louisiana’s $311 billion and California’s $154 billion.

The costs are starting to be borne by Texas homeowners, including the millions who have moved into the state in recent years, seeking cheaper living. Nearly half a million people became Texans in 2023 alone, according to the Census Bureau, the biggest gain in the country and third-biggest in percentage terms. That same year, Texas suffered 11 separate billion-dollar disasters. Its home-insurance premiums soared 23%, the biggest increase in the country. Median local property taxes had risen by more than $1,000since 2019, again leading the US. 

No surprise, then, that mortgage foreclosures are soaring in Texas. Houston’s foreclosure rates jumped 37% in the first quarter from a year earlier, Bloomberg News reported, the highest among metro regions in the country, including several in Florida.

This is the kind of brewing crisis that should get government leaders looking for solutions. Instead, Texas’ leaders have dedicated most of their energy to not only denying the reality of climate change but fighting efforts to address it. The legislature and Governor Greg Abbott have passed laws keeping state money out of investment funds that they claim “boycott” fossil fuels. They deny business to banks deemed insufficiently helpful to the oil-and-gas industry. They intervene in the power market to favor natural gas. They have tried to hobble their own state’s booming renewable-energy sector. They even made it illegal for local officials to protect workers from extreme heat.