How much time and credibility should be given to arguments that deny the reality of climate change without respecting the basic rules of debate?

Le Monde has investigated the arguments of the climate sceptics, compiling and classifying them, but above all verifying them with climate reports and scientific literature. Narratives denying the scientific consensus on climate change are gaining ground. Behind a pseudo-expert facade, their inconsistencies betray profound intellectual dishonesty. William Audureau discusses what is behind this climate scepticism.

Climate skepticism: The anatomy of bad faith

How much time and credibility should be given to arguments that deny the reality of climate change without respecting the basic rules of debate? Le Monde has investigated the arguments of the climate skeptics, compiling and classifying them, but above all verifying them with climate reports and scientific literature. Back in 2015, a series of articles examined the “denialist” tactics, which have not changed much. Today, as in the past, the task is proving to be a thankless and laborious one, with apparently scientific demonstrations masking the malicious use of flawed figures, obsolete theories and geological approximations.

This is what makes these arguments so dangerous. Who has the time to verify that a compelling graph on the sun’s temperature changes is actually based on data known to be incorrect for the past 20 years? That the concept of a “climatic optimum,” misleadingly presented as an ideal climate for humans, more neutrally corresponds to a period warmer than the previous one? Or that the tropical forests found at the North Pole, presented as evidence that the Earth is cooling, are actually from an era when the present-day Arctic was located in the tropics?

Dismantling the climate skeptic argument is a Sisyphean task. It adheres to Brandolini’s law, well known to observers of the disinformation world, which states that proving the absurdity of nonsense is much more time-consuming and energy-intensive than producing it.

It only takes a brief moment of sufficient ignorance to declare that in 2023, it snowed for the first time in Saudi Arabia, thus contradicting the catastrophist predictions on climate change. This is a claim that many detractors of science are quick to make. However, it takes real effort and an exploration of the meteorological history of the Arabian Peninsula to understand that snowy conditions are far from rare in its mountainous north and that their increasing frequency may well be linked to the disruption of polar air currents.

The ‘kettle logic’

However, it would be falling into the trap of climate skeptic rhetoric to merely dissect their arguments individually to expose their inaccuracies, inconsistencies and absurdities. We must step back and view the broader picture, and highlight what truly underlines its dishonesty: Their arguments are fundamentally incompatible with each other. The situation echoes the story of the “kettle logic,” a fallacy immortalized by Sigmund Freud. Accused of returning a borrowed kettle with a hole in it, a man denies borrowing it, claims it was already damaged when he received it and insists that he returned it in perfect condition. “Each separate protest is good by itself, but taken together they exclude each other,” observed the father of psychoanalysis in The Interpretation of Dreams.

The same applies to climate skeptics. A defender of the scientific consensus can simultaneously defend the idea that there is no global warming, that it stopped in 1998, that there is nothing abnormal about it on a planetary scale and that human activities are not the cause – all arguments that contradict each other. Yet, it is the same individuals and, on social media, the same accounts that indiscriminately spread these messages, sometimes within the same day.

However, unlike the fallacy mentioned by Freud, the anti-scientific rhetoric does not stem from wit or dream logic. Instead, it reflects a very conscious effort to undermine scientific consensus through any possible means. This, at least, is one of the hypotheses that naturally emerge. Today, certain actors hidden behind pseudonyms are spreading statements that exhibit sophistication and bad faith, suggesting an organized campaign of disinformation. There is no shortage of precedents, from the public opinion manipulation actions of the oil and gas industry’s environmental association, in the 1980s, to those of Chicago’s libertarian Heartland Institute in the early 2010s.

Contradictory discourses

Another possible explanation, not mutually exclusive, is that arguments conceived at different times have come together. The climate skeptic discourse of the 1980s tended to deny the reality of climate change, while today, faced with undeniable evidence, it seeks to challenge its anthropogenic origin, meaning its link to human activity. Instead of being replaced, these different arguments continue to circulate in parallel, like so many layers of smoke and mirrors, akin to Freud’s notion of the “kettle” – unstable and disordered.

Lastly, the climate skeptic audience has changed: As demonstrated by a study from the Jean Jaurès Foundation in late April, it is no longer just a fringe group of experts but rather citizens steeped in distrust, conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers and Vladimir Putin admirers. Conspiracy thinking, however, thrives on contradictory discourses. As a 2012 study revealed, those who believe that Princess Diana was murdered are the same individuals who believe she is still alive. Within the realm of dystopian thinking, conspiracy theorists lend more credence to two opposing counter-narratives than to any supposed official truth.

Climate change has become a collateral victim of this confusion. In a world where, by principle, scientific consensus is deemed a lie, it tragically becomes heroic to assert anything and everything.

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