When then-NASA climate scientist James Hansen delivered his landmark testimony to the U. S. Senate in 1988, declaring that human-caused global warming had likely already begun, he thrust climate change onto the national stage. Various actors with diverse, and often conflicting, approaches to climate change—from promoting policies to reduce carbon emissions to opposing them—began attempting to shape the understanding of climate change among policy-makers and the public, with the goal of defining what constituted appropriate policy responses. In the ensuing political struggles, efforts to ameliorate climate change have encountered substantial social inertia in the form of cultural, institutional, and individual resistance to act on climate change. As a result, major efforts to reduce carbon emissions from national legislation (e.g., the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009) to international treaties (e.g., the 1997 Kyoto Protocol), have consistently failed to be enacted or ratified by Congress for a quarter of a century.
The small but growing number of sociologists and other social scientists studying the causes of this inertia have found that a primary (but not sole) contributing force has been the large-scale, organized effort to oppose the emissions-reduction measures that quickly became the climate change countermovement (CCCM). Launched and still most active in the U.S., the CCCM has taken root in other Anglo nations with histories of powerful fossil fuel industries—such as Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom—and has diffused internationally primarily via networks of conservative think tanks. This countermovement, grounded in corporate interests seeking to maintain a fossil-fuel-based energy system and its economic benefits and augmented by a range of neoliberal ideological interests that are opposed to government regulations, is waging concerted opposition to restrictions on carbon emissions.
A commonly used tactic employed by these obstructive actors has been to deny the seriousness of anthropogenic climate change by manufacturing uncertainty regarding scientific evidence, attacking climate scientists, and portraying climate science writ large as a controversial field—all of which are designed to undercut the perceived need for climate change policies. Early on, several conservative think tanks opposed to government regulatory action, often assisted by a small number of contrarian scientists, joined fossil fuel corporations in generating scientific misinformation about climate change. This information was then spread, and continues to be spread, by conservative media, sympathetic politicians and other actors. See Jeremiah Bohr’s article “The Structure and Culture of Climate Change Denial” in this issue of Footnotes for more information on climate change denial.
More recent scholarship aimed at understanding the forces that have thus far blocked effective efforts to reduce carbon emissions has broadened, focusing on funding sources for think tanks espousing denial and the larger network of actors involved in promoting climate change misinformation in which the think tanks and their funding sources are embedded. Further research has shown that the promotion of scientific misinformation is only part of a much larger, integrated effort to develop and promulgate a consistent ideological message praising and defending fossil fuel use that is then used to pressure decision makers to limit efforts to reduce carbon emissions.
From the beginning of organized opposition to climate change action, coordinated information and influence campaigns, typically designed by advertising firms, have been widely used by corporations, trade associations, and advocacy organizations to achieve their political objectives—through either direct persuasion or generation of political pressure to influence the decision-making process. This organizational strategy employs sophisticated public relations campaigns to simulate the appearance of a unified front that comprises diverse voices advocating for a uniform position. This perception is reinforced through the use of different communication strategies to reach various audiences, from members of Congress and presidential administrations to influential media figures and the public at large.
The rapidly growing body of sociological (and related) research reveals much about the major actors in the CCCM who are responsible for obstructing efforts to mitigate climate change, including their interrelationships and the strategies and tactics they employ. The figure “The Structure of Obstruction” shows the locations of these actors and their relationships in the CCCM “ecosystem”—an ecosystem that works to limit climate change policy outcomes to those that do not require the major, near-term transitions that are needed to impact the course of climate change. The following is a descriptive list of the key actors.
1. Corporations. Since the early 1990s, individual corporations, especially fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil, have engaged in efforts to obstruct climate action. These efforts include a wide range of activities, such as funding major misinformation campaigns and large-scale corporate promotional advertising efforts, along with traditional lobbying and political campaign contributions.
2. Conservative foundations. Several foundations—many funded by individual families, such as the Kochs—have provided major funding to neoliberal think tanks that produce and disseminate climate change misinformation, challenging the need for government action. Recent research has shown that think tanks receiving foundation funding receive more attention in media and policy-making circles than think tanks not receiving such funding. In turn, key funders support think tanks that appear frequently in major media outlets, thus allowing these foundations to join corporations in shaping public and elite understanding of climate change.
3. Individuals. The CCCM often uses corporate employees, and sometimes paid actors, when staging events in support of fossil fuels. However, some individuals have enormous influence on their own, such as Charles and the late David Koch. While Koch family affiliated foundations have played central roles in funding other actors, the brothers’ personal and corporate networks provide numerous additional avenues of influence on policy issues such as energy and climate change. A large number of other individuals are influential in obstructing climate change action, including Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK).
4. Advocacy coalitions. Corporations and trade associations from industry sectors facing threats of government regulation have banded together to form numerous advocacy coalitions. These coalitions consolidate resources and engage in collective lobbying and public persuasion efforts to stop or slow regulatory action on climate change. Examples include the Global Climate Coalition, the Alliance for Energy and Economic Growth, and the Coalition for Vehicle Choice. Corporations have long sought to hide their anti-environmental actions from the media and the public, and a crucial strategy is to use coalitions to do their “dirty work.”
5. Advertising firms. With the rise in concern over global climate change, advertising firms have been hired by fossil fuel interests to develop comprehensive public relations campaigns to both promote a positive public image for these interests as well as to oppose climate change mitigation, including designing campaigns against proposed legislation. These firms have contributed to corporate America’s oppositional messages—which have received far more attention in mainstream media than pro-action messages from climate advocacy groups, thus playing a vital role in obstructing climate change policy-making.
6. Front groups/astroturf campaigns. Front groups are created by corporate actors for specific and sometimes short-term purposes, such as the now-defunct Greening Earth Society, which was set up in 1998 to promote the idea that carbon dioxide is good for the environment. These groups are found both at the national level and in more regional settings, such as oil and coal regions, to combat critics of fossil fuels. One tactic is to use “astroturf” campaigns, which are industry-funded efforts designed to appear as grassroots protests by workers and citizens against efforts to limit use of fossil fuels. The 2009 “Energy Citizens” rallies, coordinated by the American Petroleum Institute and designed to look like spontaneous protests by oil workers and regular citizens against pending climate change legislation, is a prominent example.
7. Trade associations. Trade associations serve as mechanisms for corporations in similar industrial sectors to pursue collective political strategies by acting as command centers that help individual corporations pool resources, share information, and act as a collective political force. Trade associations also engage in extensive sector promotional campaigns to protect and enhance the image of the corporate sector that they represent, akin to front groups. Major associations involved in climate change obstruction include the American Petroleum Institute and the National Mining Association, as well as multi-sector associations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
8. Conservative think tanks. As previously noted, by the early 1990s many conservative think tanks had begun producing and disseminating climate change misinformation intended to sow doubt and confusion about global warming and the need to reduce carbon emissions. Global networks of think tanks also played a key role in diffusing denial internationally. Besides issuing press releases, policy reports, and books, their spokespersons have written op-eds, testified in congressional hearings, and given radio and television interviews. Examples of these think tanks include The Heritage Foundation, Heartland Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, and the CATO Institute.
9. Universities. A few universities house contrarian scientists, and several have faculty who work with local and regional fossil fuels interests, producing reports that endorse practices like fracking. More generally, major oil companies such as ExxonMobil, Shell, and Chevron Corporation fund large energy research programs at major universities (e.g., Harvard University, Stanford University, and MIT) over which they have considerable influence, leading these programs to take industry-friendly approaches to climate change.
10. Contrarian scientists. A number of contrarian scientists, some with expertise relevant to climate science but many with PhDs in unrelated fields, aid denial and obstruction efforts by challenging mainstream scientists’ findings and consensus views of climate change, such as by publishing petitions. While some contrarian scientists are academics, several leading contrarians are associated with conservative think tanks and/or host blogs enabling them to reach large audiences. Despite their modest credentials—as determined by the number of journal articles on climate change they’ve published—they receive a disproportionate amount of media coverage relative to mainstream climate scientists.
11. Lobbying firms. There is an extensive and well-funded lobbying effort to prevent legislative action on climate change. Outspending renewable energy corporations and environmental groups by a ratio of 10 to 1, fossil fuel interests have an overwhelming advantage in the crucial strategy of lobbying members of Congress.
12. Campaign funding/PACs. Corporations have been increasingly funding political action committees as a way of impacting climate change legislation. Research has shown that targeted political action committee funding significantly decreases the odds that candidates will take pro-climate stances. These political action committees have emerged as significant actors in shaping political discourse and potential legislation on climate change.
13. Conservative media and denial bloggers. Conservative media, including talk radio, FOX News Network, conservative newspapers, and widely circulated columnists, have become major amplifiers of climate change misinformation. Users of these media show significantly lower levels of concern than individuals who didn’t use those media outlets about climate change. The growth of the blogosphere in the 2000s opened new opportunities to create and disseminate climate change misinformation, and numerous ‘skeptic’ (as they call themselves) blogs and websites began to appear. A variety of social media and online outlets are also tools in the diffusion of climate change denial, such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and user comment sections of online news services.
14. Republican politicians. The GOP’s long-term embrace of anti-regulatory ideology, supplemented by heavy funding from fossil fuel interests and its recent embrace of scientific misinformation, has turned it into a major force of obstruction. Republicans in Congress frequently attack climate scientists and science. When controlling the U.S. House of Representatives and/or the U.S. Senate, they hold hearings stacked with contrarians and other leading deniers and block efforts to curb fossil fuel use. The George W. Bush and Trump administrations, especially the later, took extraordinary steps to undermine climate science and block regulatory action.
Thanks in large part to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)—for years the leading advocate for climate change mitigation in Congress—the sociological research on climate change obstruction outlined above is being used increasingly in policy arenas. It is referred to in congressional speeches and hearings, and now, with Democrats controlling both houses of Congress, it is informing congressional investigations into those responsible for climate change obstruction. This body of knowledge also receives a good deal of media attention via coverage of key studies and interviews with their authors (often in major outlets like The New York Times).
Sociological research and outreach on climate change policy obstruction has become public sociology. Exposing those responsible for climate change policy obstruction can help inoculate the public and policy-makers against their tactics, a crucial step if we are going to be able to deal effectively with the existential threat posed by climate change. Sociology has much to contribute to understanding and surviving the “climate crisis,” and shining light on policy obstruction seems especially important. We urge fellow sociologists, especially the newer generation, to join in this endeavor.
Any opinions expressed in the articles in this publication are those of the authors and not the American Sociological Association.
