Compendium of the Authoritarian Nationalist Right: Pt 7: Anthropogenic Climate Change “Skeptics” (original) (raw)

Update: 5.30.20 Introductions and Disclaimers: this is a regularly updated compendium of sources intended to be of service to those who are committed to resisting and challenging the emergent authoritarianism fueled by the Trump administration, its benefactors, associates and allies. It includes a wide variety of organizations, names, and connections. It is a testimonial to free speech. Section Five is devoted exclusively to anthropogenic climate change “skeptics.” These fall into at least three, sometimes overlapping, classifications, distinguished by the belief that: • Climate change is not occurring, or that • While climate change is occurring, it’s not anthropogenic, and/or that • While climate change is occurring, it may or may not be anthropogenic. But whatever the case it’s good (or at least not potentially and catastrophically bad). I have avoided the controversy promoted by climate change skeptics (as a strategy for silencing dissent) that the language of “denial” is comparable to Holocaust denial. This is manifestly false, and the difference is plain as day: The Holocaust occurred, and is a fully-established historical event of incalculably horrific magnitude. That climate change is a “hoax,” or a conspiracy to compel the planet towards one-world dictatorship under a “Leftist” or “globalist” regime is demonstrably false. It is thus richly ironic that some of the climate change “skeptics” who’d make that absurd comparison are also some of the same mostly white, male, affluent, and politically powerful (or aspiring) names we find time and again among the ranks of the far right, including white nationalists, the Alt-Right, and so on. I’ll refer to climate change denial as “skepticism.” But let there be no confusion: climate change “skepticism” is simply a dog whistle for climate change denial, indeed, the selective denial of the legitimacy of science. Climate change “skepticism” is: • Closely, though not always, associated with the far right and its several analogues nationally and globally. For some good general sources see: o https://medium.com/@michaelbarnard\_46445/climate-change-denial-is-becoming-explicitly-racist-and-more-sexist-6929a772a0a8\. o https://www.dw.com/en/how-right-wing-nationalism-fuels-climate-denial/a-46699510\. o http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/03/climate-science-invites-liberal-solutions-or-fascist-ones.html. o https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/07/trump-climate-change-deniers-443533 o https://jewishcurrents.org/report/what-happens-when-alt-right-believes-climate-change/. o https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/what-happens-when-the-alt-right-starts-believing-in-climate-change/. o https://www.chalmers.se/en/departments/tme/news/Pages/Climate-change-denial-strongly-linked-to-right-wing-nationalism.aspx. o https://www.eurekalert.org/pub\_releases/2018-08/cuot-ccd082118.php. o https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/climate-deniers-are-more-likely-be-racist-obama-trump-climate-change. o https://nexusmedianews.com/racial-resentment-could-be-fueling-climate-denial-65d32fbeaa8e. o https://www.axios.com/fake-news-conspiracy-theories-science-pizzagate-flat-earth-d24e1e9e-764e-48af-8f23-c61636dba3c2.html. o https://cleantechnica.com/2017/12/10/conspiracy-theorists-climate-change-deniers-rejection-science/. o https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/02/scientists-for-trump/516033/.