The old denialism denied the reality of climate change. Funded by the fossil fuel industry it spouted disinformation and lies and fostered doubt. It changed climate change from an objectively observable fact into a political “opinion”.1
The old denialism is dead. Not even the fossil fuel industry denies climate change anymore.2 A new denialism has replaced it, however.
The new denialism doesn’t deny climate change. In the contrary, it emphatically affirms it. The new denialism doesn’t deny that climate change is a serious problem either – it admits that too. What the new denialists deny is how big the crisis really is. According to the new denialists, our ways of life don’t really have to change. Sure, we’ll have to switch to green energy and make some other adaptations, but we really don’t have to worry that much. Everything will be fine. Scientists, politicians, and corporations will fix it.
The biggest enemy of the new denialists are people warning for the real seriousness of our situation, people arguing that very fundamental changes are necessary if we want to avoid total collapse, people warning for tipping points being crossed, people warning that carbon neutrality by 2050 isn’t nearly enough (and isn’t realistically possible anyway), people saying that widespread collapse of human civilization is a real possibility (or even unavoidable) unless we make very drastic changes right now. For the new denialists, such people are “doomists”. They are the new denialists’ biggest enemy because these so-called “doomists” threaten the status quo.
The new denialism denies the necessity of real change. The new denialism denies that we are heading for a climate change disaster of apocalyptic proportion (regardless of whether that still can be prevented or not). The new denialism denies the seriousness of our situation.
The old denialism is dead. The new denialism is still alive. Michael Mann, one of the most distinguished climate scientists, is probably the most outspoken new denialist. But whatever credibility the new denialism still had is quickly falling apart. This week’s leak of the new IPCC report shows that even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is by its nature very cautious and conservative, is now warning for irreversible tipping points and drastic change. “Life on Earth can recover from a drastic climate shift by evolving into new species and creating new ecosystems,” they write in the report, but “humans cannot”.3
Most likely, the new denialist response will be that the report says nothing new, that they were claiming that climate change is serious all along, but that we can still prevent real disaster, and that the “doomists” who claim we can’t are the real problem.
Like the old denialists, the new denialists spread misinformation and lies. Very few of the people they call “doomists” actually claim that climate catastrophe such a widespread societal collapse is – strictly speaking – unavoidable. Typically they hold that it can in principle still be prevented if we make very drastic changes right now. What sets the so-called “doomists” apart from the new denialists is not that they claim that the collapse of human civilization is unavoidable, but that they claim that we are not making those necessary changes and that we are quickly running out of time. Contrary to the new denialists, the so-called “doomists” don’t deny the gravity of our situation, and because of that, they demand real change right now. In other words, the so-called “doomists” are revolutionaries and that is why the new denialists consider them the enemy – the so-called “doomists” threaten the status quo.
The new denialists, then, are very much like the old denialists: they deny important aspects of climate change, because accepting those would imply that solving the problem requires bigger changes than they are willing to accept. And to prevent that, they spread misinformation and lies, and try to marginalize the people who demand a future and the drastic changes necessary to make sure that we and our children actually have one. It is unfortunate that a climate scientist of Michael Mann’s caliber has chosen to align himself with this new denialism, but he is by no means the only one.
What the leaked IPCC report makes clear more than anything is that the new denialists are on the wrong side of history. Their gaslighting is as nefarious as that of the old denialists and just as dangerous. Their disinformation and lies feeds doubt and reinforces the idea that the situation really isn’t that bad, that we still have plenty of time to fix it, that we don’t really have to worry. And because of that, virtually no effort has been made yet in reducing CO₂ emissions. Of course, plenty of solar cells are being installed and wind mills are being built (albeit not nearly enough), but our energy consumption keeps growing faster, and consequently, these efforts have thus far been cosmetic mainly. We’re not doing anything substantial to prevent catastrophe, and “thanks” to the new denialists and their continuous disparaging of the people who stress the urgency of real change this is not likely to change soon (and thus, not in time).
The new denialism is killing us.
addendum
(March 1, 2024) — Recently, the term “new denial” has been used by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) in a report that claims that “climate deniers have shifted to a New Denial of climate impacts, solutions and advocates”. This shift from “old denial” to “new denial” is characterized by a shift from typical “old denial” claims like:
• “global warming is not happening”, and
• “human-generated greenhouse gasses are not causing global warming”
to typical “new denial” claims like:
• “the impacts of global warming are beneficial or harmless”,
• “climate solutions won’t work”, and
• “climate science and the climate movement are unreliable”.
The CCDH report that “New Denial constitutes 70% of denialist claims in 2023, up from 35% in 2018” and that “this is driven by attacks on climate solutions, scientists and the climate movement”.
The CCDH report focuses on the output of known “old deniers” who have changed their tune to “new denial”, but in most coverage of the report that I have seen, the term “new denial” is used a bit looser, although that looseness is still very much in line with the report. One thing that should be obvious is that what the CCDH and similar voices – let’s call them “the Anti-Doomers” – call “new denial” has little to do with what I called “new denialism” above. In fact, their use of the term is almost the opposite to mine. The sentiment underlying the report is one of compliance and uncritical acceptance of authority. If you don’t believe that the climate crisis will be fixed (i.e., that the scientific, political, economic, etc. authorities will fix it for us, or in other words, that they will fix it), then you are guilty of “new denial” in the eyes of the Anti-Doomers, which means that – in their opinion – you should be censored. If you don’t believe that carbon capture can work, or at least not to the extent required, then that’s “new denial”. If you don’t believe that green energy sources will be enough to save us from disaster, that’s “new denial”. If you don’t believe that we can avoid widespread collapse without fundamental system change, but that no such change is forthcoming, then that’s “new denial”. Basically, if you don’t accept the mainstream story line that things are bad, but that they can and will be fixed, so there really isn’t all that much to worry about as long as you drive an EV and separate your trash, then you are guilty of “new denial”. Or in other words, if you don’t accept the view that I called “new denialism” above, then you are a “new denier” according to the Anti-Doomers.
What lies behind this absurdity is a bias that identifies all kinds of “doomism” (broadly understood) with one specific variety thereof. That specific variety is the cynical doomism that has indeed pretty much replaced “old denialism”. Cynical doomism is the kind of doomism promoted by the fossil fuel industry and its many (!) allies. It is the view that we are doomed, that’s there isn’t anything we can do about it, and therefore, that there is no reason to invest in green technology, to implement environmental policies, and so forth. It is a kind of fatalism that promotes inaction. Such cynical doomism is very, very different from what could be called “radical doomism”, which holds that avoiding widespread societal collapse (or something similarly disastrous) would require very fast and very radical change including system change (i.e., mere technological solutions are not enough), but which also holds that there won’t be such change, or not in time to avoid catastrophe at least. This kind of radical doomism does not advocate inaction – in the contrary, it advocates (and even demands) radical action, much more radical action, in fact, than what more mainstream positions are willing to consider.
By putting these two very different kinds of “doomism” in one box, the Anti-Doomers identify radical views with their polar opposite. They identify views that demand radical change with conservative views that reject all change (because those “conservatives” profit from the status quo). This is deeply problematic because the cynical doomism of these “conservative” views is deeply cynical indeed. It is not a genuine view (or not a coherent or well-founded view, at least), but nothing but an attempt to sow doubt and distrust and to undermine science, with the ultimate goal of preventing any kind of change that could endanger the profits of the fossil fuel industry and its allies (such as the financial industry, which has become increasingly entangled with the fossil fuels industry). By identifying radical doomism with this cynical and destructive anti-view, the Anti-Doomers (either intentionally or unintentionally) (try to) de-legitimize radical views on the climate crisis. Thanks to their propaganda, demanding radical change now makes you a suspect, more specifically, it makes you a suspected ally of the fossil fuel industry (etc.), it makes you a suspected ally of your biggest enemy…
The Anti-Doomers object to what they call “new denial” because it promotes inaction. Coincidentally (?), I also object to what I call “new denialism” (see above) because it promotes inaction. The complacent acceptance of the mainstream view that they will fix it (i.e., “new denialism” in my usage of that term) promotes the belief that I don’t have to do anything, that no radical change is necessary, and that I can just watch from the sidelines, filled with hope and optimism. Hope is the optimistic illusion that they will fix it. (That is how I always interpreted the despicable term “hopium”, by the way: hope as a drug that leads complacency and inaction.) The Anti-Doomers, then, demand “new denialism” (in my sense of the term), and even want to censor or outlaw dissenting views (which they call “new denial”).
What the Anti-Doomers call “new denial” includes not just the cynical doomism of the fossil fuel industry and its allies, but also a denial of complacency, a denial of optimistic hope, a denial of acceptance of authority and the status quo, and a denial of radical views that demand real change. I’m certainly “guilty” of those kinds of denial, and so are many others, but that doesn’t mean that we are somehow allies of the fossil fuel industry and other who profit from the status quo (or even that it makes sense to put us in the same box). Rather in the contrary, it’s those who try to undermine the demand for real change who are the allies of those who profit from the status quo. The Anti-Doomers are a bigger asset of the fossil fuel industry than a substantial segment of what they call “new denial”.
I am guilty of denying that complacent hope will lead us anywhere. I am guilty of denying that green capitalism is possible. I am even guilty of denying that civilization as we know it is likely to survive the 21st century. Perhaps, that makes me a doomist, but if I’m a doomist, then I am a radical doomist (and certainly not a cynical doomist!). What I most certainly am not, on the other hand, is a denialist, either “old” or “new”, and calling me one is either blatant ignorance or cynical deception.
(For more about the necessity of radical change, see: The Lesser Dystopia and Capitalism and Climate Collapse.)
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Notes
- Imagine that “believing” in gravity would be considered a political opinion. That’s obviously absurd, but the same is true for “believing” in climate change.
- But many right-wing extremists and the disinformed fools that support them still do, unfortunately.
- Quoted in the Guardian article about the report.