Many issues that are settled in the scientific community, such as human responsibility for climate change, remain the subject of politically or economically motivated attempts to downplay, dismiss or deny them—an ideological phenomenon academics and scientists call climate change denial. Climate scientists, especially in the United States, have reported government and oil-industry pressure to censor or suppress their work and hide scientific data, with directives not to discuss the subject publicly. The fossil fuels lobby has been identified as overtly or covertly supporting efforts to undermine or discredit the scientific consensus on climate change.[11][12]
Industrial, political and ideological interests organize activity to undermine public trust in climate science.[13][14][15][8]: 691–698 Climate change denial has been associated with the fossil fuels lobby, the Koch brothers, industry advocates, ultraconservative think tanks, and ultraconservative alternative media, often in the U.S.[10]: 351 [16][8] More than 90% of papers that are skeptical of climate change originate from right-wing think tanks.[17] Climate change denial is undermining efforts to act on or adapt to climate change, and exerts a powerful influence on the politics of climate change.[15][8]: 691–698
In the 1970s, oil companies published research that broadly concurred with the scientific community's view on climate change. Since then, for several decades, oil companies have been organizing a widespread and systematic climate change denial campaign to seed public disinformation, a strategy that has been compared to the tobacco industry's organized denial of the hazards of tobacco smoking. Some of the campaigns are even carried out by the same people who previously spread the tobacco industry's denialist propaganda.[18][19][20]
^National Center for Science Education (4 June 2010). "Climate change is good science". National Center for Science Education. Archived from the original on 24 April 2016. Retrieved 21 June 2015.
^Hoggan, James; Littlemore, Richard (2009). Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming. Vancouver: Greystone Books. ISBN978-1-55365-485-8. Archived from the original on 30 June 2021. Retrieved 19 March 2010. See, e.g., pp. 31 ff, describing industry-based advocacy strategies in the context of climate change denial, and p73 ff, describing involvement of free-market think tanks in climate-change denial.