Research Reveals Almost All Climate Science Denial Books Linked to Conservative Think Tanks
If you haven't seen them on the television or come across their interviews on the radio or in newspapers and magazines, then you've almost certainly seen their work as your eyes scan the climate change section in your local book store or library.
They are the authors of books claiming to reveal the "real truth" about global warming and climate change - that it's either all a hoax, that it's overblown bad science from green ideologues or an elaborate illusion and wrongheaded nonsense.
You might have been intrigued by titles like An Appeal To Reason: A Cool Look At Global Warming, The Climate Caper or the subtle sledgehammer that was Global Warming and Other Bollocks.
But new research into the origins and authors of more than 100 of these climate science denial books finds almost all of them - about four out of five - are largely the products of conservative-leaning think tanks.
The research finds the books avoid traditional academic peer-review and are often written by non-experts. Dr Riley Dunlap, of Oklahoma State University, and Peter Jacques, of the University of Central Florida, have published their research - Climate Change Denial Books and Conservative Think Tanks: Exploring the Connection - in the journal American Behavioural Scientist.
Sponsoring books "espousing climate change denial" has been a key tool for conservative think tanks to get the climate science denial message out to corporations, politicians and media leaders.
Getting a book published helps authors to be seen as 'climate experts' even if they don't have the relevant academic expertise. They get interviewed and quoted by mainstream media and name-dropped by conservative politicians and corporate bosses. "Books confer a sense of legitimacy on their authors and provide them an effective tool for combating findings of climate scientists," the researchers say.
The study covers the publication of 108 books between 1982 and 2010. To qualify as a denial book, the authors had to either reject the position that global warming was happening, that it was caused by humans or that the impacts on society and the environment would be negative. When the researchers looked at the qualifications of the 106 authors, co-authors or editors of the books, they found less than 40 per cent had anything close to a relevant academic degree. None of the books were published by a university-affiliated publishing house and almost all were unlikely to have gone through any kind of academic peer-review.
The very first climate denial book, according to the study, was Sherwood Idso's Carbon Dioxide:Friend or Foe published in 1982, but there were no more denial books until 1989, at which point three or four were produced each year.
But in 2007, the number spiked to 13. In 2008, there were 14; 2009 got 21 and 2010 had 15. The authors put the sudden surge of denialism on the bookshelves down to Al Gore's 2006 film An Inconvenient Truth and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's fourth major report which laid the blame for global warming primarily with human causes.
Most of the books covered have US origins, but the study also shows how they have been used to promote climate science denial in other nations, in particular the UK, Canada and Australia.
While not covered in the research, many of the conservative think tanks involved have accepted cash from fossil fuel interests over the years, including the Competitive Enterprise Institute, The Cato Institute, George C. Marshall Institute, and The Heartland Institute. Others, such as the Institute of Public Affairs in Australia or the Global Warming Policy Foundation in the UK, have consistently refused to reveal their donors.
Dr. Dunlap told DeSmogBlog that it was hard to quantify accurately the impact the books had had on policy debates and the public perception of climate change science, but he said:
So what should readers do if they want to inform themselves on climate change? Dr. Dunlap has some advice:
If you haven't seen them on the television or come across their interviews on the radio or in newspapers and magazines, then you've almost certainly seen their work as your eyes scan the climate change section in your local book store or library.
They are the authors of books claiming to reveal the "real truth" about global warming and climate change - that it's either all a hoax, that it's overblown bad science from green ideologues or an elaborate illusion and wrongheaded nonsense.
You might have been intrigued by titles like An Appeal To Reason: A Cool Look At Global Warming, The Climate Caper or the subtle sledgehammer that was Global Warming and Other Bollocks.
But new research into the origins and authors of more than 100 of these climate science denial books finds almost all of them - about four out of five - are largely the products of conservative-leaning think tanks.
The research finds the books avoid traditional academic peer-review and are often written by non-experts. Dr Riley Dunlap, of Oklahoma State University, and Peter Jacques, of the University of Central Florida, have published their research - Climate Change Denial Books and Conservative Think Tanks: Exploring the Connection - in the journal American Behavioural Scientist.
Sponsoring books "espousing climate change denial" has been a key tool for conservative think tanks to get the climate science denial message out to corporations, politicians and media leaders.
Getting a book published helps authors to be seen as 'climate experts' even if they don't have the relevant academic expertise. They get interviewed and quoted by mainstream media and name-dropped by conservative politicians and corporate bosses. "Books confer a sense of legitimacy on their authors and provide them an effective tool for combating findings of climate scientists," the researchers say.
The study covers the publication of 108 books between 1982 and 2010. To qualify as a denial book, the authors had to either reject the position that global warming was happening, that it was caused by humans or that the impacts on society and the environment would be negative. When the researchers looked at the qualifications of the 106 authors, co-authors or editors of the books, they found less than 40 per cent had anything close to a relevant academic degree. None of the books were published by a university-affiliated publishing house and almost all were unlikely to have gone through any kind of academic peer-review.
The very first climate denial book, according to the study, was Sherwood Idso's Carbon Dioxide:Friend or Foe published in 1982, but there were no more denial books until 1989, at which point three or four were produced each year.
But in 2007, the number spiked to 13. In 2008, there were 14; 2009 got 21 and 2010 had 15. The authors put the sudden surge of denialism on the bookshelves down to Al Gore's 2006 film An Inconvenient Truth and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's fourth major report which laid the blame for global warming primarily with human causes.
Most of the books covered have US origins, but the study also shows how they have been used to promote climate science denial in other nations, in particular the UK, Canada and Australia.
While not covered in the research, many of the conservative think tanks involved have accepted cash from fossil fuel interests over the years, including the Competitive Enterprise Institute, The Cato Institute, George C. Marshall Institute, and The Heartland Institute. Others, such as the Institute of Public Affairs in Australia or the Global Warming Policy Foundation in the UK, have consistently refused to reveal their donors.
Dr. Dunlap told DeSmogBlog that it was hard to quantify accurately the impact the books had had on policy debates and the public perception of climate change science, but he said:
So what should readers do if they want to inform themselves on climate change? Dr. Dunlap has some advice:
