Why do people doubt Climate Change?

Many people in the U.S. don’t think that Climate Change is happening, even though a vast amount of evidence shows that it is. Justin Farrell, at Yale University, looked into the reasons there is so much polarity on the subject. He examined two decades of public texts on the subject, and found that there are over 150 organizations that have something to lose is alternative sources of energy are promoted.

In looking at the data, he found that organizations with corporate funding were more likely to give out information that was meant to polarize that organizations with public funding. He also found that the corporate funding influenced the content, and lead to a digression from actual science.

In short, he suggests that contrarian efforts by some actors seeking to mislead the public have caused so much confusion that many Americans are no longer able to figure out who to listen to or believe. He suggests that his research also highlights the needed for more information dissemination from publicly funded sources to counter those that are backed by corporations.


Here are some links to actual scientific information on Climate Change and Global Warming.

  1. Climate change: How do we know? [NASA]
  2. Global Climate Change Indicators [NOAA]
  3. Evidence for Global Warming [Skeptical Science]
  4. Global Warming Science [Union of Concerned Scientists]
  5. Seven Answers to Climate Contrarian Nonsense [Scientific American]
  6. A globally coherent fingerprint of climate change impacts across natural systems [Nature]
  7. Ecological responses to recent climate change [Nature]
  8. Tropical Glacier and Ice Core Evidence of Climate Change on Annual to Millennial Time Scales
  9. Ice Core Evidence for Climate Change in the Tropics: Implications for our Future
  10. Modern Glacier Retreat on Kilimanjaro as Evidence for Climate Change: Observations and Facts
  11. Archaeological and palaeoecological indications of an abrupt climate change in The Netherlands, and evidence for climatological teleconnections around 2650 BP