Thanks to a recent poll from ABC News and the Washington Post, we know that nearly two-thirds of American adults think global warming is “a serious problem facing the country.”

And now, thanks to a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change (full study available at this link), we know exactly how many people are out there taking money from dirty energy interests to try and confuse Americans about climate changeto derail overdue action and protect the fossil fuel industries' profits.

Justin Farrell, a professor of sociology at Yale’s School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and the author of the report, studied both the institutional and social network structure of the climate denier movement and found that there are some 4,556 individuals with ties to 164 organizations that are involved in pushing anti-climate science views on the public.

“The individuals in this bipartite network include interlocking board members, as well as many more informal and overlapping social, political, economic and scientific ties,” Farrell wrote in the report. “The organizations include a complex network of think tanks, foundations, public relations firms, trade associations, and ad hoc groups.”

Farrell notes that while funding from ExxonMobil and the Koch family foundations have notoriously played a part in building the climate denial movement, there was very little empirical evidence demonstrating exactly how much influence these corporate benefactors had on the actual output of climate deniers and, in turn, how much they affected what politicians and other decisionmakers were saying about climate change.

So Farrell studied all of the written and verbal texts relating to climate change produced between 1993 and 2013 by climate denial organizations (40,785 documents comprising nearly 40 million words), as well as any mention of global warming and climate science by three major news channels (14,943 documents), every US president (1,930 documents) and the US Congress (7,786 documents).

He focused on Exxon and the Koch Brothers’ family foundations because, he writes, they are “reliable indicators of a much larger effort of corporate lobbying in the climate change counter-movement."

What Farrell found was that organizations taking funds from “elite” corporate funders of climate denial like Exxon and the Koch Brothers — groups like the CATO Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the Heartland Institute — “have greater influence over flows of resources, communication, and the production of contrarian information” than other denial groups.

After performing a sophisticated semantic analysis, Farrell was able to show that climate denial organizations with ties to those two major funders were more successful at getting their viewpoint echoed in national news media. Presidential speeches and debate on the floor of Congress showed less of an impact.

According to Bloomberg, Robert Brulle, a sociology professor at Drexel University who has conducted similar research but was not involved in the Nature Climate Change study, said that Farrell’s findings beg a very obvious question:

"Why is the media picking up and promulgating the central themes of climate misinformation?”  

That is very similar to the questions posed by DeSmog's executive director Brendan DeMelle in his coverage of Justin Farrell's other recent study on this issue: Research Confirms ExxonMobil, Koch-funded Climate Denial Echo Chamber Polluted Mainstream Media. DeMelle listed three questions for media outlets to ponder: 

Will this study, published in a highly authoritative journal, finally compel the newsrooms and boardrooms of the traditional media to take responsibility to undo some of the damage done by their complicity in spreading fossil fuel industry-funded misinformation?

Will false balance — quoting a distinguished climate scientist and then speed-dialing Pat Michaels at the Cato Institute for an opposing quote — finally stop?

Will editors commit to serving as referees to ensure the same industry PR pollution isn’t published any longer?

Image credit: P.WOLMUTH/REPORT DIGITAL-REA/Redux

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Canada ranks among the world’s countries least likely to agree that climate change is a result of human activity, according to recently released Ipsos MORI research. The study, “Global Trends 2014,” posed a number of survey questions to individuals in 20 countries and discovered agreement with climate science is lowest in the U.S., Great Britain, Australia, Russia, Poland, Japan and Canada, respectively.

Agreement with climate science was highest in China, of all the countries surveyed, a fact that Ben Page, chief executive of Ipsos MORI, attributes to high environmental concerns in China as a result of alarming environmental pollution in the country. “In many surveys in China, environment is top concern,” he said. “In contrast, in the west, it’s a long way down the list behind the economy and crime.”

Science and political journalist Chris Mooney, points out the survey results show an interesting correlation between climate denial or skepticism and speaking English.

He writes: “Not only is the United States clearly the worst in its climate denial, but Great Britain and Australia are second and third worst, respectively. Canada, meanwhile is the seventh worst. What do these four nations have in common? They all speak the language of Shakespeare.”

Mooney outlines two possible explanations for the pattern: political ideology and media ownership.

Ipsos MORI, Global Trends 2014.

Sowing seeds of climate denial

A recent study published in Climatic Change showed the U.S. hosts a surprisingly high number of organizations that actively deny or dispute climate science.

This “climate change counter-movement” is comprised of 91 different groups including oil and gas-funded think tanks like the Heartland Institute (which hosts the world’s most established climate denial conference each year), astro-turf groups, and trade associations like the Chamber of Commerce.

In total, these groups bring in more than $900 million each year, some of which is used to cast doubt on the science of climate change.

Naomi Oreskes, history professor at Harvard and author of Merchants of Doubt, a book outlining the history, strategies and organizations behind climate denial, says denier groups are winning in the U.S. and beyond.

In her book, Oreskes made a strong connection between the individuals, groups and ideologies behind the attack on not only climate science, but also the research linking tobacco to cancer, pollution and acid rain and the role CFCs played in creating the ozone hole.

Even after ‘outing’ these groups and their tactics, Oreskes recently told The Guardian things haven’t really changed.

“There are some new faces on the horizon, but recruiting ‘fresh voices’ has been a tactic for a long time. So even the things that may look new are in fact old,” she said.

“The Heartland Institute has become more visible, and the George Marshall Institute a bit less, but the overall picture continues: these groups continue to dismiss or disparage the science, attack scientists, and sow doubt.”

“They continue to try to block action by confusing us about the facts. And the arguments, the tactics, and the overall strategy has remained the same. And, they’ve been extremely successful. CO2 has reached 400 ppm, meaningful action is still not in sight, and people who really understand the science – understand what is at stake – are getting worried.”

Recently in Canada, long-time skeptic group Friends of Science bought billboard space in Calgary to display posters claiming global warming is due to the sun, rather than human activity like deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels (as the majority of the world’s scientists agree).

As Oreskes points out, politicians have done the public a disservice by parroting climate skeptic lines, or linking back to anti-science organizations like the Cato Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute or the Heritage Foundation.

Last month the Prime Ministers of both Canada and Australia publicly announced their countries wouldn’t take steps to prevent climate change at any cost to the economy. Both Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Prime Minister Tony Abbott disparaged the carbon tax.

Weeks later, Abbott announced Australia would repeal the carbon tax.

Media does matter 

The media, as DeSmog Canada pointed out after Harper and Abbott’s meeting, is no help in the matter. Harper’s suggested conflict between the environment and economy, for example, was met with zero pushback in traditional Canadian media coverage.

And the English-speaking world, as Mooney points out, is at a particular disadvantage with major media outlets linked together by Rupert Murdoch, a media magnate with an apparent tendency towards climate skepticism.

Canada, the U.S., the U.K. and Australia are all home to Murdoch-owned news outlets NewsCorp and 21st Century Fox.

Mooney writes:

In the US, Fox News and the Wall Street Journal lead the way; research shows that Fox watching increases distrust of climate scientists. (You can also catch Fox News in Canada.) In Australia, a recent study found that slightly under a third of climate-related articles in 10 top Australian newspapers "did not accept" the scientific consensus on climate change, and that News Corp papers—the Australian, the Herald Sun, and the Daily Telegraph—were particular hotbeds of skepticism. "The Australian represents climate science as matter of opinion or debate rather than as a field for inquiry and investigation like all scientific fields," noted the study.

And then there's the UK. A 2010 academic study found that while News Corp outlets in this country from 1997 to 2007 did not produce as much strident climate skepticism as did their counterparts in the US and Australia, "the Sun newspaper offered a place for scornful skeptics on its opinion pages as did The Times and Sunday Times to a lesser extent." (There are also other outlets in the UK, such as the Daily Mail, that feature plenty of skepticism but aren't owned by News Corp.)

Mistrust runs deeper than climate

Although Canada is among the surveyed nations least likely to agree climate change is the result of human activity, Canadians still expressed some concern over the environment.

Canadians largely agreed (79 per cent) that companies do not pay enough attention to the environment and agreed (66.9 per cent) that society at large needs to change its bad habits if we are to avoid evironmental disaster.

Ipsos MORI, Global Trends 2014.

Ipsos MORI, Global Trends 2014.

Yet Canadians along with many other nationalities expressed concern that governments are using environmental issues to raise taxes. Canadians were also basically split over the issue of whether scientists really even know what they’re talking about when it comes to the environment.

Ipsos MORI, Global Trends 2014.

Ipsos MORI, Global Trends 2014.

And interestingly the majority of Canadians report being okay with the "fuss" being made about the environment. The only countries that did express this majority green-fatigue were Brazil, India and Poland.*

Ipsos MORI, Global Trends 2014.

The general problem of fatigue and mistrust is something scientists, policy-makers, environmental advocates and climate change communicators are growing more aware of.

Recent research from the Environics Institute shows the majority of Canadians, although convinced of man-made climate change, are not convinced governments will do anything about it. In this situation Canadians believe governments bear the responsibility for taking climate action but – for political or ideological reasons – will not. If Canada’s absence of climate legislation is any indicator, Canadians have every reason to retain their skepticism about the current federal government’s climate capabilities.

Without a government prepared to make meaningful progress when it comes to emissions and fossil fuel consumption, society really finds itself between a rock and a…hot place.

*An earlier version of this post stated the majority of Canadians were 'tired of the fuss' but has since been corrected.

Image Credit: Prime Minister Stephen Harper attends the Calgary Stampede from the Prime Minister of Canada press gallery.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.