Climate change denial is a form of science denial characterized by rejecting, refusing to acknowledge, disputing, or fighting the scientific consensus on climate change. Those promoting denial commonly use rhetorical tactics to give the appearance of a scientific controversy where there is none. Climate change denial includes unreasonable doubts about the extent to which climate change is caused by humans, its effects on nature and human society, and the potential of adaptation to global warming by human actions. To a lesser extent, climate change denial can also be implicit when people accept the science but fail to reconcile it with their belief or action. Several studies have analyzed these positions as forms of denialism, pseudoscience, or propaganda.
Climate change denial sign in Sudbury, Canada (2016)
Percentage of documents taking each overall position on climate change as real and human-caused, 1977–2014. Blue=acknowledge; blue with lines=acknowledge including reasonable doubt; black=acknowledge and doubt; gray=reasonable doubt; red=doubt.
A protestor demonstrating as part of the "Exxon knew" movement in Washington, DC in 2015
In the psychology of human behavior, denialism is a person's choice to deny reality as a way to avoid believing in a psychologically uncomfortable truth. Denialism is an essentially irrational action that withholds the validation of a historical experience or event when a person refuses to accept an empirically verifiable reality.
Banner at 2017 Climate March in Washington D.C.
"COVID is a lie" graffiti in Pontefract, West Yorkshire, England
The Iğdır Genocide Memorial and Museum promotes the view that Armenians committed genocide against Turks, rather than vice versa.