It seems bizarre that when the science of human-caused climate change is more worryingly conclusive than ever, climate denial could enjoy a resurgence. After all, no climate denier has published a peer-reviewed article in a scientific journal in the past 15 years.
But it's happening — at least in Australia and a handful of other developed nations.
The comeback of climate denial in these countries is out of step with most of the world.
A BBC poll, released in December, said concern about climate change has risen sharply worldwide. Sixty-four percent said climate change was "very serious" — 20% higher than a similar 1998 poll. In Brazil and Chile the figure was 86%, in Costa Rica and the Philippines 83%.
But in Australia, Britain and the US, the trend is the other way.
A recent US poll by the Yale Project on Climate Change and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication found that less than 50% of adults found global warming "worrying" or "somewhat worrying". This is 13% less than an October 2008 poll.
Fifty-seven percent of respondents said they believed global warming was happening, down from 71% in 2008. Those who felt global warming was caused by human activity dropped from 57% to 47%.
A November poll by the London Times said only 41% of Britons believe climate change to be an established scientific fact.
An October poll by the Lowy Institute said concern about the threat of climate change was weakening in Australia too. Fifty six percent said climate change was very important, 19% than in a poll two years earlier.
So why is climate denial finding new supporters?
The research of many hundreds of scientists has proved that climate change is real, is caused by greenhouse gases released by human activity, and represents an extreme danger to human society and life.
There are reasons why a political space for climate denial remains open. The first of these is that climate scientists are required to deal sceptically with facts and measurable data before drawing firm conclusions. Climate deniers have no such constraints. This gives deniers an advantage in public debates.
NASA climate scientist James Hansen explained something of the problem in his recent book on the science of global warming Storms of my Grandchildren.
He said climate deniers "tend to act like lawyers defending a client … presenting only arguments that favour their client. This is in direct contradiction to … the scientific method … The difference between scientist-style and lawyer-style tends to favour the [denier] in a discussion before an audience that is not expert in the science."
Australian paleoclimate scientist Andrew Glickson wrote on the ABC's Unleashed blog in July 2009 that typically deniers "scan the field for real or imagined, major or minor errors, inferring such errors undermine major databases, theories, or even an entire branch of science".
Glickson compared climate deniers approach to "the eternal search for errors and gaps in Darwin's evolution theory by creationists, based on their belief in a supernatural creator."
A recent example of this strategy was the hype about a small error in the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) about the predicted timeframe for Himalayan glaciers to melt completely.
A paragraph in the IPCC report said that chances the glaciers would "disappear … by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high". On January 20, the IPCC announced this particular prediction was wrong after leading glaciologists drew attention to the mistake.
However, it also said: "Widespread mass losses from glaciers and reductions in snow cover over recent decades are projected to accelerate throughout the 21st century … This conclusion is robust, appropriate, and entirely consistent with the underlying science and the broader IPCC assessment." The loss of meltwater from retreating glaciers could affect the water security of one-sixth of the world's population.
But this hasn't stopped deniers from seizing on this one small error to allege the whole 938-page IPCC report is fraudulent and the entire science of climate change is bogus.
A second reason climate denial is gaining ground is that it exploits people's fear. The science of climate change is frightening. It makes plain that unless radical changes are made in our economy and society, humanity faces disaster.
People are responding differently to such an all-encompassing threat. A growing number are determined to win a safe climate for future generations. But some have become despondent and assume runaway climate change is inevitable.
Others respond with denial — finding it easier to believe nothing is wrong at all, rather than accept humanity is heading toward a precipice. Climate denial can be a soothing psychological balm, an escape from a troubling reality.
A third reason for the persistence of climate denial is that it is a well-funded industry.
PR consultant Jim Hoggan, author of the 2009 book Climate Cover-up, has said he has found it "infuriating … to watch my colleagues use their skills, their training and their considerable intellect to poison the international debate on climate change."
He wrote on the Desmogblog last June: "Few PR offences have been so obvious, so successful and so despicable as this attack on the science of climate change. It has been a triumph of disinformation — one of the boldest and most extensive PR campaigns in history, primarily financed by the energy industry and executed by some of the best PR talent in the world."
The mainstream media's coverage of climate change must also share some of the blame. Despite the scientific consensus, Hoggan said "journalists continued to report updates from the best climate scientists in the world juxtaposed against the unsubstantiated raving of an industry-funded climate change denier — as if both were equally valid".
The highly publicised Australian tour of prominent British climate denier, Lord Christopher Monckton, illustrated this.
Monckton is not a scientist, but a former journalist and one-time advisor to the conservative British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who has written that AIDS victims should be locked up. Yet despite his lack of qualifications, his climate denial speaking tour generated a vast amount of media coverage. Federal opposition leader Tony Abbott met with Monckton to discuss climate policy on February 4.
Among Monckton's claims are that the Copenhagen climate conference was "a sort of Nuremburg rally", that US President Barack Obama wants to use climate change as an excuse to set up a world communist government, and that the young protesters calling for strong climate action outside the Copenhagen summit were akin to the Hitler youth.
While in Australia, he claimed NASA sabotaged the launch of its multi-million dollar satellite designed to measure atmospheric carbon dioxide levels — apparently to stop it producing data showing that climate change is untrue!
In the past, Monckton has claimed to have found the cure for several diseases and, in a letter to US senator John McCain, to have won the Nobel Peace Prize.
A final reason for resurgence of climate denialism in Australia is the federal ALP government's closet climate denialism.
PM Kevin Rudd is fond of ridiculing climate denial, but his own climate policies do nothing to address the climate crisis. The proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) will cost taxpayers billions yet do nothing to significantly cut greenhouse gas emissions.
By emphasising the need to take strong action on climate change, but not seriously attempting to do so, the Rudd government has opened the door for climate deniers. If politicians' words about the need for action on climate change are simply justifications for redistributing wealth from ordinary people to big business, it is not surprising many people conclude the threat may not be that severe after all.
To win against the climate deniers requires victory against the business-as-usual policies of the major parties, including those that acknowledge the science in words but betray it in practice.