Climate obstruction: how Denial, delay and inaction are heating the planet

Abstract

Facing the increasingly brutal consequences of failed climate politics and swelling polarization, one of the most pressing questions of our time is why humanity seems to be unable to act adequately on climate change. Grappling with this question, Climate Obstruction is a timely and sophisticated assessment of how diverse actors in the Global North intentionally and unintentionally impede appropriate climate measures of mitigation. Bringing together insights from environmental history, communication studies, psychology and sociology, the authors successfully meet their aim to provide an accessible overview that enables academics and interested readers from a wider public to explore this vibrant research field. The book’s core consists of four chapters, each of which had first been drafted by one of the respective authors. The first reconstructs the coming of age of climate obstruction organized by fossil capital, market fundamentalists and conservatives in industrial, fossil capitalism (drafted by Ekberg). The authors depict the full-fledged climate change denial machine from the late 1980s onwards (drafted by Hultman) and discuss far-right ideologies and framings of climate change that are noticeably shifting from literal denial to response skepticism and delay (drafted by Forchtner). Subsequently, they address the demand side of climate obstruction, that is, the (occasionally unintendedly) obstructive attitudes and behaviors of individuals in the wider public (drafted by Jylhä). Since these contributions can be found mostly in previous publications of the respective authors, the auspicious attempt to connect and integrate these different aspects is particularly intriguing. For this integration, the introduction of the umbrella concept of climate obstruction is key and the authors convincingly highlight its added value in contrast to more common terms as denial and skepticism. They argue that denial ‘risks depicting a far too simplistic, reductionist dichotomy between climate “deniers” and “non-deniers”’, and criticize the use of skepticism for ‘possibly even granting an aura of scientific legitimacy to those not acting’ (p. 11). Instead, they propose a threefold differentiation of obstruction in primary (denial and evidence skepticism), secondary (delay and