Climate change denial is a set of organized attempts to downplay, deny or dismiss the scientific consensus on the extent of global warming, its significance, and its connection to human behavior, especially for commercial or ideological reasons.[1][2] Typically, these attempts take the rhetorical form of legitimate scientific debate, while not adhering to the actual principles of that debate.[3][4] Climate change denial has been associated with the fossil fuels lobby, the Koch brothers, industry advocates and free market think tanks, often in the United States.[5][6][7][8][9] Some commentators describe climate change denial as a particular form of denialism.[10][11][12][13][14][15][16]
Peter Christoff, writing in The Age in 2007, said that climate change denial differs from skepticism, which is essential for good science. "Almost two decades after the issue became one of global concern, the 'big' debate over climate change is over. There are now no credible scientific skeptics challenging the underlying scientific theory, or the broad projections, of climate change."[14] The relationship between industry-funded denial and public climate change skepticism has been compared to earlier efforts by the tobacco industry to undermine scientific evidence on the dangers of secondhand smoke, and linked as a direct continuation of these earlier financial relationships.[17
