Posted on 22 October 2025 by BaerbelW

Climate Obstruction: A Global Assessment is a new book from Brown University’s global Climate Social Science Network, for which a team of more than 100 scholars explored who’s blocking action on climate change and how they’re doing it. John Cook - founder of Skeptical Science and senior research fellow with the Melbourne Centre for Behaviour Change at the University of Melbourne - co-authored chapter 7 in the book titled "Understanding the Political and Psychological Roots of Climate Misinformation and Its Impact on Public Opinion". The book is available open access for download from the Climate Social Science Network.

The book

In addition to an introduction by the editors J. Timmons Roberts, Carlos R. S. Milani, Jennifer Jacquet, and Christian Downie the book contains 12 chapters exploring the many different shapes and forms climate obstruction takes around the globe:

• The Global Role of the Oil and Gas Industry in Climate Delay and Denial - Lead Authors: Geoff Dembicki, Kristoffer Ekberg, and Kert Davies / Contributing Authors: Ann-Kristin Bergquist, Ada Nissen, and Stella Levantesi
• How Coal, Utilities, and Transportation Impede Climate Action - Lead Authors: Jen Schneider and Gregory Trencher / Contributing Authors: Peter K. Bsumek, Christian Downie, Paul K. Gellert, Giulio Mattioli, Jason Monios, Peter Newell, Jennifer Peeples, Joeri Wesseling, Emily Williams, Ryan Wishart, and Ben Youriev
• The Animal Agriculture Industry’s Role in Obstructing Climate Action - Lead Authors: Kathrin Lauber and Viveca Morris / Contributing Authors: Jennifer Jacquet, Peter Li, Ina Möller, Silvia Secchi, Alex Wijeratna, and Melina De Bona
• Climate Policy Obstruction on the Right and the Far Right - Lead Authors: Dieter Plehwe and Justin Farrell / Contributing Authors: Lucas Araldi, Robert J. Brulle, Jesse Callahan Bryant, William Callison, Kert Davies, Ruth E. McKie, Sotiris Mitralexis, and Alexandru Racu
• Steering the Climate Discourse: Legacy News, Social Media, Advertising, and Public Relations - Lead Authors: Melissa Aronczyk and Maxwell Boykoff / Contributing Authors: Travis G. Coan, Myanna Lahsen, Hanna E. Morris, and Chris Russill
• Understanding the Political and Psychological Roots of Climate Misinformation and Its Impact on Public Opinion - Lead Authors: Dominik A. Stecula and John Cook / Contributing Authors: Arunima Krishna, Adrian Dominik Wójcik, Jean Carlos Hochsprung Miguel, Matthew Hornsey, and Salil Benegal
• Climate Obstruction Across the Global South - Lead Authors: M. Omar Faruque and Ruth E. McKie / Contributing Authors: Lucas G. Christel, Claire Debucquois, Guy Edwards, Paul K. Gellert, Ricardo A. Gutierrez, Kathryn Hochstetler, Yifei Li, Carlos R. S. Milani, Elisabeth Möhle, Oluwaseun J. Oguntuase, and Jonathan R. Walz
• Blocking Climate Action at Subnational Levels - Lead Authors: Rebecca Bromley-Trujillo, Joshua A. Basseches, and Marcela López-Vallejo / Contributing Authors: Lucas G. Christel, Andrew B. Kirkpatrick, Simone Lucatello, and Maria Isabel Santos Lima
• Obstruction in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - Lead Authors: Kari De Pryck and Eduardo Viola / Contributing Authors: Stefan C. Aykut, Larissa Basso, Danielle Falzon, Matías Franchini, Friederike Hartz, Hannah Hughes, Vinícius Mendes, Carlos R. S. Milani, Bruna Bosi Moreira, Géraldine Pflieger, and Emanuel Semedo
• Obstructing Global and Local Climate Change Adaptation - Lead Authors: Laura Kuhl and Stacy-ann Robinson / Contributing Authors: Natalie Dietrich Jones, Danielle Falzon, Andrew Malmuth, Michael Mikulewicz, Meg Mills-Novoa, Michelle Mycoo, Meg Parsons, M. Feisal Rahman, E. Lisa F. Schipper, Kimberley Anh Thomas, and Edward Walker
• Legal and State Efforts to Address Climate Obstruction - Lead Authors: Grace Nosek, Joana Setzer, and Benjamin Franta / Contributing Authors: Alyssa Johl, Lisa Benjamin, Sharon Yadin, William W. Buzbee, and Aria Kovalovich
• Confronting Climate Obstruction: The Role of Civil Society and Non–State Actors - Lead Authors: Jennie C. Stephens and Sharon Yadin / Contributing Authors: Laurence L. Delina, Louise M. Fitzgerald, Francisco Garcia-Gibson, Fergus Green, Noel Healy, David Hess, Tariro Kamuti, Cristiana Losekann, David Michaels, Sonja Solomun, and Robin Tschoetschel

A closer look at chapter 7

The chapter "Understanding the Political and Psychological Roots of Climate Misinformation and Its Impact on Public Opinion," lead-authored by Dominik A. Stecula and John Cook, investigates how decades of climate disinformation—funded by the fossil fuel industry—have successfully sabotaged public debate. These campaigns exploited common human psychological traits, leading to widespread polarization.

The authors identify five critical climate beliefs necessary for fostering political urgency: that climate change is real, human-caused, experts agree, it's a bad thing, and that we have hope to avoid the worst-case scenarios. The climate counter-movement systematically promotes five corresponding disbeliefs to obstruct action.

The key method for cultivating these disbeliefs is by FLICCing off scientific integrity—using the five techniques of science denial:

• Fake experts
• Logical fallacies
• Impossible expectations
• Cherry picking
• Conspiracy theories

Most excuses for inaction make use of one of these techniques. For example, the Impossible expectation is used to dismiss crucial local climate policy by arguing it won't solve the entire global problem by itself. Additionally, "Fake experts" exploit “like-me” biases, where people trust messengers who share their ideology.

Crucially, this disinformation campaign worked through political elites who serve as trusted messengers. Research on the "elite cue" effect shows that after the Kyoto Protocol, Republican elites began explicitly denying climate change, and their voters followed suit. This powerful effect means people often judge climate policies based on who proposes them, rather than their actual content. Ultimately, the industry's lies have led substantial segments of the public to hold misinformed views—knowing things that are simply not true, but are convenient for the fossil fuel industry.

Discussion about the book

John Cook participated in a panel discussion recorded in September about the book with editor Timmons Roberts and one of the lead-authors for chapter 6 "Steering the Climate Discourse: Legacy News, Social Media, Advertising, and Public Relations" Melissa Aronczyk. Their panel discussion is available on Youtube:

From the video's description:

A panel-pod on the scourge of climate disinformation and misinformation - "the firehose of falsehoods" as one panellist poetically puts it! We need to understand which groups are running climate change disinformation and misinformation campaigns -  and who is funding them - if we are to make progress. "We don't need to change the minds of everyone in society to get climate action - we just need to activate enough people!" Featuring three people involved in a landmark new book called Climate Obstruction - A Global Assessment - out from Oxford University Press. Timmons Roberts is a co-editor of the book, and Melissa Aronczyk and John Cook are two of the many contributors to it.