{"id":38590,"date":"2025-01-22T13:45:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-22T13:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=38590"},"modified":"2025-01-23T03:55:12","modified_gmt":"2025-01-23T03:55:12","slug":"how-the-oil-industry-and-growing-political-divides-turned-climate-change-into-a-partisan-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/how-the-oil-industry-and-growing-political-divides-turned-climate-change-into-a-partisan-issue\/","title":{"rendered":"How the oil industry and growing political divides turned climate change into a partisan issue"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Joe \u00c1rvai<\/a>, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After four years of U.S. progress<\/a> on efforts to deal with climate change under Joe Biden, Donald Trump\u2019s return to the White House is swiftly swinging the pendulum in the opposite direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On his first day back, Trump declared a national energy emergency<\/a>, directing agencies to use any emergency powers available to boost oil and gas production, despite U.S. oil and gas production already being near record highs<\/a> and leading the world. He revoked<\/a> Biden\u2019s orders that had withdrawn large areas of the Arctic and the U.S. coasts from oil and natural gas leasing<\/a>. Among several other executive orders<\/a> targeting Biden\u2019s pro-climate policies, Trump also began the process of pulling the U.S. out<\/a> of the international Paris climate agreement \u2013 a repeat of a move he made in 2017<\/a>, which Biden reversed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

None of Trump\u2019s moves to sideline climate change<\/a> as an important domestic and foreign policy issue should come as a surprise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During his first term as president, 2017-2021, Trump repealed the Obama-era Clean Power Plan<\/a> for reducing power plant emissions, falsely claimed that wind turbines cause cancer<\/a>, and promised to \u201cend the war on coal<\/a>\u201d and boost the highly polluting energy source. He once declared that climate change was a hoax perpetuated by China<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since being elected again in November, Trump has again chosen Cabinet members<\/a> who support the fossil fuel industry<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it\u2019s important to remember that while Donald Trump is singing from the Republican Party songbook when it comes to climate change, the music was written long before he came along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Money, lies and lobbying<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In 1979, the scientific consensus that climate change posed a significant threat to the environment, the economy and society as we had come to appreciate them began to emerge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ad Hoc Study Group on Carbon Dioxide and Climate, commissioned by the U.S. National Research Council\u2019s climate research board, concluded<\/a> then that if carbon dioxide continued to accumulate in the atmosphere, there was \u201cno reason to doubt that climate changes will result.\u201d Since then, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen by about 25%<\/a>, and temperatures have risen with it<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report also concluded that land use changes and the burning of fossil fuels, both of which could be subject to regulation, were behind climate change and that a \u201cwait-and-see policy may mean waiting until it is too late.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But none of this came as a surprise to the oil industry<\/a>. Working behind the scenes since the 1950s, researchers<\/a> working for companies such as Exxon, Shell and Chevron had made their leaders well aware that the widespread use of their product was already causing climate change. And coinciding with the Ad Hoc Study Group\u2019s work in the late 1970s, oil companies started making large donations<\/a> to national and state-level candidates and politicians they viewed as friendly to the interests of the industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
A summary of all global warming projections reported by ExxonMobil scientists in internal documents and peer-reviewed publications, 1977 to 2003, superimposed on observed temperature change (red). Solid gray lines indicate global warming projections modeled by ExxonMobil scientists; dashed gray lines are projections shared by ExxonMobil scientists from other sources. Shades of gray reflect start dates: earliest (1977) is lightest; latest (2003) is darkest. Geoffrey Supran<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The oil industry also implemented a disinformation campaign<\/a> designed to cast doubt about climate science and, in many cases, about their own internal research. The strategy, ripped from the pages of the tobacco industry playbook<\/a>, involved \u201cemphasizing uncertainty\u201d to cast doubt on the science and calling for \u201cbalanced\u201d science to sow confusion<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This strategy was helped by the creation and financial backing of lobbying organizations such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute<\/a> and the Global Climate Coalition<\/a>, both of which played central roles in spreading falsehoods<\/a> and casting doubt on the scientific consensus about climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 1997, when 84 countries signed the Kyoto Protocol<\/a> to curb global greenhouse gas emissions, the oil industry had built an effective apparatus for actively discrediting climate science and opposing policies and actions that could help slow climate change. So even though President Bill Clinton signed the treaty in 1998, the United States Congress refused to ratify it<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Partisan politics and the psychology of belonging<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Kyoto Protocol experience demonstrated that the lobbying and disinformation tactics used by oil companies to discredit climate science could, on their own, be highly effective. But they alone didn\u2019t shift climate change from a scientific question to an issue of partisan politics. Two additional ingredients for completing the transition were still absent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first of these came during the election campaign of 2000. At the time, the coverage of the major news networks converged on dividing the country into red states<\/a>, which lean right, and blue states, which lean left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This shift, though seemingly innocuous at the time, made politics even less about individual issues and more like a team sport<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather than asking people to construct their voting preferences based on a wide range of issues \u2013 from abortion and gun rights to immigration and climate change \u2013 votes could be earned by reminding and reinforcing for voters which team they should be cheering for: Republicans or Democrats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This shift also made it easier for the fossil fuel industry to keep climate change off state and federal policy agendas. Oil companies could focus their money<\/a>, lobbying and disinformation on Republican-controlled states and swing states where it would make the biggest difference. It shouldn\u2019t surprise anyone, for example, that it was a red state senator, James Inhofe of Oklahoma, who brought a snowball to the Senate floor<\/a> in February 2015 to \u201cprove\u201d that the planet was not warming. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The final ingredient had everything to do with human nature. Building on the analogy of a rivalry in sports, the red vs. blue state dynamic tapped into the psychological and social forces that shape our sense of belonging and identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Subtle but powerful social pressures within groups can make it harder for people to accept ideas, evidence and arguments from those outside the group<\/a>. Likewise, these within-group pressures lead to preferential treatment<\/a> for members who are in alignment with the group\u2019s perspectives, up to and including placing greater trust in those who appear to represent the group\u2019s collective interests<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within-group pressures also create stronger feelings of belonging<\/a> among those who conform to the group\u2019s internal norms, such as which political positions to support. In turn, stronger feelings of belonging serve to further reinforce the norms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where to from here?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Opposing or supporting action on climate change has become part of millions of Americans\u2019 cultural identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, doubling down on climate policies that are in lockstep with our own political leanings will serve only to strengthen the divide<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A more effective solution would be to set aside political differences and invest in building coalitions across the political spectrum. That starts by focusing on shared values, such as keeping children healthy and communities safe. In the wake of devastating fires<\/a> in my own city, Los Angeles, these shared values have risen to the top of the local political agenda regardless of who my neighbors and I voted for. It\u2019s clear to all of us that the consequences of climate change are very much in the here and now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Natural disasters across the U.S.<\/a> have also brought the risks of climate change home for many people across the country. This, in turn, has led to bipartisan action on climate change at the local and regional levels<\/a>, and between government and the private sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. Climate Alliance<\/a>, a coalition of 24 governors from both parties who are working to advance efforts to slow climate change, is one such example. Another example is the many U.S. companies with ties to government that participate in the First Movers Coalition<\/a>, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from industries that have proven difficult to decarbonize<\/a>, such as steel, transportation and shipping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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