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  • Correspondence
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The politics of climate (dis)belief

Nature volume 468, page 634 (2010)Cite this article

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The most telling feature of the climate-sceptic movement (aside from the large amount of money behind it) is that it is organized along the left–right political axis, with the left generally being sympathetic to climate science and the right far less so.

Liberals usually view science as a force for change that could benefit society. For conservatives, science typically serves to reinforce the status quo by making society more efficient and more powerful. This is not to brand the right as anti-science (see Nature 468, 508; 2010): as an objective truth, science is an appealing bulwark against the relativism of liberals.

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  1. Coventry, UK

    Francis Nicholson

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  1. Francis Nicholson
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Nicholson, F. The politics of climate (dis)belief. Nature 468, 634 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/468634b

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Comments

Commenting on this article is now closed.

  1. Rory Bingham

    I am not a climate sceptic, but I am afraid this is nonsense, and I am surprised to see that it was published in Nature.

  2. Stuart Mathieson

    I am inclined to agree with Nicholson's sentiments. There is a definite reluctance of conservatives to eschew natural selection at the group level; the process by which pro-social behaviour is explicable (Sober and Wilson 1998) in terms other than calculated self-interest which methodological individualism demands.
    Stuart Mathieson. Dunedin, New Zealand

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