Climate Change Deniers Still Impeding Progress

Scientists thought they'd convinced the world it was getting warmer, but a powerful, flush campaign of cynics is still successfully sowing doubt, Newsweek reports—and hobbling efforts to stave off disaster. From its humble beginnings ridiculing any warming, the "denial machine" has picked up funding from big oil and developed a more nuanced strategy: make Americans believe climate change is still an open question.

Losing in the labs, conservative skeptics are taking their fight to the press, using conferences, papers and media allies to recast the looming crisis as a debate—not unlike erstwhile tobacco apologists content to poke an array of holes in the evidence that tobacco causes cancer. The obfuscation appears to be working: Most Americans still think the scientific community is divided on the issue, while Europeans think it commands urgent attention. (More climate change stories.)