Global warming conspiracy theory

• Faked scientific data: In 2002, after Clive Hamilton criticized Lavoisier Group, the Cooler Heads Coalition published an article supporting the Lavoisier Group's conspiracy theory that hundreds of climate scientists have twisted their results to support the climate change theory in order to protect their research funding.[14] In 2007, John Coleman wrote a blog post claiming that global warming is the greatest scam in history. He wrote "Our universities have become somewhat isolated from the rest of us. There is a culture and attitudes and values and pressures on campus that are very different.... They all look askance at the rest of us, certain of their superiority.... These scientists know that if they do research and results are in no way alarming, their research will gather dust on the shelf and their research careers will languish. But if they do research that sounds alarms, they will become well known and respected and receive scholarly awards and, very importantly, more research dollars will come flooding their way. So when these researchers did climate change studies in the late 90's they were eager to produce findings that would be important and be widely noticed and trigger more research funding. It was easy for them to manipulate the data to come up with the results they wanted to make headlines and at the same time drive their environmental agendas. Then their like minded PHD colleagues reviewed their work and hastened to endorse it without question.".[15][16] The climate deniers involved in Climategate in 2009 claimed that researchers faked the data in their research publications and suppressed their critics in order to receive more funding (i.e. taxpayer money).[17][18] Some climate change deniers claim that there is no scientific consensus on climate change, and they sometimes claim that any evidence that shows there is scientific consensus is faked.[19] Some of them even claim that governments have used the research grant money to pervert the science.[19]

• Corrupted peer-review process: It is claimed that the peer-review process for papers in climate science has become corrupted by scientists seeking to suppress dissent.[19] Frederick Seitz wrote an article in Wall Street Journal in 1996 criticizing IPCC Second Assessment Report. He suspected corruption in the peer-review process, writing that "A comparison between the report approved by the contributing scientists and the published version reveals that key changes were made after the scientists had met and accepted what they thought was the final peer-reviewed version. The scientists were assuming that the IPCC would obey the IPCC Rules--a body of regulations that is supposed to govern the panel's actions. Nothing in the IPCC Rules permits anyone to change a scientific report after it has been accepted by the panel of scientific contributors and the full IPCC.".[20]

• Aiming at global governance: In a speech given to the US Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works on July 28, 2003, entitled "The Science of Climate Change",[21] Senator James Inhofe (Republican, for Oklahoma) concluded by asking the following question: "With all of the hysteria, all of the fear, all of the phony science, could it be that man-made global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people?" He further stated, "some parts of the IPCC process resembled a Soviet-style trial, in which the facts are predetermined, and ideological purity trumps technical and scientific rigor."[22] Inhofe has suggested that supporters of the Kyoto Protocol such as Jacques Chirac are aiming at global governance.[23] William M. Gray said in 2006 that global warming became a political cause because of the lack of any other enemy following the end of the Cold War. He went on to say that its purpose was to exercise political influence, to try to introduce world government, and to control people, adding, "I have a demonic view on this."[3][24] The TV documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle was made by Martin Durkin, who called global warming "a multi-billion-dollar worldwide industry, created by fanatically anti-industrial environmentalists." In the Washington Times in 2007 he said that his film would change history, and predicted that "in five years the idea that the greenhouse effect is the main reason behind global warming will be seen as total bunk."[25]

• Liberal extremists: There are theories claiming that "climate change is a hoax perpetrated by leftist radicals to undermine local sovereignty", [26] or "climate science is less about science and more about socialist ideology".[19] In 2017, James Inhofe told the 12th International Conference on Climate Change "The liberal extremists are not going to give up. Obama has built a culture of radical alarmists, and they’ll be back. You and I and the American people have won a great victory, but the war goes on. Stay vigilant." [27] [28]

• Green scam: "Another conspiracy theory argues that because many people have invested in renewable-energy companies, they stand to lose a lot of money if global warming is shown to be a myth. According to this theory, environmental groups therefore bribe climate scientists to doctor their data so that they are able to secure their financial investment in green energy."[24]

• China is behind it: In 2010, Donald Trump claimed that "With the coldest winter ever recorded, with snow setting record levels up and down the coast, the Nobel committee should take the Nobel Prize back from Al Gore....Gore wants us to clean up our factories and plants in order to protect us from global warming, when China and other countries couldn’t care less. It would make us totally noncompetitive in the manufacturing world, and China, Japan and India are laughing at America’s stupidity." Then in 2012, he tweeted that "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive." Later in 2016 during his presidential campaign he suggested that his 2012 tweet was a joke saying that "Obviously, I joke. But this is done for the benefit of China, because China does not do anything to help climate change. They burn everything you could burn; they couldn’t care less. They have very—you know, their standards are nothing. But they—in the meantime, they can undercut us on price. So it’s very hard on our business." [29][30]

• To promote nuclear power: One of the claims made in The Great Global Warming Swindle is that the "threat of global warming is an attempt to promote nuclear power".[24]

• In 2006, the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? and later others [31][32] claimed that Chevron prohibits the advanced battery technologies (such as large-format NiMH batteries) to be used in electric vehicles (attempting to hide the technology was also claimed). The main evidence behind this theory is the patent infringement lawsuits against auto companies. GM acquired 60% of Ovonics's battery development, then shut it down and later sold it to the oil company Texaco which was later acquired by Chevron.[33] Multiple patent infringement lawsuits were filed by Chevron against auto or battery companies such as Toyota and Panasonic. This claim is more about the financial benefits of oil companies over monopoly of fuel industry but it's indirectly related to its effect on global warming.
• In 2016, J. Marvin Herndon published an article in the journal Frontiers in Public Health which was later retracted by the journal due to not meeting the standards of the journal. [34] The paper claims that there is widespread governmental effort around the world to do geoengineering and weather modification that can possibly result in global warming among other things. This article contributes to Chemtrail conspiracy theory which was believed by nearly 17% of people in 2011 according to an international survey.[35]
• In 2017, J. Marvin Herndon claimed that an oily-ashy substance, that was accidently released by an aircraft in 2016 and fell on seven residences and vehicles in Michigan (USA), resembles cryoconite holes observed on melting glaciers indicating a deliberate effort to hasten global warming. [36]

Climate change conspiracy has resulted in poor action or no action at all to effectively mitigate the damage done by global warming. In some countries like the United States of America, 40% of Americans believe that climate change is a hoax in spite of the fact that most climate scientists agree it is not.[37] President Donald Trump has even pulled the United States out of the Paris Agreement, which was set up in the hopes of reducing global warming.[38] There may be an ideology of climate change denial in some regions of the world, which would lead to disagreements over how to handle climate change and what should be done in the face of it.[39]