The climate change denial cycle
The leaders of corporations, political parties, and nations are addicted to the power and wealth that comes from fossil fuels and are denying the dangers of climate change. The lack of effective climate action reveals this and is accelerating climate change.
Each person who denies that climate change is a problem will have their own motivations, but here is one cycle that incorporates the above factors and could apply to many leaders.
In this cycle:
- An increase in fossil fuel use brings wealth and power to their organisations: companies need government support to continue exploiting fossil fuels, and politicians need the companies’ support to keep power, and this tends to
- Increase climate change, which tends to
- Increase the shocks the leaders experience when they learn about climate change, such as:
- Scientists’ warnings of immense damage. As early as 1895, the Swedish scientist, Svante Arrhenius, concluded that human emissions of carbon dioxide could cause global warming.
- The extensive evidence of changes to the Earth since the Industrial Revolution, as atmospheric greenhouse gas levels have increased.
- Events made far more likely by climate change, including:
- The Australian Millennium drought between 1996 and 2012
- The Australian fire season of 2019/20
- The increased intensity and frequency of mass bleaching along our Great Barrier Reef
- The Glacier collapse in Nepal in August 2026.
- The heat and drought in Europe in 2026
- Each shock is a wake-up call and tends to produce doubt – but as these leaders continue in their roles, they suppress any doubt and increase their ability to deny these escalating shocks, which tends to
- Increase fossil fuel use, and the vicious cycle repeats, becoming more powerful.
Our leaders continue to avoid effective action to slow climate change. Many Australian and world leaders even describe climate change as a hoax. As denial grows, it distorts their thinking, alters their values, and gradually reshapes their character; for example, they may begin to attack science and fund misinformation.
This is the critical amplifying feedback cycle that is enabling continued exploitation of fossil fuels. It is also the intersection of climate change and addictions counselling, as there are parallels between gambling addiction and fossil fuel addiction; see the gambling shock denial cycle.
Questions for deniers
Here are three questions for people who claim climate change is a hoax:
- What climate mechanism will counteract the feedback cycles that are driving climate change?
- When will this mechanism begin to slow the current warming trends shown on this site’s evidence page?
- There are enormous bodies of evidence supporting the reality of climate change; what evidence do you have that climate change is a hoax?
The States of Grief
The “stages of grief” described by the psychiatrist Dr Elisabeth Kübler-Ross provide a context for understanding denial. I refer to the “stages of grief” as “states of grief” because people do not move through them in any set order. Denial is one of these states of grief.
State: Denial
People can deny well-established climate science and the climate emergency by, for example:
- Saying that climate change is a hoax
- Challenging the veracity of temperature graphs
- Refusing to accept that high levels of greenhouse gases are causing the planet to heat, leading to dangers such as longer fire seasons and more intense fires.
State: Fantasy Solutions
People can grasp onto fantasy solutions or reassurance, like:
- Plans for nuclear generation, which would be vastly expensive and not start generating electricity for 20 years: See this website’s page on the Coalition’s nuclear folly.
- Plans for cheap gas-fired generation, even though gas generation currently produces the most expensive electricity.
- Arsonists caused the massive bushfires that burned across the Australian east coast during the summer of 2019/20
- The Australian Bureau of Meteorology is fiddling with the temperature records data to emphasise warming, the work of self-serving climate scientists around the globe.
State: Anger
People can react with anger. For example, they can attack the people arguing that climate change is real:
- Blaming greenies for bushfires because greenies stopped hazard reduction burning,
- Insinuating that the person arguing for climate action is insincere as they have flown to Europe on a holiday.
State: Depression
They can also be overcome by depression or despair, for example:
- Saying that there is nothing we can do.
- Saying that Australia is a small player, and anything we do will not make any difference
- Trying not to think about climate, e.g., not watching David Attenborough wildlife shows.
State: Acceptance
They can also accept well-established climate science and support climate action.
Repeated movement between states
People do not move through these states in any set order. Indeed, people can flip between these states quickly and repeatedly. Even within one conversation about climate change, a person can flip between states of:
- Denial: challenging the veracity of temperature graphs
- Fantasy: supporting plans like carbon capture and storage
- Anger: arguing with exasperation
- Depression: arguing that Australia is a small player so there is no point in us taking action.
The supreme question
The supreme question of our era is: will humanity:
- remain caught in this addictive denial cycle for too long,
- miss our chance to act before we hit some tipping point, and
- lose our chance to retain our nurturing environment.
Related pages
The vicious cycles driving climate change
Loaded: 1 September 2026. Modified 5 September 2026.
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