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Climate deniers' online strategy: Using scientific aesthetics to appear credible
Phys.org ^ | October 28, 2025 | By Lisa Lock

Posted on 10/28/2025 6:38:59 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer

Climate deniers use scientific aesthetics to reinforce and legitimize their message. At the same time, their main opponents, the climate activists, are portrayed as emotional and irrational. This has been demonstrated by researchers from the Universities of Gothenburg and Amsterdam, who have studied how climate deniers communicate online.

"Disinformation is not just about incorrect facts, but about how these facts look and feel. In today's digital media landscape, messages are spread through images, memes and visual narratives that influence us in an instant, before we even have time to think. By understanding the aesthetic logic behind climate denial, we can also understand why it is so effective," says sociologist Anton Törnberg, one of the researchers behind the study.

Another strategy used is to portray the opposition as irrational. Climate activists are depicted as being driven by emotions rather than reason and fact-based arguments. This contrast is used to reinforce a narrative in which "the rational skeptic" stands in opposition to "the hysterical climate cult."

"The images used are often taken at intense moments, showing angry faces, chaotic demonstrations and people shouting or crying. In some cases, memes and parodies are used in which Greta Thunberg is portrayed as hysterical, religious or childish. Sometimes there are images of her in a halo or accompanied by her own statue."

This tactic is also used to attack the ideological roots of climate policy, which are often portrayed as sectarian or totalitarian.

"This can be done through memes and images alluding to Mao Zedong. Others use images of Joseph Goebbels, suggesting that today's climate communication is propaganda. In some cases, the swastika is replaced with the recycling symbol on a Nazi-like armband, a visual strategy that portrays the environmental movement as authoritarian and manipulative," says Törnberg.

(Excerpt) Read more at phys.org ...


TOPICS: Computers/Internet; Miscellaneous; Weather
KEYWORDS: agitprop; antontornberg; astroturf; demagogicparty; demagogue; dnctalkingpoint; dnctalkingpoints; ecoterrorism; ecoterrorists; globalwarming; globalwarminghoax; greennewdeal; gretathunberg; hoax; lisalock; mediawingofthednc; panicporn; partisanmediashill; partisanmediashills; propaganda; socialism
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
Others use images of Joseph Goebbels ...

Hay Oldeconomybuyer, you're FAMOUS !!!

21 posted on 10/28/2025 7:18:03 AM PDT by Mr_Moonlight (Ich bin ein Irredeemable Deplorable)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

If you have AP’s Seth Borenstein arguing your side, as the climate activists do , year after year, you already have drama queen #1, and a real challenge to overcome guilt by association.


22 posted on 10/28/2025 7:27:48 AM PDT by sopo
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
Yeah, we remember whose deceptive denier charts.
23 posted on 10/28/2025 7:28:38 AM PDT by budj (Combat Vet, second of three generations.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Any bets they’ll use hurricane pics from Jamaica to promote their BS? 🙄. 🙏Jamaica


24 posted on 10/28/2025 7:28:58 AM PDT by rktman (Destroy America from within? On hold! Enlisted USN 1967 proudly. 🚫💉! 🇮🇱🙏! Winning currently!)
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To: marktwain
They have to attempt to show they can accurately predict the future years and decades in advance. They have not succeeded.

You are looking at it from the viewpoint of a rational thinking person. True believers don't examine the facts and come to a rational conclusion. They "feel" that they're right and no amount of evidence to the contrary will budge their belief. a couple of quotes come to mind

For the true believer no proof is necessary
Stuart Chase and
People are stupid. They will believe any lie as long as they want it to be true or are afraid it is true
Terry Goodkind.

you see the same irrational behavior on a grand scale with socialism and the current Democrat party. Socialism has NEVER fulfilled it's promises from Plymouth Plantation* to the current day North Korea, Venezuela, etc. The evidence is plain and overwhelming, but vast numbers of fools believe in it because they want it to be true. Free stuff! No work! Tax the rich to pay for it! Fantasies, but appealing ones.

*William Bradford's book is available on Amazon

25 posted on 10/28/2025 7:29:10 AM PDT by from occupied ga (Your government is your most dangerous enemy - EVs a solution for which there is no problem)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Climate deniers. Can thy get more juvenile? No one is denying there is a climate Hell, we’re not denying there is change. What we are questioning is the agenda behind the “science” that blames any change on humans. And if it cannot be questioned, it isn’t science. It’s dogma.


26 posted on 10/28/2025 7:31:31 AM PDT by IYAS9YAS (There are two kinds of people: Those who can extrapolate from incomplete data.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
"This can be done through memes"

'Memes are bad, mmmkay'

27 posted on 10/28/2025 7:33:01 AM PDT by yesthatjallen
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

The author is the denier. She denies that the whole history of our planet has involved the ever changing climate. The people of the earth don’t need the extremes that these climate alarmists want to force on us. Changes yes, extremes like using all wind/solar, no! We cannot control the sun, the moon or earths rotation. If a city wants to help their smog problems like LA, then go for it if the voters want it. But forcing the extremes will not work and is authoritarian.


28 posted on 10/28/2025 7:35:37 AM PDT by JoJo354 (President Trump will make America great again!!)
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To: John S Mosby

“Incorrect Facts”

That in itself is an oxymoron, a definite public school victim somewhere down the line.


29 posted on 10/28/2025 7:41:00 AM PDT by quantim (Victory is not relative, it is absolute.)
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To: JoJo354
Worse. The author comes right out and admits that her “science” is ideologicaly driven.

This tactic is also used to attack the ideological roots of climate policy

30 posted on 10/28/2025 7:43:57 AM PDT by Sirius Lee ("Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.”)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Global Warming fraudsters’ on-line tricks: make threatening predictions for 40 years that don’t come true.


31 posted on 10/28/2025 8:06:51 AM PDT by Cincinnatus.45-70 (What do DemocRats enjoy more than a truckload of dead babies? Unloading them with a pitchfork!)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

The climate alarmist call out their Leftist sociologist friends to try and slander their own opponents, when their own science can no longer stand on its own.


32 posted on 10/28/2025 9:01:08 AM PDT by Wuli (uire)
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To: Wuli
their own science

Their "science" isn't science at all. It's fantasy pretending to be fact, and the rabid fanaticism of their belief still doesn't make it true.

33 posted on 10/28/2025 9:14:16 AM PDT by from occupied ga (Your government is your most dangerous enemy - EVs a solution for which there is no problem)
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To: Ruy Dias de Bivar

But but but Saint Paul Ehrlich said we’d have an ice age by the end of the 70’s.


34 posted on 10/28/2025 9:16:46 AM PDT by from occupied ga (Your government is your most dangerous enemy - EVs a solution for which there is no problem)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

The arrogance of activists who think that by spending gobs of money one can change world climates.


35 posted on 10/28/2025 9:25:48 AM PDT by Mashood
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
Climate deniers' online strategy: Using scientific aesthetics to appear credible

as a funny coincidence, climate change hoaxers also use scientific aesthetics to appear credible
36 posted on 10/28/2025 9:26:27 AM PDT by wafflehouse ("there was a third possibility that we hadn't even counted upon" -Alice's Restaurant Massacree)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

I used to pay attention to Phys.org until I saw they are a bunch of charlatans foursquare behind AGW & CO2 driven global warming.


37 posted on 10/28/2025 10:33:41 AM PDT by citizen (A transgender male competing against women may be male, but he's no man.)
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To: Ruy Dias de Bivar

You don’t have long to wait for another LIA. It’s in the beginning stage now (named the Eddy grand solar minimum)


38 posted on 10/28/2025 10:38:49 AM PDT by citizen (A transgender male competing against women may be male, but he's no man.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

This story reflects an important development, coming from an in-the-tank warmist propaganda mill..Apparently major sections of the climate cult are beginning to feel like they are on the defensive now, after years of unchallenged domination of the media news cycle. You can see it on facebook and youtube, probably on other outlets as well—the BS is wearing thin, and average folks are no longer buying it. Educate yourselves first, then speak up—go out and question the scare-mongers—after all, we have the President on our side now, as well as reality..


39 posted on 10/28/2025 10:55:12 AM PDT by hinckley buzzard ( Resist the narrative. )
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

is not just about ...facts, but about how these facts look and feel

/

Facts are feelzz ?

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Cuz muh science !

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣


40 posted on 10/28/2025 3:59:07 PM PDT by cuz1961
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