In 2008, every major Democratic and Republican candidate professed a belief in the impact of human activity on the gradual heating of our planet. Since then the science has become more conclusive, and more unanimous on the subject. Scientists recently discovered that planetary warming may have even been slowed somewhat in the last decade by deep oceans that have managed to trap large quantities of the planet’s heat. More researchers agree that the planet is warming beyond the rate of what could be considered “natural”, what is causing this warming, and that it is actually accelerating, than did back in 2008. Why is it then that so many of the GOP leadership in Washington, and the GOP candidates for President in 2012 deny climate change is real, some more established politicians even walking back their positions on climate change from the era of 2008.

Sociologists Riley Dunlap of Oklahoma State University and Aaron McCright from Michigan State University have completed an investigative study showing, in part, why this pendulum swing in climate science might have taken place in such a relatively short amount of time. According the authors, "The blows have been struck by a well-funded, highly complex and relatively coordinated denial machine,” a machine whose moving parts include, “contrarian scientists, fossil-fuel corporations, conservative think tanks and various front groups.” Fossil fuel companies (Koch Industries, Exxon, Peabody Energy) partner with conservative groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity and the Heritage Foundation, creating a well-financed campaign to invalid what is essentially settled scientific fact. Furthermore, conservative think-tanks have perpetuated and amplified the message, which is inevitably promoted through the mouthpiece of conservative media outlets like Fox News.

Ironically, conservatives in Washington and in the punditocracy are employing the same tactic that Big Tobacco has taken in their ongoing denial of the medical science behind smoking. With dismissals of “inconclusive” and “more research needed”, tobacco companies have been refuting founded scientific fact for decades. Unfortunately, climate change is not a problem that is unique to smokers, or even the human race. It also has a short timeline in which to fix it, much too short for scientific, public, and political opinion to wait for a convenient time to come to consensus. Instead, it will be necessary for the public to pressure their elected representatives to acknowledge the science rather than the conservative ditto machine. Of course, that would also require the public to be less complacent, something for which the American voter is notorious. In the meantime, the ditto machine will continue to spit out more anti-science rhetoric until the political pendulum finds enough balance that common sense becomes convenient again.