Table Of Content“Efforts to obstruct climate action are a major factor in delaying
meaningful reductions in carbon emissions. This new book cap-
tures the latest peer reviewed literature and weaves an entertain-
ing, easy to read and chilling narrative about how a number of
concentrated efforts by vested economic and ideological interests
have successfully worked to imperil the planet. Read this book
carefully when you develop new measures to advance climate
action.”
Robert J. Brulle, Brown University, USA
“Climate Obstruction: How Denial, Delay and Inaction are Heating
the Planet is an authorative introduction laying out the key defini-
tions and components of climate obstruction. To a lay reader and
an audience familiar with the topic they encapsulate a clear sum-
mary of what obstruction is usefully using a three-part typology
to identify and help understand the complexity of climate obstruc-
tion and why it manifests. A fantastic text and well-needed read to
help understand the history of and continuing role that climate
obstruction plays in delaying the required changes to mitigate the
climate crisis.”
Ruth E. McKie, De Montfort University, UK
Climate Obstruction
In Climate Obstruction: How Denial, Delay and Inaction are Heating the Planet,
Kristoffer Ekberg, Bernhard Forchtner, Martin Hultman and Kirsti Jylhä bring together
crucial insights from environmental history, sociology, media and communication stud-
ies and psychology to help us understand why we are failing to take necessary measures
to avert the unfolding climate crisis.
They do so by examining the variety of ways in which meaningful climate action has
been obstructed. This ranges from denial of scientific evidence for human-induced cli-
mate change and its policy consequences to (seemingly sincere) acknowledgement of the
scientific evidence while nevertheless delaying meaningful climate action. The authors
also consider all those actions by which often well-meaning individuals and collectives
(unintendedly) hamper climate action. In doing so, this book maps out arguments and
strategies that have been used to counter environmental protection and regulation since
the 1960s by, first and foremost, corporations supported by conservative actors but also
far-right ones as well as ordinary citizens.
This timely and accessible book provides tools and lessons to understand, identify and
call out such arguments and strategies, and points to actions and systemic and cultural
changes needed to avert or at least mitigate the climate crisis.
Kristoffer Ekberg is a researcher at Chalmers University of Technology. His work
focuses on the political history of climate change and the environment, corporate
anti-environmentalism as well as social movements and utopian thought.
Bernhard Forchtner is Associate Professor at the School of Media, Communication and
Sociology and member of the Institute for Environmental Futures, University of Leicester,
UK. He works on the far right and environmental communication.
Martin Hultman is Associate Professor in science, technology and environmental studies
at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden. He leads Center for Studies of Climate
Change Denial (CEFORCED), as well as research groups analyzing Gender & energy
and Ecopreneurship.
Kirsti M. Jylhä is a researcher at the Institute for Future Studies, Stockholm, Sweden.
Her work focuses on psychological obstacles and drivers of climate engagement (e.g.,
climate change beliefs and emotions) as well as sociopolitical attitudes and ideologies.
Climate Obstruction
How Denial, Delay and Inaction are
Heating the Planet
Kristoffer Ekberg, Bernhard Forchtner,
Martin Hultman and Kirsti M. Jylhä
Cover image: © Shutterstock
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an
informa business
© 2023 Kristoffer Ekberg, Bernhard Forchtner, Martin
Hultman and Kirsti M. Jylhä
The right of Kristoffer Ekberg, Bernhard Forchtner, Martin
Hultman and Kirsti M. Jylhä to be identified as authors of
this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77
and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be
trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for
identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library
ISBN: 978-1-032-01925-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-01947-5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-18113-2 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003181132
Typeset in Times New Roman
by SPi Technologies India Pvt Ltd (Straive)
Contents
Acknowledgements viii
1 Introduction 1
2 The foundations of climate obstruction 21
3 Organised climate obstruction 44
4 The far right and climate obstruction 69
5 The public and climate obstruction 95
6 Conclusion 118
Index 137
Acknowledgements
While writing these final lines of Climate Obstruction: How Denial,
Delay and Inaction are Heating the Planet, we not only look back at a
difficult period characterised by lockdowns, home-schooling, summer
droughts and illness but also of fulfilling collaboration as we laboured
through the various stages of a manuscript so important to all of us.
Indeed, although the topic was seldom uplifting, we benefited from
and enjoyed the opportunity this project afforded. As such, we want to
thank Routledge for enabling us to work together, coming from differ-
ent disciplines and knowledge backgrounds. Collaboration was most
intense as we set the scene and synthesised our findings in Introduction
and Conclusion, respectively, but was at least as intriguing in Chapters
2, 3, 4 and 5 (which were initially drafted by Ekberg, Hultman,
Forchtner and Jylhä, respectively). We hope that the outcome of this
work will speak not just (not primarily!) to academia but to interested
individuals, social movements, churches, labour unions and others.
That said, we want to extend our gratitude and appreciation to all
those who helped us with this project. Formas, the Swedish Energy
Agency, the Swedish Research Council, the division of Science,
Technology and Society, the Centre for Studies of Climate Change
Denial, and the Institute for Futures Studies for funding and institu-
tional support. The international network of CSSN has provided fer-
tile intellectual ground. We furthermore thank David Larsson
Heidenblad, Björn Lundberg, Balša Lubarda and Niklas Olsen for
providing crucial feedback to individual chapters, as well as Kjell
Vowles and Magnus Linton, who have extensively commented on the
entire manuscript. First and foremost, however, we want to thank Lise
Benoist who, for several months, was a central part of this book pro-
ject in her role as Chalmers research assistant. Lise not only dealt with
Acknowledgements ix
images, typos, endnotes and the review of key literature but became an
integral part of the collaborative effort. We want to thus thank her for
her essential contribution; moreover, as Lise takes up a PhD position
at Uppsala University, we also want to wish her all the best as her
research career fully unfolds. Most importantly, however, we want to
thank our loved ones for their support in this endeavour into the short-
comings of humanity and hope that this book can make a tiny contri-
bution to their and other (non-)humans’ quality of life on this planet.
