Why, after all this time, do 15% of Americans fall for the lie that global warming isn’t happening? And is there anything that can be done to bring them around to reality? New research suggests that understanding why fake news is compelling to people can tell us something about how to defend ourselves against it.
Some analysis: People buy into bad information for different reasons, said Andy Norman, an author and philosopher who co-founded the Mental Immunity Project, which aims to protect people from manipulative information. Due to quirks of psychology, people can end up overlooking inconvenient facts when confronted with arguments that support their beliefs. “The more you rely on useful beliefs at the expense of true beliefs, the more unhinged your thinking becomes,” Norman said.
Conspiracy theories: Another reason people are drawn to conspiracies is that they feel like they’re in on a big, world-transforming secret: Flat Earthers think they’re seeing past the illusions the vast majority don’t.
In 1995, a leading group of scientists convened by the United Nations declared that they had detected a “human influence” on global temperatures with “effectively irreversible” consequences. In the coming decades, 99.9 percent of scientists would come to agree that burning fossil fuels had disrupted the Earth’s climate.
Yet almost 30 years after that warning, during the hottest year on Earth in 125,000 years, people are still arguing that the science is unreliable, or that the threat is real but we shouldn’t do anything about climate change. Conspiracies are thriving online, according to a report by the coalition Climate Action Against Disinformation released last month, in time for the U.N. climate conference in Dubai. Over the past year, posts with the hashtag #climatescam have gotten more likes and retweets on the platform known as X than ones with #climatecrisis or #climateemergency.
By now, anyone looking out the window can see flowers blooming earlier and lakes freezing later. Why, after all this time, do 15 percent of Americans fall for the lie that global warming isn’t happening? And is there anything that can be done to bring them around to reality? New research suggests that understanding why fake news is compelling to people can tell us something about how to defend ourselves against it.
People buy into bad information for different reasons, said Andy Norman, an author and philosopher who co-founded the Mental Immunity Project, which aims to protect people from manipulative information. Due to quirks of psychology, people can end up overlooking inconvenient facts when confronted with arguments that support their beliefs. “The more you rely on useful beliefs at the expense of true beliefs, the more unhinged your thinking becomes,” Norman said. Another reason people are drawn to conspiracies is that they feel like they’re in on a big, world-transforming secret: Flat Earthers think they’re seeing past the illusions the vast majority don’t.
The annual U.N. climate summits often coincide with a surge in misleading information on social media. As COP28 ramped up in late November, conspiracy theories circulated claiming that governments were trying to cause food shortages by seizing land from farmers, supposedly using climate change as an excuse. Spreading lies about global warming like these can further social divisions and undermine public and political support for action to reduce emissions, according to the Climate Action Against Disinformation report. It can also lead to harassment: Some 73 percent of climate scientists who regularly appear in the media have experienced online abuse.
Part of the problem is the genuine appeal of fake news. A recent study in Nature Human Behavior found that climate change disinformation was more persuasive than scientific facts. Researchers at the University of Geneva in Switzerland had originally intended to see if they could help people fend off disinformation, testing different strategies on nearly 7,000 people from 12 countries, including the United States, India, and Nigeria. Participants read a paragraph intended to strengthen their mental defenses — reminders of the scientific consensus around climate change, the trustworthiness of scientists, or the moral responsibility to act, for example. Then they were subjected to a barrage of 20 real tweets that blamed warming on the sun and the “wavy” jet stream, spouted conspiracies about “the climate hoax devised by the U.N.,” and warned that the elites “want us to eat bugs.”
The interventions didn’t work as hoped, said Tobia Spampatti, an author of the study and a neuroscience researcher at the University of Geneva. The flood of fake news — meant to simulate what people encounter in social media echo chambers — had a big effect. Reading the tweets about bogus conspiracies lowered people’s belief that climate change was happening, their support for action to reduce emissions, and their willingness to do something about it personally. The disinformation was simply more compelling than scientific facts, partly because it plays with people’s emotions, Spampatti said (eliciting anger toward elites who want you to eat bugs, for example). The only paragraph that helped people recognize falsehoods was one that prompted them to evaluate the accuracy of the information they were seeing, a nudge that brought some people back to reality.
Conspiracy theorists protest at busy roundabout in the village of Martlesham in Suffolk, England, Sept. 18, 2022.
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The study attempted to use “pre-bunking,” a tactic to vaccinate people against fake news. While the effort flopped, Norman said that doesn’t mean it shows “inoculation” is ineffective. Spampatti and other researchers’ effort to fortify people’s mental defenses used a new, broader approach to pre-bunking, trying to protect against a bunch of lines of disinformation at once, that didn’t work as well as tried-and-true inoculation techniques, according to Norman.
Norman says it’s crucial that any intervention to stop the spread of disinformation comes with a “weakened dose” of it, like a vaccine, to help people understand why someone might benefit from lying. For example, when the Biden administration learned of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin’s plans to invade Ukraine in late 2021, the White House began warning the world that Russia would push a false narrative to justify the invasion, including staging a fake, graphic video of a Ukrainian attack on Russian territory. When the video came out, it was quickly dismissed as fake news. “It was a wildly successful attempt to inoculate much of the world against Putin’s preferred narrative about Ukraine,” Norman said.
For climate change, that approach might not succeed — decades of oil-funded disinformation campaigns have already infected the public. “It’s really hard to think about someone who hasn’t been exposed to climate skepticism or disinformation from fossil fuel industries,” said Emma Frances Bloomfield, a communication professor at the University of Nevada, Los Vegas. “It’s just so pervasive. They have talking heads who go on news programs, they flood media publications and the internet, they pay lobbyists.”
Bloomfield argues that disinformation sticks for a reason, and that simply telling the people who fall for it that there’s a scientific consensus isn’t enough. “They’re doubting climate change because they doubt scientific authorities,” Bloomfield said. “They’re making decisions about the environment, not based on the facts or the science, but based on their values or other things that are important to them.”
While political identity can explain some resistance to climate change, there are other reasons people dismiss the evidence, as Bloomfield outlines in her upcoming book Science v. Story: Narrative Strategies for Science Communicators. “In the climate change story, we’re the villains, or at least partially blameworthy for what’s happening to the environment, and it requires us to make a lot of sacrifices,” Bloomfield said. “That’s a hard story to adopt because of the role we’re playing within it.” Accepting climate change, to some degree, means accepting inner conflict. You always know you could do more to lower your carbon footprint, whether that’s ditching meat, refusing to fly, or wearing your old clothes until they’re threadbare and ratty.
By contrast, embracing climate denial allows people to identify as heroes, Bloomfield said. They don’t have to do anything differently, and might even see driving around in a gas-guzzling truck as part of God’s plan. It’s a comforting narrative, and certainly easier than wrestling with ethical dilemmas or existential dread.
Protesters march after a demonstration near Heathrow Airport west of London, Aug.20, 2007.
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Those seeking to amplify tensions around climate change or spread doubt, such as fossil fuel companies, social media trolls, and countries like Russia and China, get a lot of bang for their buck. “It’s a lot easier and cheaper to push doubt than to push certainty,” Bloomfield said. Oil companies including Shell, ExxonMobil, and BP spent about $4 million to $5 million on Facebook ads related to social issues and politics this year, according to the Climate Action Against Disinformation report. To sow doubt, you only need to arouse some suspicion. Creating a bullet-proof case for something is much harder — it might take thousands of scientific studies (or debunking hundreds of counterarguments one by one, as Grist did in 2006).
The most straightforward way to fight disinformation would be to stop it from happening in the first place, Spampatti said. But even if regulators were able to get social media companies to try to stop the spread of conspiracy theories and falsehoods, dislodging them is a different story. One promising approach, “deep canvassing,” seeks to persuade people through nonjudgmental, one-on-one conversations. The outreach method, invented by LGBTQ+ advocates, involves hearing people’s concerns and helping them work through their conflicted feelings. (Remember how accepting climate change means accepting you might be a tiny part of the problem?)
Research has shown that deep canvassing isn’t just successful at reducing transphobia, but also that its effects can last for months, a long time compared to other interventions. The strategy can work for other polarizing problems, too, based on one experiment in a rural metal-smelting town in British Columbia. After convincing several local governments across the West Kootenay region to shift to 100 percent renewable energy, volunteers with the nonprofit Neighbors United kept running into difficulties in the town of Trail, where they encountered distrust of environmentalists. They spoke to hundreds of residents, listening to their worries about losing jobs, finding common ground, and telling personal stories about climate change like friends would, instead of debating the facts like antagonists. A stunning 40 percent of residents shifted their beliefs, and Trail’s city council voted in 2022 to shift to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050.
Both facts and stories have a place, Bloomfield said. For conservative audiences, she suggests that climate advocates move away from talking about global systems and scientists with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — a “nameless, faceless, nebulous group of people” — and toward local matters and people they actually know. Getting information from friends, family, and other trusted individuals can really help.
“They’re not necessarily as authoritative as the IPCC,” Bloomfield said. “But it helps you connect with that information, and you trust that person, so you trust that information that they’re resharing.”
Kavish Harjai
was in the LAist studios listening to the forum Thursday night.
Published September 3, 2026 7:50 PM
L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and Councilmember Nithya Raman separately explain their environmental positions at a mayoral forum held Thursday at L.A. Trade Tech in downtown Los Angeles.
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LAist
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Topline:
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass painted herself as a proven fighter for environmental justice issues. Her challenger, L.A. City Councilmember Nithya Raman, said progress on environmental goals has stalled in City Hall.
Key topics: The candidates each had about 45 minutes to individually answer questions from Erin Stone, an LAist senior reporter focused on climate and environment.
Here are some of the topics they covered:
Extreme heat
Emergency preparedness and recovery
Protecting communities from pollution
Water
Public transit
LAist will have more coverage and analysis of the conversations Friday morning.
Topline:
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass described herself as a proven fighter for environmental justice issues. Her challenger, L.A. City Councilmember Nithya Raman, said progress on environmental goals has stalled in City Hall.
Key topics: The candidates each had about 45 minutes to individually answer questions from Erin Stone, an LAist senior reporter focused on climate and environment.
Ahead of election, Trump admin still has big plans
By Jude Joffe-Block | NPR
Published September 3, 2026 6:43 PM
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Topline:
The Trump administration is taking steps to advance a mysterious and unprecedented project to compile state-by-state lists of people it has decided are eligible citizens over the age of 18 who can vote in the upcoming midterm election.
About the timing: Trump officials will no longer meet its own deadline to publish that information on a portal on Friday, which is 60 days before Election Day.
Where things stand: Department of Justice attorneys told opposing counsel in two separate lawsuits that instead of meeting the Sept. 4 deadline, they would give 48-hours notice to plaintiffs' counsel before the state citizenship portal was launched, according to recent court filings.
Why this matters: The U.S. has never attempted to create a comprehensive list of American citizens before this administration. Maintaining voter lists is the responsibility of states, not the federal government, as the Constitution dictates that states control elections. But President Trump has repeatedly taken steps to try to exert executive control over elections.
The Trump administration is taking steps to advance a mysterious and unprecedented project to compile state-by-state lists of people it has decided are eligible citizens over the age of 18 who can vote in the upcoming midterm election. But it will no longer meet its own deadline to publish that information on a portal on Friday, which is 60 days before Election Day.
Department of Justice attorneys told opposing counsel in two separate lawsuits that instead of meeting the Sept. 4 deadline, they would give 48-hours notice to plaintiffs' counsel before the state citizenship portal was launched, according to recent court filings.
The U.S. has never attempted to create a comprehensive list of American citizens before this administration. Maintaining voter lists is the responsibility of states, not the federal government, as the Constitution dictates that states control elections. But President Trump has repeatedly taken steps to try to exert executive control over elections.
The basis for the federal government creating state citizenship lists is an executive order Trump signed on March 31. A lower court had blocked implementation of key parts of that executive order in 23 states and Washington, D.C., but the Supreme Court stayed that injunction late last month, opening the door for the plan to be implemented after all.
The March 31 executive order directs U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Social Security Administration to create "State Citizenship Lists" of individuals the agencies believe are citizens in each state, and send those lists to state officials "no fewer than 60 days before each regularly scheduled Federal election."
The next section of the executive order says the U.S. attorney general will prioritize investigating and prosecuting state and local officials who issue federal ballots to anyone not eligible to vote.
"States here have a strong incentive to actually use these lists to try to avoid federal investigation," said Jules Torti, counsel at the nonprofit Protect Democracy, in an interview with NPR. "But we know that these lists are going to be based on really inaccurate data. So the risk of disenfranchisement here is really, really palpable."
The privacy group Electronic Privacy Information Center, along with individual voters, filed a motion Thursday asking a federal judge in Maryland to block the administration from creating the citizenship lists and publishing them on a portal. Specifically, they seek to block a June 8 implementation memo authored by USCIS director Joseph Edlow that outlines the plan.
The motion, which was brought by Protect Democracy, along with another nonprofit legal group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, argues the administration's plans to share Americans' personal data between agencies and then disseminate the data to states violates multiple federal laws, including the Privacy Act, the Social Security Act and the Administrative Procedures Act. Under the Privacy Act, federal agencies must give the public 30 days notice and the opportunity to comment before they collect and disseminate Americans' personal data for a new purpose.
The EPIC lawsuit also argues the government does not have access to accurate, up-to-date information on American citizens, especially those who move frequently, have changed their names, or are foreign-born. For example, Social Security's citizenship data often isn't updated when people naturalize, and the SAVE data system, operated by USCIS, frequently doesn't include records for people who became citizens as minors when their parents naturalized.
Torti said it is "deeply concerning" that the administration is still planning to go ahead with the creation of citizenship lists but is no longer going to meet the deadline, since that means the lists will be completed even closer to Election Day.
"It means additional chaos, additional confusion for the state election officials and just for voters," Torti said. "And I think that's the point. The point here is to create chaos in advance of the election."
Neither the Department of Justice, nor the Department of Homeland Security, which is tasked with compiling the citizenship lists, responded to NPR's request for comment.
The June 8 implementation memo stated that the portal for state election officials would be available around June 30 and a second portal where citizens could check their information would be available at a later date – but that deadline passed without further updates.
The federal government has secured a domain for the state citizenship lists portal. While the portal is not currently online, it was briefly live in recent days with a landing page that said "Coming Soon," according to court filings.
Lawyers representing Democratic party groups that had challenged the March 31 executive order in a separate lawsuit filed in April, accused the administration in a recent filing of failing to notify the court or the parties about its plans to move forward with the state citizenship portal. They asked the judge to require the federal government to give immediate updates about their plans to implement the executive order.
This latest legal battle over the administration's plans to compile state citizenship lists comes as the Department of Homeland Security is ramping up its efforts to analyze state voter rolls with the goal of identifying potential noncitizens who are registered to vote. Previous audits have found instances of noncitizens casting ballots to be incredibly rare.
Additionally, last week, ICE published a request for information on a federal procurement site seeking vendors who can compile public voter rolls and voter history files from all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and U.S. territories, "to support Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) fraud detection and data segmentation activities."
NPR's Hansi Lo Wang contributed reporting to this story. Copyright 2026 NPR
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A group of California lawmakers called on federal officials to halt and reject a proposed land exchange in Yosemite National Park that would allow a private developer to take control of a strip of land in the park for an access road to the park’s main attractions.
About the proposed land exchange: The proposal was first reported by news outlet NOTUS, which published a story last week alleging that members of the Trump administration were meeting with representatives of Kingsbarn Realty Capital, a private equity group that owns an 83-acre parcel next to the park. In an email to KQED, Kingsbarn’s lawyer Lanny J. Davis confirmed the group is pursuing the land exchange to build a new access road from its property to the park.
Why it matters: A bipartisan group of 61 state legislators led by Assemblymember Greg Wallis, a Republican who represents Riverside and San Bernardino counties argues that the proposed land exchange is counter to the mission of the National Park Service and the founding of Yosemite in 1864, which set aside the start of the park for public use and protection for the first time in the history of the federal government.
A group of California lawmakers called on federal officials to halt and reject a proposed land exchange in Yosemite National Park that would allow a private developer to take control of a strip of land in the park for an access road to the park’s main attractions.
The letter to Department of the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on Wednesday was signed by a bipartisan group of 61 state legislators led by Assemblymember Greg Wallis, a Republican who represents Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
“Republicans and Democrats from both houses of the Legislature are standing together because some things are bigger than politics,” Wallis said in a statement. “Yosemite is not a subdivision. It is not a bargaining chip. And it is not for sale. Secretary Burgum and the administration should put an end to this proposal.”
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum (center) visited the Tunnel Tops in San Francisco in 2025 after he and then-Attorney General Pam Bondi toured Alcatraz ahead of their announcement to reopen the former federal prison.
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Katie DeBenedetti
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KQED
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The group argued that the proposed land exchange is counter to the mission of the National Park Service and the founding of Yosemite in 1864, which set aside the start of the park for public use and protection for the first time in the history of the federal government.
“What is being proposed now runs directly against that founding principle, more than a century and a half later,” the letter states.
It continues later: “Our national parks belong equally to every American. They are not the Department’s to trade away, and they are not for sale.”
The proposal was first reported by news outlet NOTUS, which published a story last week alleging that members of the Trump administration were meeting with representatives of Kingsbarn Realty Capital, a private equity group that owns an 83-acre parcel next to the park. In an email to KQED, Kingsbarn’s lawyer Lanny J. Davis confirmed the group is pursuing the land exchange to build a new access road from its property to the park.
Previous owners have pushed for the same deal since the early 2000s and failed in court.
State Assemblymember Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park), who signed on to the letter, called the proposal “indefensible,” and said he’s looking at state laws to ensure a similar proposal could never slip through.
“If the Trump administration can’t defend this publicly in broad daylight, then they shouldn’t be doing it,” he said.
Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Marin) told KQED’s Forum on Wednesday that he’s worried there isn’t enough opposition among his Republican colleagues in Congress to stop the Trump administration’s efforts.
“I have not seen a single Republican colleague willing to stand up to Donald Trump when he decides that he’s just going to do something,” Huffman said. “So that is my concern, that he just plows ahead with this — even if it has dubious legal authority, or even if it’s an open violation of the law. He’s doing stuff like that anyway. And in this Congress, there’s no one here to stop him.”
In a statement to KQED, state Sen. Marie Alvarado-Gil (R-Modesto), whose district includes parts of Yosemite, said she will “keep pressing the Department [of the Interior] for a clear answer that this exchange will not proceed.”
“The secretive backroom land-exchange scheme has gotten everyone’s attention,” said Neal Desai, senior Pacific regional director of the National Parks Conservation Association. “I can’t recall another issue — and I’ve been working in the conservation space for over a couple of decades — where the response has been this sharp and so one-sided that this is a terrible idea that should not happen.”
The backlash comes at a turbulent time for National Park Service employees, who have faced layoffs,staffing cuts and fear of retaliation for speaking up against Trump administration policies since the start of the second Trump administration.
Some former employees have also raised concerns about a potential reorganization of the National Park Service, according to a separate letter sent to Burgum’s office Wednesday. According to an email seen by KQED, park superintendents have been asked to attend in-person regional meetings in September — with no clear agenda beyond discussing “agency priorities, our FY 2026 outlook, and other matters important to the work ahead.”
The letter to Burgam, signed by 20 retired parks superintendents warns: “An ill-advised and hastily planned reorganization could dismantle that structure, putting our parks — and those who visit them — at great risk.”
Emily Thompson, executive director of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, which organized the letter, said the email about regional meetings “raises some alarm bells.”
“The Park Service is already operating from a difficult place, from a place of crisis,” she said. “And any additional cuts, any movements or actions that would further jeopardize the capacity of the folks that are left, that’s concerning. It’s worrying, and it’ll have a devastating impact on the Park Service.”
Among the letter’s signatories is Don Neubacher, retired Yosemite superintendent, who has been a vocal advocate for parks amid the Trump administration’s changes.
Thompson said she’s worried parks leaders will be stretched even further than they already are, and local decision-making over parks could be in jeopardy.
“Morale is low,” Thompson said. “It’s a hard time to be a federal employee. Anything that … contributes to this culture of fear, it’s just not acceptable.”
A file photo of an East Village restaurant that was vandalized on Thursday, June 6, 2024.
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Long Beach Post
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Topline:
Long Beach is offering up to $1,500 for local business owners and landlords to equip their storefronts with safety measures like cameras, floodlights, alarms and point-of-sale systems.
More details: Businesses with storefronts of 1,500 square feet or less may receive grants of up to $750, while businesses between 1,500 and 5,000 square feet are eligible for up to $1,500.
How it works: The funds will be provided as a reimbursement after eligible security improvements are installed. Grants will be given out until funds are exhausted.
Read on... for more on how to qualify for these grants in Long Beach.
Long Beach is offering up to $1,500 for local business owners and landlords to equip their storefronts with safety measures like cameras, floodlights, alarms and point-of-sale systems.
The grant program is accepting online applications now. You can apply here.
Businesses with storefronts of 1,500 square feet or less may receive grants of up to $750, while businesses between 1,500 and 5,000 square feet are eligible for up to $1,500.
Nonprofit organizations are eligible as well, and landlords can apply on behalf of commercial storefronts that are vacant or occupied. Franchises can also receive the grant.
To qualify, a business must:
Have an active business license for a storefront within the city
Be independently owned and operated (franchises are eligible)
Be currently open and active for business
Earn no more than $5 million in annual gross revenue
Hold “active” status with the California Secretary of State for corporations, limited liability companies and limited partnerships
The funds will be provided as a reimbursement after eligible security improvements are installed. Grants will be given out until funds are exhausted.
It’s a great idea, according to Edwin Jara, who manages a pet store in Belmont Heights and was on the receiving end of a break-in earlier this year.
His store had security measures already in place — two cameras and an alarm system — but even that wasn’t enough to deter a masked burglar who grabbed $1,000 cash and a handful of dog treats.
Despite having footage of the burglar, Jara said police haven’t been able to catch the person and that a detective never responded after he filed a police report.
The grant program is being paid for with $350,000 from the city’s Redvelopment Agency along with $50,000 from Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn’s office.
“Our local small businesses are part of the fabric of our neighborhoods, and when business owners feel unsafe, the whole community feels it,” Hahn said in a statement.
In a statement, Mayor Rex Richardson said the program is a “direct investment in the hardworking business owners who make our commercial corridors vibrant and welcoming.”
Jara said he would consider applying for a grant if the city could send someone to help him and the store’s owner fill out the application.
He was offered a separate grant to replace a glass door the burglar smashed, but the store’s owner opted not to fill out the application.
“There was a lot of stuff that we needed to do, and I don’t have a lot of that information,” Jara said.
