Claim: Viral posts claim that climate change is a "made-up catastrophe.
Verdict: REFUTES

Retrieved passages:
title: Global warming controversy
text: groups and the press. For example, Mike Hulme, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Research, wrote how increasing use of pejorative terms like "catastrophic", "chaotic" and "irreversible", had altered the public discourse around climate change: "This discourse is now characterised by phrases such as 'climate change is worse than we thought', that we are approaching 'irreversible tipping in the Earth's climate', and that we are 'at the point of no return'. I have found myself increasingly chastised by climate change campaigners when my public statements and lectures on climate change have not satisfied their thirst for environmental drama and

title: Joe Barton
text: "cause the temperature to go up," although a report in "Snopes" suggested that Barton was merely quoting an academic study which suggested that increased use of wind turbines might have unintended consequences for the environment, and that the claim about the linkage between increased use of wind turbines and slowing down the winds was incorrect. In 2013, when discussing the Keystone XL pipeline, he referred to the Genesis flood narrative in the Bible to argue that current climate change isn't man-made. Barton rejects the scientific consensus on climate change that climate change is real and that human activity is the

title: Baba Brinkman
text: track "What's Beef", which remixes a Notorious B.I.G. song to discuss climate change denial. "Rap Guide to Climate Chaos" summarizes the science, politics, and economics of climate change and advocates for a global carbon tax as part of the solution. In 2016, after the election of Donald Trump, Brinkman worked with Wesleyan University professor Gary Yohe, a senior contributor to the IPCC and co-recipient along with Al Gore of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, to produce a new song and video entitled "Erosion", summarizing data from the National Climate Assessment on the US-based physical impacts of climate change. Brinkman and

title: Climate Change Denial Disorder
text: get to make those decisions for all of us." The narrator explains the mechanism of the disorder while an illustrated video of the brain is displayed: "Climate Change Denial Disorder is a rapidly spreading disease that attacks the neurons, making it impossible to comprehend basic words." Words eventually removed from comprehension by those suffering from the disorder are said to include: "factual", "science", and "melting". Another man says to the camera that he feels global warming is "a bunch of New Age hooey garbage". He goes on to exclaim: "It's snowing right now, who cares if I'm in Southern California!"

title: Climate Hustle
text: that some holdout scientists do still make to undermine mainstream climate concerns." The "Post" challenges the validity of several of the film's claims directly, which it characterizes as "the same things they've been arguing for many years, albeit with regular touch-ups." "Ars Technica" likened the film's style to a "Gish Gallop", calling it "a fast-paced, uninterrupted delivery of superficial and false claims about climate science" which forms "an 80-minute-long list of all the climate 'skeptic' blogosphere's favorite claims." The film features a number of expert testimonies in support of its claims. According to Scott K. Johnson of "Ars Technica", those

title: Climate Change Denial Disorder
text: the prior week, commenting: "Global warming is apparently melting our brains." Biologist Mary Ellen Harte of "The Huffington Post" shared her take on several satirical pieces related to climate change, and called the film "absolutely hilarious". Ali Velez of "BuzzFeed" wrote positively of the film: "Funny Or Die nailed this satirical video about climate change deniers." Velez said of the mock criticism of scientists by individuals in the film: "Drought? Melting ice caps? Bah! What do scientists know anyway? Spoiler alert: scientists know a lot." "Daily Kos" writer Jen Hayden said: "The hilarious folks at Funny or Die have a

title: Straight Up (book)
text: few that addressed transitory, fleeting events – his book is absolutely on point in its insistence that climate change long ago ceased to be a scientific issue and, instead, is most clearly a political one." Gelbspan agrees with Romm that "a central reason that most political conservatives and libertarians deny the reality of human-induced climate change 'is that they simply cannot stand the solution. So they attack both the solution and the science.' I don't recall reading that simple truth in [traditional media,] virtually all of which treat the climate debate as though it actually had some legitimacy." He also

title: Climate fiction
text: civilization is reduced by persistent hurricane-force winds, and "The Drowned World" (1962) describes a future of melted ice-caps and rising sea-levels caused by solar radiation. In "The Burning World" (1964, later called "The Drought") his climate catastrophe is human-made, a drought due to disruption of the precipitation cycle by industrial pollution. As scientific knowledge of the effects of fossil fuel consumption and resulting increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations entered the public and political arena as "global warming", fiction about the problems of human-induced global warming began to appear. Susan M. Gaines's "Carbon Dreams" was an early example of a literary

title: Fox News
text: agree on whether the global warming is scientific fact or fiction". In 2010, Hannity said the so-called "Climategate" – the leaking of e-mails by climate scientist that climate change skeptics claimed demonstrated scientific misconduct but which all subsequent enquiries have found no evidence of misconduct or wrongdoing – a "scandal" that "exposed global warming as a myth cooked up by alarmists." Hannity frequently invites contrarian fringe scientists and critics of climate change to his shows. Shepard Smith has drawn attention for being one of few voices on Fox News to forcefully state that climate change is real, that human activities

title: An Inconvenient Truth...Or Convenient Fiction?
text: about climate change is correct. The planet is warming; human beings are playing a substantial role in that warming," but expanded that Gore "and a lot of other people make some extreme claims about what is likely to happen in the future that are not backed up by science." In his support of global warming theories, Hayward contends he is not a "climate change denier," but simply wishes to document with evidence that Gore's claims "are based on extreme and improbable models." In their review of the film sharing the inconsistencies of actual events when compared to the predictions of

title: Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand
text: book, Naomi Oreskes writes that people fall victim to the phenomenon of denial due to feeling frightened. The book examines several arguments against global warming, and uses peer-reviewed evidence from the scientific consensus to back-up rationale for disputing the validity of each argument. The methodology of those denying climate change is assessed, including: cherry picking data purporting to support their specific viewpoints, maintaining a high bar for evidence of climate change by those denying it, and criticism of the values of climate scientists themselves. The book puts forth an explanation why certain individuals, and the wider public, have a tendency

title: Climate Hustle
text: to register the continued existence of a small but still powerful fringe, even as the rest of the world accelerates its efforts to fight climate change." Several reviewers have drawn comparisons to Al Gore's 2006 documentary "An Inconvenient Truth". The film's basis is in a rejection of the overwhelming scientific consensus about climate change and the impact of human activities on it. "The Guardian" was critical of the film's "[dismissing] global warming as an excuse for government takeover and [making] the outrageously false claim that rising carbon emissions are beneficial." The "Washington Post" called it a "tour through the arguments

title: Climate change denial
text: the appearance of legitimate debate where there is none, an approach that has the ultimate goal of rejecting a proposition on which a scientific consensus exists." This process characteristically uses one or more of the following tactics: In 2015, environmentalist Bill McKibben accused President Obama (widely regarded as strongly in favour of action on climate change) of "Catastrophic Climate-Change Denial", for his approval of oil-drilling permits in offshore Alaska. According to McKibben, the President has also "opened huge swaths of the Powder River basin to new coal mining." McKibben calls this "climate denial of the status quo sort", where the

title: Memetics
text: expressions gathered from Twitter, Facebook, and structured interviews with climate activists. The major finding was that the global warming meme is not effective at spreading because it causes emotional duress in the minds of people who learn about it. Five central tensions were revealed in the discourse about [climate change], each of which represents a resonance point through which dialogue can be engaged. The tensions were Harmony/Disharmony (whether or not humans are part of the natural world), Survival/Extinction (envisioning the future as either apocalyptic collapse of civilization or total extinction of the human race), Cooperation/Conflict (regarding whether or not humanity

title: Jim Inhofe
text: Perhaps what has made this hoax so effective is that we hear over and over that the science is settled and there is a consensus that, unless we fundamentally change our way of life by limiting greenhouse gas emissions, we will cause catastrophic global warming. This is simply a false statement." In January 2005, Inhofe told Bloomberg News that global warming was "the second-largest hoax ever played on the American people, after the separation of church and state", and that carbon dioxide would not be restricted by the Clear Skies Act of 2003. In a Senate Floor "update", he extended

title: Aviva Rahmani
text: that superimposed satellite imagery with textual warnings on the morphing and changing of climate change on the global landscape. Her work embodies a discourse that focuses on the power dynamics of disaster and how rising sea levels will not only effect landscape, but also result in the relocation of communities and refugee migration. Rahmani seamlessly ties together climate change with the themes of class, power, and justice — a conversation not as prevalent in the global warming conversation. In 2009, Rahmani served as a formal observer for University of Colorado Boulder at the COP15 and blogged about her experience for

title: Climate change denial
text: the current conservative and Republican identity." On the other hand, global oil companies have begun to acknowledge the existence of climate change and its risks. Manufactured climate change denial is also influencing how scientific knowledge is communicated to the public. According to climate scientist Michael E. Mann, "...universities and scientific societies and organizations, publishers, etc.—are too often risk averse when it comes to defending and communicating science that is perceived as threatening by powerful interests..." Climate change denial Climate change denial, or global warming denial, is part of the global warming controversy. It involves denial, dismissal, or unwarranted doubt that

title: Jess Phoenix
text: that climate change is a hoax. She stated that she believes "Donald Trump is threatening [the] future by destroying some of the most basic things we all agree are important. Education, scientific research, disaster preparedness, critical infrastructure, national parks, and wildlife are all under assault." She supports environmental regulations, action against climate change, and a balanced approach to dealing with natural resources. She stated in an interview that "climate change is going to impact our national security, our jobs, our health, and even our food security." She supports investment in renewable energy, national parks, and improving the Environmental Protection Agency.

title: Climate change denial
text: about global warming. In the public debate, phrases such as "climate skepticism" have frequently been used with the same meaning as "climate denialism". The labels are contested: those actively challenging climate science commonly describe themselves as "skeptics", but many do not comply with common standards of scientific skepticism and, regardless of evidence, persistently deny the validity of human caused global warming. Although scientific opinion on climate change is that human activity is extremely likely to be the primary driver of climate change, the politics of global warming have been affected by climate change denial, hindering efforts to prevent climate change

title: Climate change denial
text: model was also applied on denial. This taxonomy has been used in social science for analysis of publications, and to categorize climate change skepticism and climate change denial. Sometimes, a fourth category called "consensus denial" is added, which describes people who question the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming. The National Center for Science Education describes climate change denial as disputing differing points in the scientific consensus, a sequential range of arguments from denying the occurrence of climate change, accepting that but denying any significant human contribution, accepting these but denying scientific findings on how this would affect nature and