Debunking Climate Change Denial. The Case of DeSmogBlog Project and Its Crusade against Climate Misinformation Campaigns

The discussion on the ideological and legal underpinning of climate change denial theories, recently inflaming political and institutional controversy around the world, merits closer linguistic scrutiny in order to take proper measure of its discursive impact on constructing denialist stakeholder stance. This study intends to investigate how the lobbying efforts of individuals and organizational think tanks, located in greater numbers in corporate America, have deliberately disseminated doubt concerning climate change. To this purpose, the investigation draws on data provided by DeSmogBlog, a counter-denialist project whose website contains profiles of those accused of routinely exposing denialist theories and policy issues through the world’s most popular media outlets. In particular, the corpus of study comprises a collection of texts consisting of key quotes extracted from interviews, speeches, remarks and articles which are analyzed by implementing qualitative tools afforded by Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) supported by Appraisal Theory and Stance frameworks. Preliminary results suggest that discursive patterns of denial, which lead to the formulation of a denial typology, are embedded in strategies employed by those involved in the concerted effort to discredit scientific consensus over climate change.