Catholics and Climate Change Skepticism

Despite Church teachings on climate change and most Catholics accepting the science and being concerned, a large minority of Catholic laity and clergy deny it. This multisited, qualitative study, which includes supporting quantitative data, focuses on how skepticism is articulated by Catholic climate change skeptics, and transmitted and transmuted through Catholic networks. While Catholic climate change skeptics echo other skeptics, they also bring Catholic perspectives, often mingled with conservative religious and political views. Some express concern common among other Christian skeptics that believing in climate change leads to neopaganism and promotes antihuman sentiments. The focus is on Catholic climate change skeptics and their ideas, not Catholicism per se, and various cultural, social, and psychological factors, including their understanding of Catholicism, that impact their climate change skepticism. This contributes to the growing scholarship on climate change skepticism.