Editing Environmental skepticism (section)

==Criticism==
According to ''[[The Guardian]]'', such widespread skeptical doubts have not developed independently, but have been "encouraged by lobbying and PR campaigns financed by the polluting industries". Supporters of environmentalists argue that "skepticism" implies a form of [[denialism]], and that, in the US particularly, "large donations [have been made] to Senators and Congressmen and [have] sponsored [[Neoliberalism|neoliberal]] [[think tank]]s and [[Pseudoscience|contrarian]] scientific research. [[ExxonMobil]], the oil major, has been accused by [[Friends of the Earth]] and others of giving millions of dollars to a long list of think-tanks and lobbyists opposed to [[Kyoto Protocol|Kyoto]]."<ref name="Denial lobby turns up the heat"/>

A study from 2008 showed that the overwhelming majority of environmentally skeptical books published since the 1970s were either written or published by authors or institutions affiliated with [[right-wing]] think tanks. It concludes that "scepticism is a tactic of an elite-driven counter-movement designed to combat environmentalism, and that the successful use of this tactic has contributed to the weakening of US commitment to environmental protection."<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.carbonnews.co.nz/story.asp?storyID=1210 | title=Environmental sceptics overwhelmingly politicised, says study | publisher=Carbon News| date=June 17, 2008 | access-date=December 12, 2011}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = Jacques | first1 = Peter J. | last2 = Dunlap | first2 = Riley E. | last3 = Freeman | first3 = Mark | title = The organisation of denial: Conservative think tanks and environmental scepticism | journal = [[Environmental Politics (journal)|Environmental Politics]] | volume = 17 | issue = 3 | pages = 349–385 | doi = 10.1080/09644010802055576 | date = June 2008 | s2cid = 144975102 }}</ref>

Peter Jacques wrote, "The skeptical environmental counter-movement is a civic problem and in dealing with the propositions from the counter-movement we are forced to reach down to the bedrock issues of epistemology, identities, articulation and other core work for politics. To use [[scientism]] as a hammer against the screw of skepticism will split the wood of public life into splinters or it will immobilize the hammer. Scientism is a modernist tool that will haplessly reshuffle the old excursions - and we all know the 'master's tools will not dismantle the master's house"<ref name="Jacques2016">{{cite book|author=Peter J. Jacques|title=Environmental Skepticism: Ecology, Power and Public Life|page=4|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tVIfDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA4|date=6 May 2016|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-317-14218-8}}</ref>