Some climate change denialism is due misinformation on the subject spread by the petroleum industry in a campaign which is remarkably like the older campaign by the tobacco industry to deny that tobacco is harmful to health. Others deny climate change because acknowledging a problem which requires government coordination to solve is not allowed in their political worldview. Some are misled by misunderstandings about the predictions made by climate science, such as having increased snow because a warmer atmosphere holds more water. Some are confused by the difference in the ways certain words are used in science as opposed to the general public. (The different use of the word theory is also significant regarding the misinformation spread by creationists.) The table above shows some examples of how words are used in science as opposed to the way the words are used by non-scientists. (From “Communicating the Science of Climate Change,” by Richard C. J. Somerville and Susan Joy Hassol, from the October 2011 issue of Physics Today, page 48.)
