The climate battles of ideas: Minority discourses in readers’ comments to climate change articles in the Portuguese press

Abstract

Today, the dominant climate change discourses affirm its anthropogenic nature and the urgency for policies. However, minority discourses remain active in the worldwide debate, refining arguments beyond simple denial—as shown regarding formal/official discourses of the United States and European far-right parties. This makes it necessary to examine the public understanding of climate change in everyday, informal minority discourses, looking at how they work for broadening societal space for “quarantining” the transformative potential of climate change meanings/policies. For this, we analyze readers’ comments on climate change articles from two Portuguese newspapers, drawing from the frameworks of neutralization techniques and meaning barriers. Findings show that although denial of anthropogenic climate change remains, discursive efforts concentrate on person-stigmatizing depictions of climate change actors, delegitimized as “elites” in populist vocabularies, reflecting a consistent alignment between everyday discourses and those of the United States and European official far-right. We discuss the functions this pattern may have for the growth of climate change minority positions.