Environmental Sociology

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‘Scientists don’t care about truth anymore’: the
climate crisis and rejection of science in Canada’s
oil country
Timothy J. Haney
To cite this article: Timothy J. Haney (2021): ‘Scientists don’t care about truth anymore’: the
climate crisis and rejection of science in Canada’s oil country, Environmental Sociology, DOI:
10.1080/23251042.2021.1973656
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2021.1973656

© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa
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Group.
Published online: 30 Aug 2021.

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ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY
https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2021.1973656

‘Scientists don’t care about truth anymore’: the climate crisis and rejection of
science in Canada’s oil country
Timothy J. Haney
Department of Sociology & Anthropology, Mount Royal University, Calgary, Canada
ABSTRACT

ARTICLE HISTORY

Recent research in the area of science and technology studies focuses on climate change
denial, the spread of misinformation, and public distrust in climate scientists; these beliefs are
held especially by those dependent on fossil fuel extraction for their livelihoods. Many of the
same individuals who deny the scientific consensus on climate change are nevertheless directly
impacted by the climate crisis and environmental disasters. In fossil fuel dependent locations,
do people continue to deny the scientific consensus on climate change and distrust climate
scientists even after themselves experiencing a catastrophic flood? This paper investigates this
question through interviews with 40 people affected by the 2013 Southern Alberta Flood, the
costliest flood in Canadian history, who also live in the City of Calgary, the economic hub for
Canada’s tar sands. Results indicate the participants rejected the scientific consensus on
climate change, voiced a distrust in the motivations of climate scientists, though hoped they
would one day discover the ‘truth’, and worked discursively to protect the oil industry. The
findings reveal the complexity of post-disaster environmental views and trust in science, as well
as how fossil fuel dependence shapes these views.

Received 13 February 2021
Accepted 25 August 2021

Introduction
Risks are endemic in North American cities – places
vulnerable to hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, and
a litany of more mundane hazards, generating renewed
scholarly interest in the urban hazardscape (Khan,
Crozier, and Kennedy 2012). Most of these risks are
being exacerbated and intensified by climate change
and the current climate crisis. On this matter, there is
a scientific consensus: The earth’s climate is changing,
humans are primarily responsible for it via our carbon
emissions (IPCC 2018, 2015), and that change is intensi­
fying disaster risks worldwide (UNISDR 2019). On that
latter point, there is largely even agreement between
scientists (Cook et al. 2016), NGO’s (Red Cross 2020), and
the private sector (Swiss Re Institute 2019).
Despite the scientific consensus, public opinion lags
somewhat behind in both Canada and the United
States, though is gaining ground in the USA. In
Canada, the province with the highest proportion of
climate change skeptics and deniers is Alberta which,
not coincidentally, is home of the tar sands – the third
largest petroleum deposit in the world. In Alberta,
production and growth in the tar sands means jobs
and very high incomes and, as we might expect,
Albertans rally to protect their oil industry when they
feel it is threatened (Davidson and Gismondi 2011).
But how do those dependent on oil production for
their livelihoods make sense of the climate crisis and the
scientific consensus on it after themselves experiencing
CONTACT Timothy J. Haney

KEYWORDS

Climate change; science;
denial; Canada; oil and gas

an environmental disaster? How do they express trust or
mistrust in scientists and the empirical questions that
scientists understand as being quite settled? And, in
what ways do defensiveness about the oil and gas
industry help us understand their views of climate
change and the attendant science?
To answer these questions, the present study mobi­
lizes qualitative interview data drawn from 40 resi­
dents of Calgary, Alberta in the neighborhoods
immediately adjacent to the city’s major rivers, the
Bow and Elbow. As the rivers attract many of the
city’s wealthiest denizens, nearby land houses many
who work in the oil and gas industry or in white-collar
industries that support or depend upon it. At the same
time, the city’s two rivers catastrophically flooded in
2013 (Pomeroy, Stewart, and Whitfield 2016), an event
that became the costliest disaster in Canadian history,
and indeed, nearly all participants in the study flooded.
How did these flood-affected but oil-dependent resi­
dents express agreement/disagreement with the
scientific consensus, explain their trust or mistrust of
science and scientists, and understand actions that
might be taken to limit carbon emissions? Answering
these question will help us to learn more about the
complex, nuanced ways that people view scientific
work on climate change, particularly in communities
highly dependent on fossil fuels.
As I demonstrate below, participants in this inter­
view study, when questioned about their environmen­
tal views, engaged in four main discursive strategies: A)

thaney@mtroyal.ca

© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or
built upon in any way.

2

T. J. HANEY

They expressed disbelief in the scientific consensus on
climate change; B) They expressed a distrust in scien­
tists, though some did trust scientists to one day prove
that climate change is not caused by humans; C) They
defend the oil and gas industry while blaming other
nations and other fuel sources (i.e., not oil) for climatic
changes, and D) They suggest solutions for the climate
crisis that are both at odds with scientific positions
and, most importantly, are less of a threat to the profit­
ability of Alberta’s oil and gas industry.

Literature review
Research on public understandings of climate change
most often focuses on the demographics of popula­
tions who accept or deny anthropogenic climate
change (i.e., McCright and Dunlap 2011a; Spence,
Poortinga, and Pidgeon 2012; Smiley 2017; McCright
2010; Hamilton, Hartter, and Bell 2019). Recently, an
interesting line of work has focused on the role of
emotions (Norgaard 2011), on silence and avoidance
(Zerubavel 2006), and on how people work to spin
worrying information in a positive light (Cerulo 2006).
Less often has research looked at how people discur­
sively frame their ideas of climate change, and how
those framings stem from their ultimate trust or dis­
trust of the work of scientists. At the same time, a body
of existing literature demonstrates how dependence
on fossil fuels affects beliefs about climate change.
First, however, I will briefly outline the scientific con­
sensus on climate change.

The scientific consensus
As most readers will be aware, the scientific consensus
is that the Earth’s climate is changing and becoming
more volatile, and that human activity is primarily
responsible for it. Recent research demonstrates that
about 97 or 98% of climate scientists subscribe to
views consistent with this anthropogenic climate
change (Anderegg et al. 2010; Cook et al. 2016).
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC 2018) ‘human influence has become
a principal agent of change on the planet, shifting
the world out of the relatively stable Holocene period
into a new geological era, often termed the
Anthropocene’ (p. 53). This consensus is that ‘human
activities are estimated to have caused approximately
1.0°C of global warming above pre-industrial levels . . . .
Likely to reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2050’ (p. 4).
Along with the changes to the climate, disasters and
catastrophes are becoming more common and
damages from them are increasing (UNISDR 2019).
Even 15 years ago, no major scientific organization
took the position that humans are not changing the
earth’s climate (Oreskes 2004), a view that remains the
consensus today (NASA 2021). The world’s scientists

have argued we have a worsening climate emergency
in need of drastic and immediate action (reductions in
emissions), citing their own moral obligation to speak
out (Ripple et al. 2020).
Despite these urgent matters of fact, there remains
public skepticism and outright denial. In the United
States research indicates that as of 2015, just over
half the population acknowledged that climate change
is occurring and is caused mainly by human activity,
while 30 to 40% conceded that the climate is changing
but believe its causes are mainly natural (Hamilton
et al. 2015). The percentage accepting the scientific
consensus rose by about 10 points between 2010
and 2016, however (Hamilton 2016), and indeed 81%
of Americans now attribute climate change at least
somewhat to human activity (Goldberg et al. 2020)
while a full two-thirds of Americans now think the US
government should take action to address climate
change (Tyson and Kennedy 2020). These findings
generally track patterns in climate change denial
from other wealthy countries/regions like Australia
(Tranter 2017), New Zealand (Milfont, Wilson, and
Sibley 2017) and Europe (Poortinga et al. 2019). In
this body of work, different views of climate change
are often aligned with political views, with conserva­
tives/Republicans more likely to reject the consensus
(Hamilton, Hartter, and Bell 2019; McCright and Dunlap
2011a, McCright and Dunlap 2011b). In Canada, the
vast majority of people (83%) believe that the earth is
getting warmer, and 60% acknowledge that it is warm­
ing mostly or partly because of human activity, how­
ever these numbers are precipitously lower in Alberta,
where only 70% believe the earth is warming and 42%
believe that warming is caused by humans
(Mildenberger et al. 2016). In other words, fewer than
half of Albertans subscribe to the scientific consensus
on anthropogenic climate change. Along similar lines,
only 34% of Albertans believe that climate change will
harm them personally, and only 56% believe that their
province has already felt the effects of climate change.
Alberta, the site of the current study, leads the nation
in climate change denial. Why might that be? As the
follow section teaches us, communities reliant on fossil
fuel extraction are particularly prone to this sort of
denial. First, however, it is also important to note that
disasters also play a role in shifting climate change
beliefs and environmental concern, as first-hand
experience of disaster and/or extreme weather events
has been found to alter such views, often in the direc­
tion of greater acceptance of the scientific consensus
and greater environmental concern (Sarathchandra
and Haltinner 2020; Hamilton, Safford, and Ulrich
2012; Cutler 2016; Tanner and Árvai 2018; Tidball
2012; Kato, Passidomo, and Harvey 2014). This debate
is far from settled, however, and it should be noted
that this is not the case during and after all crises
(Hamilton et al. 2016), and that these perspectival

ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY

changes do not necessarily translate into actions or
pro-environmental behaviors (Dessai and Sims 2010),
owing to a disconnect between actions undertaken
and severe impacts of climate change, which may
happen far away from the highest-contributing com­
munities (Zahran et al. 2008).

Fossil fuel communities and climate change beliefs
A body of work in sociology and related fields shows us
how fossil fuel extraction communities are shaped
politically, socially, and culturally by their economic
dependence on those resources (Bell 2016; Malin
2015; Bell and York 2010; Truong, Davidson, and
Parkins 2019; Eaton and Kinchy 2016). Residents of
communities dependent on fossil fuel extraction har­
bor environmental views at odds with scientific evi­
dence and may police one another’s views, public
speech, and activism. But a particularly useful body of
work shows us how these beliefs and views change,
particularly during and after environmental crises.
For instance, Bishop (2014) finds that after the
Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, residence in counties
highly dependent upon offshore drilling was predic­
tive of pro-drilling attitudes after the disaster, even
more so than before the disaster. In other words, the
disaster prompted people in these dependent coun­
ties to circle the wagons to protect their economic
interests after an event that Bishop calls a ‘focusing
event.’ These events can give rise to such protective
behaviors out of concern that the industry might be
threatened (for instance, by a moratorium on offshore
drilling). Along similar lines, Hamilton, Safford, and
Ulrich (2012) find that following the same event,
those in states dependent on tourism (Florida) were
more likely to support restrictions on offshore drilling,
and more likely to embrace environmentalism, than
those in states more dependent on oil (Louisiana). In
both cases, residents’ views were shaped by their eco­
nomic interests and whether oil threatened their lar­
gest industry (Florida) or was their largest industry
(Louisiana).
In many fossil fuel dependent communities, of
course, a substantial share of the population works
directly in the industry. How does that work exert an
influence on their environmental views and their posi­
tion on climate change? Lefsrud and Meyer (2012)
conducted a survey of more than 1,000 engineers
and geoscientists in Alberta, and they find that
a substantial portion of these educated professionals
(24%) believe that ‘changes to the climate are natural,
normal cycles of the earth,’ sometimes even viewing
these changes as wholly positive. Another 10% felt that
the ‘real’ cause of climate change is yet unknown, and
in doing so, they pointed out the economic harm they
felt would be done through emissions reductions.
Another group, comprising 17%, felt fatalistically

3

about it, and did not believe actions would have any
effect anyway. In all, about half of the professional
engineers and geologists, in some way or another,
doubted the scientific consensus on climate change.
In doing so, they frequently referred to their own
shrewd abilities as experts to sort out truth from false­
hoods, maintaining confidence in their judgement.
Even more worrisome, those higher up in their organi­
zations’ hierarchies, thus wielding more decisionmaking power, were the least likely to voice views
supportive of the scientific consensus and to support
regulation.
In these fossil fuel dependent communities, it can
be difficult to speak about the environment and about
climate change. Residents fear ostracization and exclu­
sion (Evans and Garvin 2009; Davidson 2018) as the
larger fossil-fuel dependent community refuses to tol­
erate dissent or opposing views, though speaking out
against the hegemony of fossil fuels is often under­
taken by women (Bell 2013; Bell and Braun 2010) and
by children (McDonald-Harker, Bassi, and Haney 2021),
those most negatively affected by the industry and
with fewer direct economic ties to the industry.
There’s a nascent body of work from Alberta looking
at how fossil fuel dependence shapes post-disaster
environmental views, as well. Haney and McDonaldHarker (2017) show how flood-affected adults began to
think about and care about environmental change and
risks since the 2013 flood. At the same time, Milnes and
Haney (2017) show how fossil fuel dependence
explains men’s post-disaster environmental compla­
cency, and they find that women are more likely to
embrace environmentalism after disaster. The ways
dependence manifests in environmental views is
made evident by McDonald-Harker, Bassi, and Haney
(2021), who studied disaster-affected children in
Alberta. Despite living in a community where many
people are dependent on fossil fuels, children (even
many whose parents worked in oil) spoke emotionally
and persuasively about the climate crisis and the need
to mitigate it. This literature highlights how many liv­
ing in Southern Alberta following the 2013 flood did
indeed adapt their environmental views and practices,
as a direct result of their experiences in the flood
(Haney 2021), though we understand less about their
post-disaster views on science, scientists, and the con­
sensus on climate change.

Distrust of science
Scholars have recently noted that public distrust of
science is becoming a prevalent and more alarming
phenomenon (Gauchat 2012). Research indicates that
the public is more trusting of scientists who are pub­
licly, not privately, funded (Critchley 2008) and that
members of the public trust scientists more when
they consume less conservative media (Hmielowski

4

T. J. HANEY

et al. 2014). Quantitatively, other important predictors
of trust are geographic location, religious identification
(Krause et al. 2019), maintaining an interest in science
over the life-course (Motta 2018), and subscribing to
left-wing or progressive politics (Leiserowitz et al.
2013). Among conservatives, these feelings of trust
are particularly complicated, with people placing
trust in science, but distrusting the scientists them­
selves, who they see as having an ideological agenda
(Mann and Schleifer 2020). Even when scientists warn
residents of hazards and their attendant risks, the pub­
lic frequently rejects official and scientific narratives
about those environmental risks (Messer, Shriver, and
Adams 2017). Messer at al. (2017) find that people
often challenge the science and data, voicing suspicion
of the motivations of scientists and government offi­
cials. This suspicion was heightened by the 2009 ‘cli­
mategate’ scandal, in which emails from climate
scientists purportedly admitted to concealing
a decline in global temperatures, gained significant
media coverage (Leiserowitz et al. 2013; Raman and
Pearce 2020).
Given existing distrust in science, discussed above,
it might be tempting to argue that reason and ‘truth’
do not matter to the public anymore. Yet as Jasanoff
and Simmet (2017) contend, debates about facts are
ultimately debates infused with social meanings and
subjectively experienced, but also rooted in material
realties. According to them, assuming that we are in
a post-truth age is naïve because it ‘overlooks people’s
manifest respect for evidence that matters to their
condition’ (p. 752); respect in scientific knowledge, in
other words, is socially patterned and depends upon
both who created it and how accepting it might affect
people’s material well-being. Similarly, Boulianne and
Belland (2019) show that even in Alberta, scientists are
the most trusted source of information about climate,
more so than the media. Nevertheless, they conclude
that ‘scientists’ messages about climate change are
clouded by high levels of distrust in the news media,
the primary venue through which their messages are
conveyed.’ One disconnect occurs because the media
do not normally connect locally-experienced disasters,
like wildfires, to climate change, thereby impeding
Albertans from connecting locally-experienced events
to climate change (Davidson, Fisher, and Blue 2019). At
the same time, Albertan and Canadian media outlets in
have discursively framed the environment/energy
debate as consisting of two delimited and mutually
exclusive camps, contributing to polarization of the
Alberta public (Davidsen 2016).
Distrust of science and scientists in Canada, like in
the United States, is fueled by a network of corporatefunded right-wing think tanks which work to influence
public beliefs and opinion (Dunlap and Jacques 2013;
Gutstein 2018; Bonds 2016). These think tanks are also
deeply embedded within the state in ways that shape

public policy. Taft (2017) calls this ‘oil’s deep state,’ and
demonstrates how these parties have worked to influ­
ence governments, to the extent that both right-wing
and left-wing politicians in Alberta are consistently
pro-oil, leaving little room in the public sphere for
dissent. Messaging from think tanks feeds into wide­
spread belief in conspiracy theories in Alberta – a strain
of thought originating in right-wing populist political
movements dating back to the 1930’s which situated
Albertans as victims of various federal and global con­
spiracies (Shamchuk 2012). In the United States, those
believing in a global climate conspiracy make up
a sizable minority of climate change deniers, and this
group is disproportionately composed of higherearning, right-wing, religious, educated older men
(Sarathchandra
and
Haltinner
2020).
As
Lewandowsky, Oberauer, and Gignac (2013) find, con­
spiratorial beliefs tend to coalesce as those who
believe in one conspiracy theory also tend to believe
in others. Further, they find that endorsement of freemarket economics (a common position in Alberta, as
I discuss below) is predictive of climate change denial.
Though scientists are not normally the main party
implicated in such conspiracy theory beliefs, those
who hold such beliefs nevertheless do hold
a measurable distrust in science (Drummond and
Fischhoff 2017; Lewandowsky, Gignac, and Oberauer
2013), even relative to other types of climate deniers
(Sarathchandra and Haltinner 2020).
Potentially most concerning is that despite scien­
tists’ dire warnings about climate change, and the
need to drastically reduce carbon emissions, many
Albertans do not see it that way. As Oreskes (2019)
points out, though scientists may separate empirical
truths from their implications, the public does not; to
many members of the public, scientific findings with
inconvenient implications are to be resisted. Results
from the province-wide Alberta Climate Dialogues
reveal that Albertans approach climate change as
mostly a tame problem ‘that can be solved by techno­
logical solutions or market-based mechanisms that
keep broader political and economic systems in
place’ (Blue 2018, p. 138). Thus, Albertans see climate
change not as a crisis and not as a risk requiring urgent
mitigative action.

Setting
Alberta is the fourth most populous province in
Canada, with a population of 4.37 million residents
(Government of Alberta 2021). Approximately onethird of Albertans live in the City of Calgary (population
1.54 million), one-third in the City of Edmonton (popu­
lation 1.47 million), and the balance (1.36 million) in
the remainder of the province, often in smaller cities
and towns (Statistics Canada 2021). Politically speak­
ing, the City of Edmonton is known as being slightly

ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY

more progressive (though the term ‘liberal’ is rarely
used in Alberta politics) than the rest of the province,
and the rural population is decidedly more conserva­
tive, leaving the City of Calgary somewhere in the
middle (Ward 2019; Cournoyer 2020), though still
quite far right-leaning by Canadian political standards
(see Bratt et al. 2019).
Given those political dimensions, Calgary, and
Alberta more broadly, presents a useful setting for
the exploration of the rejection of scientific knowl­
edge. Although skepticism about climate change in
Alberta has been well documented (see above), it
should also be noted that Alberta has some of the
worst routine vaccination coverage numbers in
Canada (Busby and Chesterley 2015), and the highest
hesitancy among Canadians for the COVID-19 vaccine
(CBC News 2021). As a result, Alberta has dealt with
outbreaks of preventable diseases such as pertussis
and measles, and today 43% of two-year-olds in
Alberta are unimmunized (Vandenberg and Kulig
2015). One of the drivers of both climate denial and
vaccine rejection in Alberta is the education system,
whereby matters of health and values are barred from
schools and taught by parents in the home (French
2016). Alberta also has the lowest rate of postsecondary (college and university) attendance and
completion in the country (COPPA 2019), rendering
many disconnected from scientific knowledge.
A key driver of skepticism is the public’s tendency to
believe conspiracy theories, a tendency that has been
quantitatively linked to refusal to follow public health
guidelines and to refuse vaccines (Teovanović et al.
2020). A variety of polls suggest that Albertans are
more likely than other Canadians to be skeptical of
climate change, they believe that the federal govern­
ment dedicates too much attention to climate change,
and believe Canada is already doing more than the rest
of the world to deal with climate change (Salomons
and Parkins 2018, p. 90). At the same time, the region is
highly disaster-prone, with 12 of the 20 costliest dis­
asters in Canadian history occurring in Alberta, includ­
ing six of them in the City of Calgary alone – nearly all
of them in the past decade (Sauchyn, Davidson, and
Johnston 2020). This region is ground zero for
a changing and more chaotic climate, but stubbornly
questions the attendant science.
Alberta also maintains a political-economic zeitgeist
that makes it particularly prone to the rejection of
science and empirical evidence about environmental
change. Alberta is known as the most conservative of
Canadian provinces, and its history celebrates the
rugged individualism embodied by iconic self-made
oil-men, cowboys, and ranchers – a history still cele­
brated annually at the city’s Calgary Stampede, the
largest rodeo on earth (Williams 2021). This history
makes Alberta particularly prone to right-wing popu­
lism (Davidson 2019; Sayers and Stewart 2019).

5

At the same time, Alberta is home to the tar sands,
the third largest oil deposit in the world. Despite its
size, most of the oil is contained as a tarry substance
called bitumen, which must be mined, then upgraded
(which is both energy and water-intensive), then piped
more than 1,000 miles to refineries on the US Gulf
Coast or Midwest. The polluted water produced as
a by-product is often stored in large tailings ponds.
Though oil companies boast about reclaiming and renaturing mined areas, only about 10% of mined tarsands land has undergone this process (Kent 2017).
The rest remains scars upon the landscape. At the
same time, toxins from the tar sands contaminate the
ground and soil, potentially sickening both nearby
indigenous communities (Alberta Cancer Board 2009)
and most certainly contaminating wildlife (CruzMartinez et al. 2015) and water (Kelly et al. 2010). In
short, the environmental impact of the tar stands is
substantial. Yet Alberta and Canada both depend upon
those resources economically, with the energy sector
currently comprising 23% of Alberta’s GDP and over
75% of its exports (Salomons and Parkins 2018).
As evidenced in the empirical work discussed above
(Haney 2021; Haney and McDonald-Harker 2017;
McDonald-Harker, Bassi, and Haney 2021), the 2013
Southern Alberta Flood left many people wondering
what they did not know about environmental pro­
blems and climate change – a finding consistent with
research in other geographic contexts demonstrating
how first-hand experience of negative environmental
events decreases things like conspiracy ideation
among climate change skeptics (Sarathchandra and
Haltinner 2020). The flood exposed gaps in their
knowledge and changed their views. This is particularly
relevant given the misinformation campaigns aimed at
Albertans, often undertaken by industry-supported
think tanks such as ‘Friends of Science’ who boast on
Calgary billboards that ‘The sun is the main driver of
climate change. Not you. Not CO2,’ as well as ‘Global
warming stopped naturally 16+ years ago.’ Discourses
like these have come to dominate in Alberta, much like
how the coal industry actively works to shape public
opinion about the environmental impact of their
industry (Bell 2016; Mix and Waldo 2015). This came
to a head in 2015 when Ecojustice filed a complaint
with the federal Competition Bureau asking it to inves­
tigate false and misleading claims by a number of
right-wing organizations including Friends of Science,
the International Climate Science Coalition, and the
Heartland Institute (Hanson and Kahane 2018, p. 11).
The emergent denial and misinformation trickle down
from government, as well; during the catastrophic
flooding in Calgary and the surrounding areas, the
Premier of Alberta, Allison Redford, ‘promised to report
to party members the following week on her recent
successful trip to New York City to promote the
Keystone XL pipeline,’ suggesting that ‘her

6

T. J. HANEY

government did not see any obvious link between
growing greenhouse gas emissions and the growing
intensity of extreme weather events that ultimately
caused the very catastrophe she was commenting
upon’ (Sandford and Freek 2014, p. 48). Given the
ubiquitous and repetitive pro-oil messaging Albertans
are exposed to, it creates an economic and social con­
text whereby those who oppose oil and gas infrastruc­
ture are dubbed ‘radicals’ with an ‘ideological agenda’
(Salomons and Parkins 2018). As one might expect,
Salomons and Parkins (2018) conclude that ‘this poli­
tical culture does not lend itself to significant action on
climate change, especially if such action would poten­
tially threaten the oil sands as the economic engine of
the province’ (p. 89). Yet outside of activities that the
state has declared ‘radical’ activism, Carter (2020)
argues that options for public consultation and feed­
back into oil-related environmental issues is almost
entirely absent.

Data & methods
The analyses that follow are based upon data derived
from 40 in-depth interviews with residents of Calgary
who were affected by the 2013 flood. Interviews took
place in the Fall of 2015, two years after the flood.
Recruitment of these 40 participants occurred through
the community associations in the city’s 26 floodaffected neighborhoods. Like many Canadian cities,
Calgary maintains a very civically active network of
community associations, which correspond to the
city’s many neighborhoods (City of Calgary 2018).
This recruitment followed a 2014 survey of several
hundred residents in these neighborhoods in which
community associations were key partners. Our para­
meters included only that the participants be ‘flood
affected,’ though we left that up to their interpretation.
In the end, however, 39 out of the 40 participants had
residences that flooded during the 2013 Southern
Alberta Flood. In many ways, this recruitment is ideal
as those who recently experienced an environmental
disaster have been shown to exhibit changing envir­
onmental views (Haney 2021; Hamilton, Safford, and
Ulrich 2012; Haney and McDonald-Harker 2017), and
disaster-affected people might potentially be increas­
ingly likely to accept the scientific consensus on cli­
mate change, having just gone through such an event.
Twenty of these interviews were with participants who
identified as being men, and 20 identified as women.
Thirty-five of the 40 participants provided their age
(i.e., five missing), resulting in a mean age of 52, and
a median of 55.5, which is slightly higher than, but in
the same ballpark as, systematic surveys from Calgary’s
flood affected neighborhoods (i.e., Haney 2019 who
found a mean of 48). About one-third of participants
(n=13) currently worked in the oil and gas industry, in
roles such as engineering, risk management, finance,

or geology. Another third (n=14) did not work directly
in the oil industry but mentioned a close family mem­
ber (usually a spouse) who did or reported being
retired from the oil industry. And, finally the remaining
third (n=13) worked in non-oil occupations such as
teachers, plumbers, technology entrepreneurs, profes­
sors, hairstylists, or were retired from these non-oil
occupations.
The interviews lasted between one hour and three
hours, with an average of 1.5 hours, and normally took
place at a coffee shop or café in the participant’s
neighborhood, or in a dedicated space at the univer­
sity. To thank participants, we offered them a $50 gift
card to RONA, a Canadian home improvement store.
Interview recordings were then transcribed verbatim
by a third-party transcriptionist, based in Calgary.
We did not ask questions specifically about partici­
pants’ views on science or scientists. Instead, we asked
broadly about their environmental views, and we
asked about what actions should be taken to mitigate
or adapt to climatic changes (taking anthropogenic
climate change itself as a given). Nevertheless, many
participants spoke at length about these issues, and
the topic of this paper arose in a grounded theory
fashion, from the data themselves. First, the author
open-coded the data to determine relevant themes.
Then, both the author and a research assistant inde­
pendently coded the data in NVivo to ensure intercoder reliability (see Warren and Karner 2010). The
study was approved by the Human Research Ethics
Board at Mount Royal University. All participant
names are changed to pseudonyms to ensure
confidentiality.

Findings
As discussed above, climate scientists almost uniformly
contend that the earth’s climate is changing and that
this change is primarily caused by human activity (IPCC
2018), while recently making calls about the urgency of
addressing the climate emergency (Ripple et al. 2020)
and the risks of facing an increasingly volatile climate
and ever-more climate disasters (UNISDR 2019). Did
flood-affected participants living in the financial hub
of Canada’s tar sands subscribe to these same beliefs?
In short, no. Findings from the study indicate that
some flood-affected participants from Calgary
admitted to lacking knowledge about climate change
and the environment. More often, though, they gave
voice to positions that are at odds with the scientific
consensus on climate change. Does distrust of science
and scientists explain these views that depart from the
scientific consensus? Yes, although the answer is
nuanced. Participants espoused a distrust of scientists
and their motivations to reveal and communicate
‘truth’ about climate change, though to add a layer of
complexity, I also find that many participants trusted

ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY

science insofar as they hoped scientists would one day
discover the ‘truth’ that climate change either is not
occurring or is not anthropogenic. Because they
viewed the science as yet largely unsettled, or because
they flatly denied the salience of human contributions
to climate change, many participants discussed their
reluctance to act too quickly on climate change, and
only wished to make incremental cuts to emissions, so
as to not disturb economic growth, demonstrating
some of the connections between scientific mistrust
and defensiveness about oil and gas. The sections that
follow unpack and examine these major themes.

Denial of the scientific consensus
When asked about climate change and the environ­
ment, a few of the participants admitted freely that
they lacked knowledge on the topic – including par­
ticipants who work in the oil and gas industry them­
selves. Several others contended that the science was
still unsettled, and felt scientists were working on the
issue. William tells us ‘There appears to be an increase
in natural disasters, and whether that is just because
the media is doing that or if there is a greater number
of them happening, you know, a lot of times it is hard
to tell. It appears that there are more and more major
environmental disasters happening weather-wise and
I guess whether it is climate change that is doing that
or is just part of an overall pattern is for the scientists
to try and figure it out, I guess.’ Though this comment
by William implies trust in scientists, it also conveys
that the truth about climate change is yet to be
discovered.
Much more often than admitting to knowledge
gaps, however, participants in the study confidently
espoused theories about anthropogenic climate
change and its drivers, many of which are not con­
sistent with the scientific consensus on climate
change reviewed above. Participants took four dis­
cursive approaches for explaining their views on
climate, which collectively demonstrate they dis­
agreed with the scientific consensus on climate
change.
First, participants expressed doubt that the
Earth’s climate is changing. According to Frank,
scientific thought on whether the earth is cooling
or warming has ‘flip flopped over the years.’ He
posits ‘how much of it is our fault and how much
of it is just the earth going through cycles is kind
of a crap shoot . . . We definitely have put a lot of
pollution in the air but not as much as a megavolcano probably.’ Jackie, who works directly in the
oil and gas industry, discusses disasters, saying
“sometimes I wonder if they are more common, but
not necessarily Calgary but sort of worldwide, but
I think, like many things in life are cyclical . . . . I think
Mother Nature has . . . the earth has a balance when it

7

comes to the climate, and so I think it is almost sort of
a finite resource . . . .I don’t think they are necessarily
more common, but I think we are hearing about them
more often because of social media now.”

She later concludes, ‘The majority is just a natural pro­
cess . . . . The dinosaurs didn’t drive cars and all that
kind of stuff and they still went extinct!’ The partici­
pants were especially careful about how they dis­
cussed responsibility for climate change. We asked
them directly what they thought the main drivers of
climate change were, and many like Caleb, answered
‘Well global warming [is] due to the greenhouse gases.
I mean that is what we are hearing so that is what
I would have to agree with, I guess.’ But he then back­
tracks and says that much of it is due to ‘natural cycles.’
Some, in fact, had trouble even discussing climate
change without shifting the topic (see also Norgaard
2011). Graham, when asked about climate change,
immediately shifted (as did many participants) to the
issue of ‘pollution’ but then took this one step further,
insisting ‘Pollution is a human problem – any pollu­
tion – and so I think there is verbal pollution, you know,
somebody starts in here and starts ranting with foul
language – that is pollution. All sorts of things. You
could wear perfume that could pollute my air.’
Graham, like many participants, reduced carbon emis­
sions to the notion of ‘pollution,’ and in doing so,
avoided discussing human contributions to climate
change via fossil fuel use.
Second, participants in the study gave information
about the causes and drivers of climate change at
odds with the consensus position of scientists, and
only very rarely attributed climate change to
humans’ carbon emissions. In doing so, they echoed
positions consistent with industry messaging and
with Alberta’s climate change-denying think tanks
(Heald 2017; McCartney and Gray 2018; Plait 2014).
When asked about the role of carbon emissions
directly, they often expressed skepticism. Kristopher
says, ‘in terms [of], is it caused by CO2? Maybe, but
the data is very – I mean that gets very complicated
very quickly and very messy and I’ll tell you it’s not
at all clear to me that [CO2] is a direct cause.’ And
even those Calgarians who accept that climate
change is anthropogenic nevertheless shift blame
away from fossil fuels onto other sources. Rachel,
when asked about leading drivers of climate change
said she didn’t know, but ‘I guess it’s CO2.’ When
prompted about fossil fuels she said ‘Does that
include cow farts? (laughing) ‘Cause I think cow
farts are bad too . . . . I don’t know. I’m honestly
not educated. It doesn’t really matter. Whatever the
truth is. Whatever the scientific truth is. I’ll go with
that. I don’t want to sit here and go ‘No, it’s . . . .
Jesus! like what do I know?’ In her discussion, she
both admits to ignorance, but also mentions ‘cow

8

T. J. HANEY

farts’ (methane from animal agriculture – which is
certainly a source of carbon pollution), not discussing
the role of fossil fuels.
Many of the participants instead felt that climate
change is a natural and incorrigible process. As Derek
tells us, ‘climate change is a mostly natural process that
we have very little control over.’ Upon further prompt­
ing, he said that he believes the sun and solar radiation
are the largest drivers of climate change, a message
consistent with the Calgary climate-change-denying
think tank named ‘Friends of Science’ who contends
on billboards that ‘The sun is the main driver of climate
change. Not you, not CO2’ (Plait 2014). Many others
echoed these feelings that control of our climate
comes from outside our atmosphere. Bradley adds, ‘I
think there’s a natural phenomenon happening.
There’s something – a major cycle that we go through.
I mean the earth changes on its axis. . . . We can’t
forecast the weather from any more than three days
ahead . . . . And so I don’t think we know enough yet.’
Inherent in that statement, of course, is the notion that
climate change scientists cannot be sure yet because
more must be learned. Feelings like this were over­
whelmingly common in the data (particularly, but not
exclusively, from men). Derek, an oil and gas geologist
says ‘Climate [is] always changing. So I’d say probably
the sun. Radiation’s the biggest change to climate.
Sunspot activity.’ Later in the interview, when asked
about what needs to be done to prevent climate
change, he adds ‘Nothing.’ And says ‘we have very
little control over [it]. I don’t think carbon dioxide is
a driving force of climate change,’ a position he shares
with many of Alberta’s geoscientists (Lefsrud and
Meyer 2012). Again, when asked about programs that
could be adopted to mitigate climate change, he only
laughed and did not respond. He finished the environ­
mental section of the interview by saying ‘You’re going
to think I’m a nutbar’ – perhaps recognizing that his
position runs counter to the scientific consensus. Dave,
a 62-year-old man from the flooded Douglasdale area
of Calgary, who works in risk management for an oil
and gas company, when asked about the drivers of
climate change, said that ‘Forest fires is probably one
of the biggest ones. A lot of it is natural.’ Later in the
interview, he discusses volcanic eruptions as a major
driver of climate change, as well.
Along those same lines, some participants felt
that the Earth was actually cooling, not warming.
Jackie feels this way, telling us ‘I don’t think we
have time to stop it in a hundred years, but these
are longer cycles with the Earth. Maybe even in
a couple of thousand years will it change? We will
have an ice age in a thousand years, or maybe we
will be living in a Sahara Desert type place – I don’t
know. I think it will. We will cycle through.’ Despite
scientific evidence for the increasing rapidity of cli­
matic shifts (Brito-Morales et al. 2020), Jackie argues

that these are ‘longer term cycles.’ Wayne felt that
climate change comes from tectonic shifts, what he
calls ‘continents moving’ and ‘the cracks filling up
with water,’ but also potentially ‘the poles have
moved a little bit’ since ‘Texas is getting a little bit
of snow now’ (implying cooling, not warming). Frank
attributes change to volcanic activity, not carbon
emissions, adding ‘Like I say, one big volcano is
going to make far more climate change difference
than we would produce in a year or two years.’
To shift the blame from oil and gas, and carbon
emissions more generally, several participants
engaged in discursive work to revise history. Gary is
an example of this revisionist history, as he says ‘I think
90% of it – 98% of it – is the natural earth changing.
Right here [Calgary] there used to be 3,000 feet of ice –
right here – but it has been going away for thousands
of years in different areas. Greenland used to be green!
Really! That is why it is called Greenland!’ Though
historians do not concur with that account (Nuttall
2009), this appeal to the historical record gives insight
into how people construct internally consistent expla­
natory frameworks for their denial of scientific
evidence.
Third, a very consistent finding in the data is that
humans do not and cannot have enough power to
influence these larger climate and cosmic patterns at
play. Commonly, they call it ‘arrogant’ to believe that
humans are capable of that. One example is Nancy,
who works in the oil industry and believes climate
change is a ‘natural processes. Why do you think we
have oil here? Well because we’ve been though some
form of climatic climate change that happened how­
ever many billions of years ago . . . . It’s all a cycle . . . . So
I think that we are far too arrogant with our “Oh! We’re
causing all of this – we’re causing all of this!”’ She later
adds ‘I don’t think we have as much control of the
environment as we think we do. Us arrogant human
beings. Things change, and it’s not necessarily cause of
what we are doing.’ She was not alone in her attribu­
tion of arrogance, with Graham adding ‘I don’t think
we are going to get control of this world . . . . I think
that is arrogant. Do I believe humans can greatly harm
and therefore having created the harm, then reverse it
and cause good? Yeah absolutely.’ This attribution of
arrogance by climate scientists (and the members of
the public who accept the consensus) is consistent
with messaging from ‘Friends of Science,’ who wrote
as recently as March 2021 that ‘Model-based predic­
tions of global warming continue to be wrong, only
proving an overabundance of arrogant confidence by
their proponents’ (emphasis added) (Friends of Science
2021).
Graham also responds in an exasperated fashion
when asked how climate change may affect him per­
sonally, exclaiming ‘I have no idea! I don’t know! This is
too much . . . So if I was to criticize this, there is too

ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY

much work! . . . . So if a person said exhaust from gas
burning cars is not good for us, I get that. To say it is
climate change is too big for me . . . But to lump it all
together and say climate change, that is the flag we are
going to wave? Well I just think that is ranting. It is
not . . . it is not problem solving . . . . I think the whole
concept is a red herring.’ Bradley agrees that humans
have little control, arguing that climate is a much larger
geologic phenomenon, ‘When it comes to the environ­
mental impact, we’re not gonna change the axis that
we rotate on. We’re not gonna change when the sun
comes up and when it goes down . . . Bottom line is
I don’t think we can do anything to change the actual
happenings. I think we just have to adapt.’
Fourth, participants shifted blame about who is
most responsible for climate change, either onto
other fuel sources than oil or onto other countries
than Canada. Peter, a 39-year-old man from
Sunnyside, when asked what he considers the most
important driver of climate change responded with
a one-word answer: ‘China.’ Upon prompting, he said
‘Because of big contributors like China and India, until
you get those things under control it’s gonna keep
happening, it’s going to keep going like it’s going’
although he does also add that ‘You know I don’t
know enough about it to, to make an inform . . . .
I just sound like an idiot on your . . . I guess I’m not
informed enough, I guess, to make a statement on it.’
Dave, the 60-year-old risk management officer for
an oil and gas company, though he felt that climate
change was ‘mostly natural,’ only minutes later shifted
the blame to countries with emerging economies.
According to him ‘I find that the environmentalists
attack people that are doing the best job. You know,
I mean our power plants here in Canada are probably
some of the most efficient ones around. You go to
China and I mean . . . they’re building one coal-fired
power plant a day in China, right?’ During this part of
the interview, he acknowledges that humans are ‘prob­
ably a good part of it [driving climate change],’ but
does not believe it is Canadians nor Americans –
despite the fact that North Americans have some of
the largest per capita carbon footprints on Earth
(Solarin 2019). The interviews were replete with
instances of blaming China, India, and Russia, in parti­
cular. Gary argues that ‘if another flood happens, that’s
just the way nature is. It is not caused by Fort
McMurray’ (epicenter of the tar sands). He continues
by blaming China, saying ‘Fort McMurray, pollutionwise puts out, in a year, what China puts out in 23
hours. They are still building coal fired plants in China,
they just finished a whole bunch of big coal fired plants
in Poland, you know? They can’t adapt; they have to
keep going, people need jobs and they don’t seem to
understand that here . . . . If they got a problem, they
got to get China straightened out.’ As Naomi Klein tells
us, however, ‘This argument is made as if we in the

9

West are mere spectators to this reckless and dirty
model of economic growth. As if it was not our govern­
ments and our multinationals that pushed a model of
export-led development that made all this possible. It
is said as if it were not our own corporations who, with
single-minded determination . . . . turned the Pearl
River Delta into their carbon-spewing special eco­
nomic zone’ (Klein 2014, p. 82). Rachel likewise believes
that Albertans are doing all of the emissions cutting
work, but getting none of the due credit, saying ‘It’s
bigger than Canada even. Like you can’t have that CO2
coming out of China while we’re doing all the work.’
A number of other participants discursively shift
the blame from oil (on which they depend) to coal
(on which they do not), arguing that coal is the real
problem. When asked about what approach Alberta
should take to climate change, Allan immediately
speaks of coal, saying ‘I mean get off coal is number
one, right? But then you know there are 500 new
coal plants coming online in China, so our twenty
or whatever it is [are inconsequential].’ Then, when
asked about whether we should continue producing
oil from the tar sands, he contradicts himself, saying
‘I don’t think we should continue, but I don’t
think . . . . I don’t think we could phase it out.’
Graham adds ‘The number I heard the other day
was 50% of Alberta’s electricity was produced from
coal. So where did that come from? I didn’t think
they used coal anymore? . . . . Can society do better
and find other things? Sure. But show me a person
that doesn’t use anything and that has actually
reduced their quality of life for saving the planet –
there are not many of them.’ Tasha feels the same,
pointing to the environmental devastation in
Appalachia: ‘They are really after the oil sands, but
you could go to any country in the world, and even
the United States and Appalachian Mountains, and
see what devastation they have done with coal
mining and that. So it is easy to lay the blame,
but all of the communities really need to be
involved in this.’ Though she is not wrong about
the impact of coal mining, especially mountain-top
removal methods, her interview, like many of the
interviews, works to shift the blame from oil and
onto other types of fossil fuels on which they are
not economically dependent. Other participants
shifted blame to clear-cut logging in British
Columbia (‘BC is certainly not the good guys’ says
Frank), to celebrities such as Neil Young who visit or
speak about the tar sands (‘They are hypocrites’
says Gary) and to any number of other parties.
Graham adds that ‘I have never met an environmen­
talist who is truly living a pure life. They are not.
They do their best, and I think at their worst they
are radical, but it is not fair to point at government
and say “we want you to serve the expectations of
radicals.”’

10

T. J. HANEY

Trust in scientists
Previous research shows that residents of Alberta, like
many places, maintain great trust in scientists – more
so than in politicians or the news media (Boulianne
and Belland 2019). Data from this project demonstrate
that this was true for some, in particular and very
nuanced ways, but for a sizable number of participants,
skepticism prevailed.
On the one hand, many participants implied that
the science on anthropogenic climate change is yet
undecided, but that they also trust scientists to figure
out it. In her interview, Mary-Jean says that climate
scientists are being muzzled and made to toe the
party line by government. She says ‘I also think that
the scientists should be free to express their knowl­
edge and opinions without being shut down by the
government because people need to know and make
informed decisions, not just what the government
thinks we need to hear.’ She states that she believes
more scientists would dissent if they were not ‘shut
down’ in doing so. Kristopher similarly adds: ‘Well, you
know as I said, a vote of scientists is not the same as
scientific proof,’ meaning that although there may be
a scientific consensus on the matter, definitive ‘proof’
still eludes science.
A number of other participants placed unwavering
trust in scientists to discover this truth, but stated that
they believed these scientists would eventually discover
that climate change is not in fact anthropogenic. When
asked if there is anything we can do to prevent climate
change, Gary, who earlier said he believes that climate
change is mostly or entirely a natural process, adds that
‘Everybody has got to get on the wagon and start step­
ping up. People know what to do. [Author] knows what
to do. I know what to do. But they don’t listen to us. You
know?’ He continues discussing the current project,
saying ‘Doing study after study is just a waste of time.
I hope you do something with this . . . . This is the kind of
study that needs to be done but people have to listen,
and you have to get all the bullshit paperwork out of it.
I realize this takes time and you guys are really good at
doing what you are doing, but I hope our professor can
take this and actually say “this is what needs to be
done.” We don’t have to study this for the next 50
years – we don’t have time.’ Earlier in the interview
Gary told us, however, that he does not feel climate
change is driven by carbon emissions or human activity,
revealing the complicated, nuanced, back-and-forth
views that many participants maintain related to climate
science. Participants likewise voiced skepticism about
the motivations of scientists and researchers, including
the author of this paper. When asked at the end if he
had anything to add, he said ‘No, I don’t but I will keep
an eye on this Tim Haney and if I see his name coming
up in some radical movement against the oilsands then
I will call!’

Several other participants worried that scientists
were using flawed data or flawed studies to mobilize
opposition to the oil sands, which Graham calls ‘radi­
cal.’ Nancy similarly says she distrusts scientists and
instead wishes that energy industry lobby groups
were more vocal about sharing ‘the truth’ with the
public, as she believes they are being overshadowed
by scientists with an anti-oil agenda. According to her,
“I think we should stand up for ourselves. I think for
too long, we’ve been letting the rhetoric, and the
politics and the scientist actors run the agenda.
I think we shoulda had organizations like CAPP
[Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers] and
other people like that, and citizens’ organizations like
that have their say. They’re smart people and they’re
coming out with education now. I think it was too little
too late, sadly. But do it. Just do it. Organizations like
that have to come up and just give truth. Give truth.
Give facts and get out there and do that. I think that’s
the only option we have. ‘Cause if you heard the truth,
if you were willing to hear the truth, you would look at
differently . . . . I think opinions would change if it was
purely a fact-based thing.”

In this quotation, Nancy refers to an industry lobby
group as a ‘citizens’ group,’ implying that it is grass­
roots in nature. She says she believes that organiza­
tions like this, if they were more vocal, could ‘give
truth’ and if people heard that truth they would ‘look
at it differently.’ She also discusses scientists as ‘scien­
tist actors,’ perhaps meaning to imply ‘activists,’ as
a critique suggesting a lack of neutrality and objectiv­
ity. Indeed, recent scholarship points out that the per­
ception of scientists as engaging in activism is one of
the drivers of distrust among right-wing Americans
(Cofnas, Carl, and Woodley Of Menie 2018). Nancy
continues, arguing that the scientific consensus on
warming has changed frequently, and questions the
very credibility of scientists. Nancy says
“I think the problem is we’ve let it go too long and this
whole climate change, global warming, oops global
cooling, oops climate change whatever the hell you
want it call it now be— you know to make all these
scientists feel better— and they’re not really scientists.
What’s happened is people have wrapped their entire
lives around the you know whatever it is— they’re
environmentalist— they’re this, they’re that . . . and
they don’t care about truth anymore. Because if some­
body gets through to them and they realize that
things may not be as they were told—they lose every­
thing. They lose their credibility, they lose their friends,
they lose their social structure. They lose everything,
because so many people have so much tied into their
worldview now. That I think it’s—I don’t think it can
change . . . I think it’s a really uphill battle by now. We
waited too long.”

Nancy gives us an extended look into her view on
scientists (‘they’re not really scientists’), and implies
that scientists cannot tell the ‘truth’ because of all
they have to lose by doing so. She is not alone in

ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY

these views. When asked about whether we should
decrease carbon emissions because of the scientific
consensus on climate change, Scott says ‘it seems like
you can’t trust people [implying scientists], and I am
getting more and more pessimistic and skeptical as
I get older. I take my car in for repairs and, “Am
I going to get ripped off here?” I know it is Toyota,
but are they going to rip me off? Yeah, he did! Five
hundred dollars and he just changed an air cleaner and
stuff! He ripped me off!’ Scott’s quote implies that
professionals (whether it be scientists or automotive
technicians) cannot be fully trusted to perform their
job duties ethically and in ways that are deserving of
public trust.
Several participants spoke about the tendency for
scientists and politicians to be alarmist or to intention­
ally provoke fear in the public, to achieve desired
economic or social reforms. Jackie says she ‘sometimes
had trouble knowing what is true and what isn’t true –
separating fact from fiction – because I think there is
a lot of fearmongering sometimes.’ She says that this
‘fearmongering’ is done by politicians and scientists
with regard to the climate crisis, specifically. Such
accounts imply that scientists are stoking public fear
in order to gain something personally, implying at least
some degree of conspiratorial thinking found in cli­
mate change research from other jurisdictions
(Sarathchandra and Haltinner 2020; Haltinner and
Saratchandra 2020).
Lastly, Kristopher tells us that the consensus of
scientists is not necessarily scientific truth, or even
what the data really demonstrate. He says
“You know there are a lot of people asking questions
like you’re asking. With easy answers. Oh yeah. And
then it goes down as a vote. Science has voted. I talked
to somebody in Sunnyside who voted that, yes, CO2 is
cause of climate [change]— I don’t know! So, but for
me to say yes or no doesn’t matter. I don’t know. It’s
not at all clear to me—at all— that CO2 is connected to
—well this obviously it’s correlation. But it’s not clear
at all that’s causation . . . And the causation has never
been made— you know there’s— you hear theories
and you look at the data and you go ‘oh yeah except
that you know what data doesn’t support theories so
now what? Now what?’ And then you end up with
theories that sort of like ‘That doesn’t make sense!’
So no.”

For Kristopher, a consensus among scientists is not
enough to convince him of anthropogenic climate
change. This statement implies, of course, that scien­
tists are choosing to support (‘vote’ as he says) a causal
link between human activity and a changing climate,
even if that’s not what the objective data show. Dave
similarly tells us that scientists pick arbitrary cut-off
points in their data, and likely do so in order to bolster
their arguments. He likens this to public authorities
creating a limit for blood alcohol levels in impaired
driving laws;

11

“Where did that come from? Like is it just pie in the sky,
that’s enough trouble right? It needs so have some of
[rationale] behind it, here’s why you know, you know if
it’s above this or below that then it’s gonna do this
damage and if it’s above that it’s gonna be really, really
hard to achieve or whatever. But just to say this is what
we want right like drinking .08, right? Are you drunk at
.08? Maybe you might be maybe I won’t [be], right?
Why did you pick .08? Why didn’t you pick .1 or why
didn’t you pick .05? (laughing) Just that it’s a good
number I’ll take it, that’s the trouble we have to have
something that’s science that says this is where is
should be. This is where we are going to get the
most bang for our buck.”

Some participants did voice an unwavering trust in
scientists, and in turn the consensus on climate
change, but they were a minority. Pheobe, who has
a Ph.D. in the natural sciences, tells us ‘The govern­
ment at any level needs to really start to trust what the
climate scientists are saying, I think, and then make
decisions based on facts . . . . In this case public opinion
shouldn’t matter because . . . you can’t have an opinion
about a fact.’ She later adds, ‘And so I think the govern­
ment decisions should be weighed on facts that are
presented by experts in their field – people who have
been doing this their whole entire lives,’ implying
a high degree of trust in scientists.

Fossil fuel dependence and the consensus on
climate change
Many of the participants’ positions that contradict
the scientific consensus on climate change (dis­
cussed in the first section) and much of their distrust
of scientists (discussed in the second section) ulti­
mately stems, I argue, from a desire to discursively
protect Alberta’s oil industry, on which many of
them depend either directly or indirectly. They also
engage in these discursive strategies when asked
about how we might ameliorate or mitigate the
climate crisis, and they do so by suggesting ideas
and solutions that attribute responsibility elsewhere
or are slow and incremental in nature. These slow,
incremental approaches are indeed directly at odds
with recent warnings from scientists that drastic cuts
to carbon emissions must occur immediately and
should have occurred years ago (Ripple et al. 2020).
Their defensiveness, I argue, taps into the sources of
scientific distrust and climate change denial dis­
cussed above.
For instance, when asked about the largest or most
significant action that should be taken to mitigate
climate change, participants in the study normally
cited small actions that would have only infinitesimally
small impacts on Canada’s actual carbon footprint.
These included: planting trees along riverbanks
(Nicole), using less water in our households
(Timothy), capturing CO2 from chimneys and

12

T. J. HANEY

sequestering it (Tasha), fixing oil pipeline leaks (Dave),
and the ceasing of strip-mining practices (Angelina).
Though all positive changes, of course, each would
have a small or negligible impact on Canada’s or on
Alberta’s actual carbon footprint. Rarely mentioned in
their interviews, however, is the need to extract, man­
ufacture, ship, consume, and discard fewer products
derived from the environment, nor using fewer fossil
fuels to do so.
Through these accounts, participants danced on
a fine line between voicing a commitment to the
environment and not stepping on the toes of the oil
industry, in which many of them worked and on which
all at least indirectly depended. In doing so, they used
three main discursive strategies.
First, they pointed to what they saw as the absolute
necessity and irreplaceability of oil and gas. Caleb
reveals that his behaviors have not changed since the
flood, however this is because ‘it is a bit of a trap for all
of us, there is really not much you can do since we rely
on our vehicles.’ According to him, because we live in
cities constructed for transportation mainly by auto­
mobile, the ability to decrease one’s carbon footprint is
limited. His comment suggests that doing so would be
a tremendous inconvenience, a sacrifice he is not will­
ing to make.
Along similar lines, Timothy gestured to the inter­
viewer’s sweater, as a way of pointing out the ubiquity
of oil and gas in our products and lives. He then says,
‘take everything that has been touched by oil and gas
out of your life and what do you have? You are living . . .
under a tree naked, basically. You have no shelter, you
have no heat in your house sort of things.’ Likewise for
Gary, it is nearly impossible to discuss the environment
without the absolutely necessity of oil. When asked
about the drivers of climate change, he says ‘I think
the environment is doing what it is naturally doing.
Would it be a good idea to . . . [pause] . . . I mean we are
still going to need oil, we still need natural gas, I mean
you don’t have any even . . . everything is oil.’ Here Gary
presumably begins to ask himself ‘Would it be good to
[decrease use of fossil fuels]?’ but stops and redirects
his answer rather than saying it.
Second, they pointed out that people who work in
oil and gas are good, well-intentioned people and that
blaming the industry, which they see many scientists
and environmentalists doing, is disingenuous.
Angelina tells us, ‘it is too easy to blame oil and gas
for climate change. That’s too small a picture I think.
And it is too easy to be afraid of being blamed and
therefore say there is no problem ‘cause otherwise . . .
So we need to get past that. And that’s what we should
do – twenty years ago already. Again, so that one of
the key things we need to do as Albertans. We could
lead the way in getting past that divisive “us and them”
which will not solve the problems.’ Nancy similarly
feels that the industry is already doing as much as it

can, but fails to get the deserved credit; ‘Alberta com­
panies have done a great job adjusting and emitting
less. I think Alberta is a great example . . . . If you think
about what we were emitting and what we are doing
and [what we are doing today] . . . . There’s no compar­
ison. Every single year they do it with less water and
less steam and less impact and less emissions.’ Even
Pheobe, who subscribes to the scientific consensus on
climate change, dislikes the rhetoric of environmental­
ists, and is critical of
“all the negative comments from lots of places about
all these people [who work] for dirty oil. Like there’s
some really intelligent, really caring people that work
for an oil and gas company, and they’re not stupid
people, they believe in climate change—they just
happen to work in a job where their skills are very
useful, and they’re paid very well. But they’re not bad
people for working at Shell or EnCana, or you know
a little start-up oil and gas firm. And it’s not that they
don’t care, it’s just that, that’s their job.”

Later on in our interview, she remarks ‘The oil and gas
companies and their leadership as you know, people
who want to rape earth like that’s just – that’s just
rude . . . . You’re not gonna get the right answer from
them or the right reaction when you’re basically just
insulting their intelligence.’ Here she suggests – possi­
bly quite rightly – that insults and accusations will not
produce the needed reductions in carbon emissions.
At the same time, a less sanguine view of this argu­
ment is that it serves as an attempt to delay and
obfuscate meaningful climate action by blunting cri­
tique of the fossil fuel industry and those who work
within it.
Finally, participants pointed out that the sudden,
drastic emissions cuts called for by scientists (Ripple
et al. 2020) are a bad idea and might carry dire eco­
nomic consequences. They generally objected to sud­
den changes to the oil and gas economy on which they
dependent, preferring small incremental changes. The
appropriateness of only small, incremental changes to
fossil fuel use was particularly pronounced when par­
ticipants were asked if we should stop producing oil
from the tar sands, given the scientific consensus on
climate change. Matthew says, ‘Stop it all together . . .
Uhhh at a reasonable pace, I suppose. Yeah ‘cause
again you don’t want to have a ton of people out of
work, [and] you don’t want to have everybody hating
the government that’s trying to do a good job. You
don’t want everybody having that, that backlash.
I think there are lot of jobs involved. There’s a lot of
money involved. A lot of political will involved. And
you have to kind of do it at the, at a smart rate. At the
right pace, but yeah eventually.’ Jackie calls these
‘baby steps’ and feels as though that is all Canada
needs, unlike India and China which need a massive
environmental overhaul, according to her. Similarly,
when Bryan is discussing a carbon tax (which Alberta

ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY

had until 2019 and then rescinded) and its effect on
gasoline prices, he says ‘The cut off could be five cents
[per liter] more tomorrow, I don’t care. If it’s fifty cents
more tomorrow, we’ve got a problem. People will
absorb all kinds of incremental changes. As long as
they’re incremental.’ Timothy feels similarly about the
carbon tax, saying ‘You have to be careful with that,
that is . . . you have to consider the economics with
that . . . . If you are going to do that, you should be
taxing the individual as well, because we are the con­
sumers, right? The companies are only providing the
product for us to consume, and we are creating that
demand. If you really want to stop climate change you
tax us, right? Not the companies.’ If you tax them, ‘they
just move somewhere else if it isn’t economic here . . .
they move to the [United] States, they move to
Argentina, they move to Europe, France, whatever.
They don’t care. It’s global, right? We lose out. We are
the ones that have no jobs if the companies leave, and
the government loses too because they don’t have
that income anymore – the royalties and all that are
shot down. The companies don’t care, it’s all econom­
ics.’ When asked about increased corporate regulations
for oil and gas producers, Peter perhaps sums up the
feelings of participants best when he says, ‘As long as it
doesn’t cost me anything.’
The reluctance to make environmental or economic
changes too quickly, too drastically – or in some cases,
at all – serves to tie together earlier findings about
both participants’ views on climate change that run
counter to the consensus, as well as their varying
degrees and types of trust in science and scientists. In
short, I argue, the views of most participants in this
study on climate science ultimately stem from
a defensiveness of the oil and gas industry, one that
has been found in other post-disaster work in fossil
fuel-dependent communities (Bishop 2014; Hamilton,
Safford, and Ulrich 2012). Ultimately, it reveals an anxi­
ety about participants’ economic well-being, and what
that might entail in a post-oil Alberta economy.
Participants therefore work discursively to cast doubt
both on the empirical reality of climate change (first
section, above) and upon those undertaking the work
of climate science (second section). Hence, their defen­
siveness and support for a slow, incremental approach
to phasing out fossil fuels is likely carefully considered
and instrumental in nature – not solely a function of
a lack of education or knowledge. Although it is not
realistic to expect that individuals would flatly state
that they do not believe in the consensus, or do not
trust scientists, specifically because of their depen­
dence on oil (thereby admitting that their beliefs
about the validity of science stem from their economic
concerns), this section helps us see some of the ways
that beliefs about science might flow logically from
a worldview consumed by the perceived ubiquity and
necessity of oil.

13

Conclusion
The findings discussed above reveal how Albertans
living in the economic hub of Canada’s tar sands feel
about the scientific consensus on climate change and
about the attendant work of scientists. Though an
emerging body of work suggests that flood-affected
Albertans have shifted their environmental views
somewhat since the 2013 flood (Haney 2021; Haney
and McDonald-Harker 2017; McDonald-Harker, Bassi,
and Haney 2021), prior research had not yet examined
whether residents in this oil-producing region are
accepting of the consensus and trusting of scientists
after going through such an environmental disaster.
I find that even after experiencing an environmental
disaster, participants did not generally echo a position
consistent with the scientific consensus on climate
change. Though a few expressed uncertainty about
climate change and its key drivers, many more echoed
positions inconsistent with the scientific consensus on
climate change, arguing that the climate was not
indeed occurring, that humans are not responsible
for change, that oil is not to blame, and that if anyone
is to blame, it is emerging economies like India and
China, not Canada.
When discussing the role of scientists, their views
took two directions. On the one hand, some partici­
pants voiced a faith in scientists to discover the ‘truth,’
which they usually implied would someday reveal that
carbon emissions are not, in fact, driving climate
change. They told us that if scientists were unmuzzled
and could speak freely, they would arrive at this con­
clusion. So while they maintained faith in science, they
did not believe the scientific consensus on climate
change. In fact, several of the participants told us that
they distrust scientists who they see as protecting their
own economic self-interest, as ideological, as ‘fear­
mongers,’ or as simply corrupt. They said that these
scientists are ‘not real scientists,’ they are instead acti­
vists, and that they ‘do not care about truth anymore.’
Lastly, participants were very careful to suggest
solutions to the climate crisis (which they did not con­
sider to be a crisis) that were small, incremental, and
non-threatening to the economic and cultural hege­
mony of oil in Alberta. They worried that large policy
shifts, away from fossil fuels, would mean job losses
and economic disruption. To this end, they did not
favor action commensurate with the challenges that
the climate crisis confronts us with, nor the immediacy
that scientists instruct us is required to address it.
Although some research flowing out of the
Southern Alberta Flood sensitizes us to the changes
in environmental views that took place for some resi­
dents (Haney and McDonald-Harker 2017; McDonaldHarker, Bassi, and Haney 2021), the findings of this
article are more consistent with the theoretical frame­
work and empirical findings of Bishop (2014) and

14

T. J. HANEY

Hamilton, Safford, and Ulrich (2012) who contend that
post-disaster environmental views are shaped by eco­
nomic interests and dependence on fossil fuels. Bishop
dubs these events ‘focusing events,’ as they reveal to
residents that their preferred industry might come
under attack as affected communities demand change
(for instance, cuts in fossil fuel extraction and emis­
sions). As a result, they rally around the industry to
protect it. This strategy was evident in the interviews
discussed herein, as participants generally defended
the ubiquity and necessity of oil and gas by denying
anthropogenic climate changing, blaming other dri­
vers of climate change, or expressing mistrust in cli­
mate scientists. In doing so, they engage in discursive
work to protect Canada’s tar sands and what they view
as their economic livelihoods.
A body of work on climate change denial helps us
understand who believes the scientific consensus on
climate change, and who does not, demographically
speaking (Hamilton, Hartter, and Bell 2019; McCright
and Dunlap 2011b, McCright and Dunlap 2011a;
Smiley 2017). However, the present analysis sensitizes
us to the ways in which denial or acceptance are not
black-and-white matters, just as trust in scientists is
not so discrete. Instead, this analysis shows us that
while many people in this oil-dependent region do
indeed doubt or reject the scientific consensus on
climate change (as we might have expected), many
nevertheless trust scientists to one day figure out the
‘truth.’ Similar to Mann and Schleifer (2020)’s work,
many participants trusted science but distrusted the
scientists themselves, however, the emergent story is
even more complicated than that. This analysis adds
a layer of complexity by showing how many residents
actually trusted the scientists, but trusted them to
eventually discover that climate change was indeed
not occurring or not anthropogenic in nature, viewing
scientific data as currently inconclusive. Many others
accept parts of the scientific consensus; for instance,
they believe that the earth’s climate is changing, but
that volcanic activity, sunspots, or other drivers are
responsible – rarely mentioning our use of oil as
a causal factor. To explore these nuanced views
further, the final section of the analysis looked at
what exactly participants thought should be done
about climate change – to the extent that they felt
anything should be done at all. In these cases, parti­
cipants favored small, ‘baby steps’ approaches to
eventually, one day, decreasing oil use. Despite the
need to shift away from oil, and the immediate need
for action given the current climate crisis, being
widely accepted among scientists, participants from
Calgary did not see it the same way. This work speaks
to literature in environmental sociology looking at
dichotomies of trust/mistrust in science, and belief/
denial of anthropogenic climate change. The partici­
pants frequently echoed the talking points provided

by right-wing, industry-supported think tanks like
‘Friends of Science,’ suggesting that the discourse
and rhetoric coming from such organizations (not to
mention government and the private sector who also
advance pro-oil messaging) have an impact and have
made the beliefs of Calgarians more durable, even in
the aftermath of environmental disaster.
Of course, we must remember that a sample of 40
participants from one city cannot be understood as
representative of that entire city, nor should the find­
ings be generalized to the larger provincial or national
population. Still, the value of such a sample rests in its
ability to provide deep understanding of how partici­
pants view a particular issue, uncovering key themes
and mechanisms at play. Larger surveys of residents in
fossil fuel-dependent communities should be under­
taken, although as I find in this study, dichotomous
measurers of trust/distrust in scientists may miss
important nuance – for instance, that participants
trust scientists to one day discern that climate change
is not caused by humans. Though this constitutes
a form of trust, to be sure, it is not the type of trust in
climate scientists normally operationalized and
included on survey instruments.
It is clear that values, economic dependence on
fossil fuels, and even recent disaster experience con­
tribute to people’s understandings of what is scientifi­
cally ‘true.’ As Hoffman (2018) argues, science and
technology studies must continue to play an important
role in this particular moment he says is defined by
‘post-truth demagoguery.’ Though it is tempting to
argue that better public education is needed on the
connection between fossil fuels and a changing cli­
mate, much existing work demonstrates that wealthy
residents of the Global North are already aware of
these facts (Norgaard 2011). But coming to terms
with the empirical reality evokes deep emotions –
fear, helplessness, guilt, and so on. For Albertans stu­
died in this paper, the fear of job loss and economic
insecurity seem prevalent. Hence, instead of simply
arguing for more and better education, scholarly
work and policy interventions should focus on quelling
these concerns and offering residents in fossil fueldependent places viable economic alternatives that
will allow them to find employment in greener indus­
tries. We may very well find that this action alone will
increase public uptake of science, trust in climate
scientists, and adherence to the scientific consensus
on climate change.

Acknowledgements
This work was supported by an Insight Grant from the Social
Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of
Canada [grant number 435-2014-1008]. The author thanks
a dedicated team of research assistants (Angela Laughton,
Travis Milnes, Morah Mackinnon, Priya Kaila, Grace Ajele,

ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY

Victoria Stamper, Isabelle Sinclair, and Daran Gray-Scholz) for
their hard work on data collection and entry. Gratitude also
goes to the flood-affected residents who took the time to
share their experiences and views with us.

Funding
This work was supported by the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada [435-2014-1008].

Notes on contributor
Timothy J. Haney is Professor of Sociology and Board of
Governors Research Chair in Resilience and Sustainability at
Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta. His research
focuses on disaster risk, hazard creation, post-disaster envir­
onmentalism, and urban sustainability efforts.

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