I think that climate change denial is an example of a Cargo Cult, with parallels in every aspect with the ones seen in the Pacific islands. The cult leaders ha

I think that climate change denial is an example of a Cargo Cult, with parallels in every aspect with the ones seen in the Pacific islands. The cult leaders have spent their whole lives debating with people and poring over the wording of documents, they then see another group of people threatening to drive the narrative in society in future and react by adopting the debating style of this group and by trying to detect linguistic errors in scientific documents. They miss the point that their skillset just isn't applicable to the problem. The cult followers were in a clientelist relationship with the leaders before, they have received cargo in the past and would like to continue to receive it in the future so are happy to go along with the cult.