The reason people are denying global warming is because it is threatening their identities.

People whose identity rotates pretty much solely around the idea that they are Americans are going to react badly to any change in America. Or more specifically their idea of America.

That America is somewhere in the increasingly distant past. A time when America was ‘the indispensable nation’. A time when large, gas guzzling cars was a symbol. A time when factories were big and dirty. A time when pollution was a necessary part of America.

So reducing pollution of all types will require changing these things. Essentially America must change.

This is not something many people can accept. Changing America will threaten America’s power, in their minds. By extension these changes threaten them, their idea of who and what they are.

So they won’t accept it. Like most people, they don’t react well to threats.