Unpacking “Common Sense”

A Critical Folkloristic Approach to Narratives of Climate Change Denial

Authors

• Caroline Reinhammar University of Gothenburg https://orcid.org/0009-0000-8969-7470

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.23991/ef.156592

Keywords:

Critical theory, climate change denial, social media, contemporary folklore

Abstract

The years of 2023 and 2024 reminded us again of the urgent need to mitigate climate change. Despite the warnings from climate science, narratives of denial continue to spread on social media. This article aims to explore how climate change rejection becomes naturalized through the construction of “common sense”. Engaging with previous literature on critical folkloristics as an approach to contemporary folklore, I introduce Fredric Jameson’s hermeneutic model for allegorical interpretation as a potential framework for understanding such narratives not merely as peripheral expressions, but as manifestations of broader cultural, social, and historical movements. In the empirical material, the figure of Galileo Galilei serves as a symbol embodying the climate skeptic community while framing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as an authoritarian force driven by religious beliefs. This allegorical construct reveals a collective identity forged through exclusion and a defense of fossil capitalism, thereby reinforcing existing inequalities and injustices.