Contribution short abstract

We estimate participation and interest in fossil energy sources and their climate change effect using Poly Market data and other information to estimate the sources of such information and how they could be from disturbing foundational origins beyond emerging controversies.

Contribution long abstract

The contemporary climate crisis confronts an underexamined obstacle: the systematic deployment of religious discourse within populist political frameworks to legitimize corporate resistance to decarbonization. This study examines the structural convergence of religious authority, right-wing populism, and corporate strategic behavior in shaping climate governance outcomes across the United States and Canada. Following the Trump administration's ascendance, Christian nationalist rhetoric, divine exceptionalism narratives, and anti-globalist theological framing have reconfigured environmental discourse and normalized climate science rejection, demonstrating significant transnational diffusion into Canadian corporate and political spheres.

We identify two interdependent mechanisms. First, religious elites exercise epistemic authority over corporate decision-makers through theological reinterpretations that diminish climate urgency, providing normative scaffolding for continued inaction. Second, corporations engage in strategic theological appropriation, adopting religiously coded discourse to cultivate legitimacy within conservative faith constituencies and defend extractive economic models.

Critical evidence emerges from longitudinal survey divergence analysis. Comparative examination of two decades of polling data reveals systematic deviation between projected belief trajectories and observed attitudinal patterns. Predictive models anticipated an 18–25 percentage point decline in climate skepticism among religious conservatives (2005–2025); empirical measurements document only marginal reductions (≤6%), with several Canadian provinces exhibiting increases of 4–7 percentage points since 2016. These persistent gaps constitute evidence of sustained discursive intervention disrupting expected knowledge diffusion.

This interdisciplinary panel synthesizes insights from political theology, corporate political ecology, and critical discourse studies to interrogate how religious narratives become infrastructural components of climate obstruction regimes, examining ideational, material, and institutional dimensions of power.