• 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6FOrNb_wLw (Accessed on June 2020)
  On this speech and th (...)
• 2 https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=814659805393312 (Accessed on January 2023)
• 3 https://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/politica/noticia/2019-09/presidente-jair-bolsonaro-discursa-na-as (...)

1Distrust regarding environmental and climate issues drew attention during Jair Bolsonaro's 2018 election campaign. In an interview with journalists in Rondônia state, Bolsonaro said: “if it’s up to me, I’ll leave the Paris Agreement. […] It is because the Paris Agreement says we have to lose our Amazon Region”. And he asserted “In the name of the environmental issue, in the name of human rights, in the name of the indigenous issue, they are destroying Brazil”1. The environmental and climate distrust is also shared by his son, congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro. In January of the same year, he posted a video on his Facebook account in which he is in the United States, with a lot of snow in the background. He shares denialist information about global warming, praises Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, and then concludes: “What global warming is this? Don’t let the speech, – mainly of the globalists, topic after topic, throwing these lies at you, – that it remains sedimented as truth”2. Anti-environmental narratives continued after Jair Bolsonaro election and until the end of his administration. In his first speech at the opening of the United Nations, in September 2019, Bolsonaro uttered: “we reject attempts to instrumentalize the environmental issue or indigenous policy, in favor of external political and economic interests, especially those disguised as good intentions”. Towards the end of his speech, he proclaimed a biblical proverb which came to be one of the administration’s slogans: “In matters of climate, of democracy, […], all that we need is this: to contemplate the truth, following John 8,32: ‘And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free’”3.

• 4 Important to note that discourses questioning climate change are often carried (...)
• 5 Oreskes, Naomi, “The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change”. Science, v. 306, n. 5702, (...)
• 6 https://unfccc.int/documents/9064. (Accessed on January 2023)

2It can be seen from these quotes that the environmental debate in general and the climate debate, in particular, are treated with profound distrust.4 There are conspiratorial insinuations, as if there were interests in the Amazon behind the Paris Agreement. Or that the global warming is a lie for concentration of power by global groups. Ultimately, there is a background conspiracy theory in which the environmental issue is inserted, a belief that this agenda is being instrumentalized for hidden, disguised purposes, in favor of external political and economic interests that harm the country. However, these conspiratorial insinuations run counter to a strong consensus, both scientific5 and political. In 2015, the Paris Agreement was legitimized and signed by 195 countries, which reads: “climate change represents an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to human societies and the planet”6.

• 7 See the special issue on climate politics, democracy and populism organized by (...)
• 8 Lockwood, Matthew, “Right-wing populism and the climate change agenda: explori (...)
• 9 Miguel, Jean, “A ‘meada’ do negacionismo climático e o impedimento da governamentalizaçã (...)
• 10 Rajão, Raoni et al, “The risk of fake controversies for Brazilian environmental policies (...)

4Some articles have already sough to understand the tension between current populism and climate7, but do not clarify the relationship with the conspiracy theory. Lockwood suggests, without going further, that “populist movements have been fertile ground for conspiracy theories. As the result of an invisible, highly complex, global set of processes, climate change is ideal material for conspiracy theories”8. The topic of climate denialism in Brazil is well addressed by Miguel9, who analyzes it as a multilinear and decentralized “mesh”, which is constituted over time and is intertwined within different groups and institutions. The author demonstrates how the threads of this mesh are being established within the discourses of agribusiness, Brazilian forest policy, Christian conservative-liberalism and bolsonarism, which end up supporting an anti-environmental policy in Brazil. In a similar direction, the paper of Rajão et al.10 examines fake scientific controversies produced by a small group of active Brazilian researchers (with the leadership of Dr. Evaristo de Miranda) that have seriously impacted deforestation and climate change policies – and how Bolsonaro often cites these fake studies to justify an anti-environmental policy. Although Miguel and Rajão et al. present a conspiratorial character in the midst of these speeches and controversies, the authors don’t enter into the debate of how conspiratorial climate denialism fits ideologically with populism.

• 11 Müller, Jan-Werner, What is populism?, 1^st edition, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylv (...)
• 12 Ibidem, p. 10

6The concept of populism that we base ourselves on is that of Jan-Werner Müller in his book What is populism? because it helps us understand the relationship between populism and conspiracy theory. For Müller, populism is primarily “a particular moralistic imagination of politics, a way of perceiving the political world”11. This perception is based on “a set of distinct claims and has what one might call an inner logic”12. In reconstructing the logic of Müller’s populism, it is possible to perceive three central and interconnected claims: (1) politics is a moral struggle between the “good people” against a “corrupt elite”; (2) the claim that the populist leader is the only legitimate representative of that people because he represents and defends their superior values; and (3) the notion that powerful groups (“the system”) conspire against the leader and the people. These are three propositions that feed back into each other, forming a circle in which “people”, “leader” and “enemies” are connected, thus creating a movement that crystallizes this populist worldview.

• 13 Ibidem, p. 42
• 14 Runciman, David, Como a democracia chega ao fim. Tradução Sergio Flaksman, São (...)
• 15 Uscinski, Joseph, Conspiracy Theories: a primer, USA, Maryland, Published by Rowman e Li (...)

8For Müller, “conspiracy theories are thus not a curious addition to populist rhetoric; they are rooted in and emerge from the very logic of populism itself”13. Similarly, Runciman stated that “conspiracy theory is the logic of populism”14. And in Uscinski words: “Conspiracy theories fit populist narratives very well because conspiracy theories tend to accuse elites and posit a strong Manichean narrative in which political competitors are enemies of ‘the people’”15. Joseph Uscinski is our main reference to understand the concept of conspiracy theory. Like any theory, conspiracy theory seeks to explain something. The explanation that conspiracy theory provides is that a particular event or circumstance is primarily caused by a conspiracy. Conspiracy is defined as a small group of powerful individuals acting in secret for their own benefit and against the common good in a manner that threatens established rules and engages in widespread fraud. In other words, conspiracy theory is basically an accusatory and alternative theory: it accuses elites of secretly plotting against the general good; and it is alternative because it contradicts the official version attested by epistemological authorities – such as governmental agencies, the media, scientists, universities, experts, etc. A conspiracy theory therefore suggests that powerful actors seek to benefit at the public’s expense and that epistemological authorities are unreliable, potentially corrupt, and actively involved in deceiving people.

• 16 Wodak, Ruth, “Protecting boarders and the people: the politics of exclusion”, In The Pol (...)
• 17 “Myth” is a term frequently employed by Bolsonaro's supporters to describe him

9By the populist logic, if the populist leader is the only true representative of the people’s morals, then an eventual electoral defeat or a failure of their policies could only be the result of a conspiracy that prevents the true results from coming to surface. From this perspective, conspiracy theory is like a “shield” in which a populist can put himself in a defensive mode, the place of victim and take no responsibility for electoral defeats or poor performance as a ruler. On another perspective, conspiracy theory is also a propositional “weapon” in which it accuses the immoral plans of the elites and points out the enemies of the people. In this sense, Ruth Wodak argues that populism and conspiracy theories are inserted within the logic of “politics of fear”, as they are powerful discursive instruments for popular mobilization, precisely because they are embedded in the feeling of threat16. In summary, conspiracy theory is aligned with populism based on the notion of identity politics, the moral clash between groups, Manichaeism and fear that mobilize passions around a “political theology” in which the leader is considered a “mythological personality”17 and protector of the nation and its people.

• 18 Magalhães, Izabel; Martins, André; Resende, Viviane. “Pesquisa qualitativa, cr (...)

11The methodological procedure was based on a qualitative content analysis of 36 texts – that is, oral pronouncements or written documents18 – by five actors from top leadership of the Bolsonaro administration.

• 19 Junior, Wilson. “Análise de Conteúdo”, in: Duarte, Antonio; Barros, Jorge (Org (...)

12Content analysis is a research technique for the objective, systematic and quantitative description of the manifest content of communication. Following Junior19, there are four stages that constitute this method: (1) definition of the texts to be analyzed, (2) definition of categories that shed light to the content to be captured; (3) codification of these texts from the decomposition of key quotes that qualify a given category; and (4) formulation of general and specific inference of the analyzed messages.

• 20 Eduardo Bolsonaro was chairman of the Committee of Foreign Affairs and Nationa (...)
• 21 https://twitter.com/jairbolsonaro/status/1062773135890624513?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweete (...)

13The criterion for selecting the five actors was based on their proximity to and influence exercised at the highest levels of the Executive Branch, namely: (1) the President of the Republic himself, Jair Bolsonaro; (2) his son, congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, due to his proximity to the president and his interest in international relations20, including environmental and climate issues; (3) Filipe Martins, head of the President’s international advisory since the beginning of the administration; (4) former Minister of International Relations, Ernesto Araújo, considered a “brilliant intellectual” by Bolsonaro21; and finally, (5) Olavo de Carvalho, an influential ideologue for both the government an its support base, admired not only by the president, but also by the other three actors mentioned above.

• 22 In portuguese: O mínimo que você precisa saber para não ser um idiota.
• 23 https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2018/10/bolsonaro-afirma-em-seu-primeiro-discurso-que-tera-gov (...)

14The texts were selected based on two criteria: (1) that they cover the environmental and/or climate theme – in the Brazilian case, the Amazon in particular – and that, necessarily, (2) transmit a conspiratorial message, that is, the idea that a group of powerful individuals secretly acted, are acting or will act, using the environmental issue for their own benefit and against the common good. From reading digital newspapers and research on internet search engines, 36 texts of this nature were identified (22 texts by Bolsonaro; 2 by Eduardo Bolsonaro; 1 by Martins; 6 by Araújo and 5 by Carvalho). Such texts were taken from speeches, posts on social media, lectures, interviews, blogs, opinion articles and YouTube videos in a time frame between 2018 and 2020 – that, is the electoral year and the first two years of the Bolsonaro administration. Only Carvalho's texts are earlier (between 2004 and 2012), as they were taken solely from his newspaper articles compiled in the book The minimum you need to know to not be an idiot, published in 2013.22 This book was selected because it is a synthesis of Carvalho’s though and also because of its symbolic value, since president Jair Bolsonaro, in his first speech after he being elected, put four inspiring books on display on his table: the Constitution, the Bible, Churchill’s Memoirs and the aforementioned book by Olavo de Carvalho.23 It is noted that the 36 texts do not constitute a complete scan of all the texts uttered by these five actors between 2018 and 2020. However, it is believed that those found constitute a representative number capable of transmitting a general idea of the environmental-climate conspiracy theories of the high leadership of the Bolsonaro administration.

• 24 Cook, John; Washington, Haydn. Climate Change Denial: heads in the sand, 1^st e (...)

15In order to shed light to the content of the conspiratorial discourses, six were the defined categories in which the analysis focused. The four categories that illuminate a conspiracy theory were based on Joseph Uscinski’s book, Conspiracy theory: a primer, from 2020. In his work, Uscinski argues that conspiracy theories are diverse, but share a common structure: (1) the conspirators, (2) the goals the conspirators intend to achieve, (3) the conspirators’ victims and (4) the strategies employed to achieve the goal. The 5^th category was denialism, for which the concept presented by Cook and Washington24 served as a guide. To extract the moralizing message that emanates from conspiracy theories and denialism, a 6^th category called moralism was also created.

• 25 To these tables, see chapter 3 in Behr, Klaus. A conspiração do clima: populis (...)
• 26 Ibidem

16The coding process of the 36 texts was carried out using the Atlas.ti data analysis software. Atlas.ti is a tool that facilitates the processing of qualitative data from different documentary sources. It is a software that allows a qualitative content analysis of the texts by inserting one or more codes for each highlighted quote, and that, in the end, can be analyzed in perspective and through comparative tables between the “codes” and the “texts” made by the program itself. From these tables25, graphs were made for each category, in order to have an overview of the results. Finally, note that the sources of all 36 texts used are in Behr26, in Annex I, and all codes and their respective quotes are available in Annex II. In summary, Atlas.ti is a useful tool because it helps us identify and systematize the most important contents that emanate from the 36 texts of the five actors. Particularly, it helps us to capture how the environmental-climate issue is being mobilized within a typical structure of conspiracy theory and what moralizing elements are emanating from these discourses. By understanding the conspiratorial structure and its moral messages, we will be more capable to comprehend how these conspiratorial theories fueled a populism worldview at the beginning of the Bolsonaro administration.

• 27 Cook, John; Washington, Haydn. Climate Change Denial: heads in the sand, 1(...)

17Starting with the category “denialism”, it was possible to capture the three types of climate denialism: attribution, trend, and impact.27 The denial of an increase in fires and deforestation in the Amazon was also codified. It is important to say that in all instances of denialism analyzed, none of them made reference to peer-reviewed scientific articles, but only to documentaries, interviews on YouTube and some books.

• 28 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH8LP1dawK4. As of the min 22:55. (Accessed on January (...)

18According to chart 1 we can see that “attribution denialism” code, that is, the idea that humans or CO2 are not primarily responsible for climate change, occurred in 61 % of cases. “Trend denialism”, the idea that the global warming trend is not happening, was the 2^nd most repeated code, with 18 % of occurrences. It is important to note that in just few moments, in Araújo and Martins, there is some openness to accepting the scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change. However, at these moments, distrust in the political instrumentalization of science is clear, as stated by Martins in an interview: “in any case, regardless of what science says [about human responsibility for climate change], we clearly identify a political instrumentalization of this”28.

• 30 https://g1.globo.com/politica/noticia/2019/07/06/brasil-e-uma-virgem-que-todo-tarado-de-fora-quer- (...)

21The issue of sovereignty in the Amazon is at the center of Bolsonaro’s concern, referring to the idea that there is “greed by some countries over the Amazon”, “interests of many other countries in this region” and an “aggression to our sovereignty”. This idea is well summarized in this quote from an interview with journalists, in which the president makes an analogy between greed for the forest and greed for a female body: “Brazil is a virgin that every foreign pervert wants […] So you journalists, not all of you, lack a vision of Brazil. Does the Amazon belong to Brazilians in the minds of Europeans? No, no. […] What the other world wants is to preserve this area for them to explore one day”30.

• 34 https://www.metapoliticabrasil.com/blog/sequestrar-e-perverter (Accessed o (...)

27It is interesting to see how the code “left wing/communism” appeared relatively little (9 %) although in some quotes they appeared as central actors, as for example in this speech by Araújo: “The left's tactic essentially consists of the following: to hijack legitimate causes and noble concepts and pervert them to serve its political project of total domination. The environmental cause is a good example”.34

• 36 Carvalho, Olavo. O mínimo que você precisa saber para não ser um idiota,, (...)

31In the texts by Olavo de Carvalho and Ernesto Araújo not only the nation appears, but also other peoples of the world. In an illustrative quote, Carvalho states that several proposals, including “draconian ecological regulations”, are imposed on both the Brazilian people and all other peoples: “None of these proposals came from the Brazilian people or any other people. None of them have your approval. Does not matter. They have been and will continue to be imposed from the top down, here as in other countries.”36. In a 2019 speech at the Heritage Foundation, Araújo is explicit about how Brazil under the Bolsonaro administration and the United States under the Trump administration are targets of the “system” that uses the climate issue as artillery:

• 38 Carvalho, Olavo. O mínimo que você precisa saber para não ser um idiota, R (...)
• 39 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYVyFnUK1mI. (Accessed on January 2023)
• 40 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH8LP1dawK4. From min 20:15. (Accessed on January 2023

34Therefore, if the objective is to control, then the best strategy is to ideologize the environmental-climate issue. It is in this sense that the code “indoctrinating”, that is to act in order to control via discourse/ narratives/ thought/ ideologies, was the most frequent code (33 %). To use some of the terms from the actors themselves, indoctrinate would mean the use of “psychological technique”38; or the “issue of environmental psychosis that exists against us”39, or “more than science, what is done today in the name of this climate alarmism, is an ideology”40.

• 43 Lago, Miguel. “Como explicar a resiliência de Bolsonaro?” In Starling; Lag (...)

39The “moralism” category is a central category with a strong presence in all texts. The term “moralism” is aligned with Miguel Lago’s notion: “a speculative judgement derived from norms of behavior”. It is a dichotomous logical operation in which “morality operates from good/evil”43. In this category, there were found 12 codes and a total of 359 occurrences (chart 6) in which two main messages can be inferred: (1) it is necessary to unmask the political instrumentalization of the environmental-climate issue; (2) and it is necessary to resist this instrumentalization and its project of power.

• 46 https://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/politica/noticia/2019-09/presidente-jair-bolsonaro-discursa-na-as (...)

43In a similar sense of the “hypocrisy” code, the “liars” code is one of the most morally charged codes and appears explicitly in 12 moments. For example, in this excerpt from a speech by Bolsonaro at the UN in 2019, when he denounced that the Amazon rainforest “is not being devasted or consumed by fire, as the media falsely claims.”46

• 48 This is probably referring to the hashtag #PrayForAmazonas, which became the most (...)
• 49 https://www.gov.br/planalto/pt-br/acompanhe-o-planalto/discursos/2019/discurso-do-presidente-da-re (...)
• 50 https://www.gov.br/planalto/pt-br/acompanhe-o-planalto/discursos/2020/discurso-do-presidente-da-re (...)

47From this group of codes, the one that stood out the most was “patriotic feeling”, representing 19 %, and the actor from whom this code most emanated was Jair Bolsonaro (39 in a total of 69). In a speech shortly after the crisis of the fires in the Amazon in 2019, with worldwide repercussions, Bolsonaro reaffirmed that the forest is coveted, and that “the Brazilian Amazon is ours […] what happened a few days ago48 was very, very good to awaken patriotism among us”49. It is noticed that the codes “victimization” and “patriotism” are associated. In an annual speech at the UN in 2020, Bolsonaro exposed how Brazil is the victim of “one of the most brutal misinformation campaigns about the Amazon” and how “this campaign [is] supported by vested interests that join opportunistic and ‘unpatriotic’ Brazilian associations, with the aim of harming the government and Brazil itself”50.

• 51 Carvalho, Olavo, O mínimo que você precisa saber para não ser um idiota, Rio de Janeir (...)
• 52 https://oglobo.globo.com/mundo/apos-critica-de-biden-bolsonaro-diz-que-brasil-precisa-de-forcas-arm (...)
• 53 https://www.gov.br/planalto/pt-br/acompanhe-o-planalto/discursos/2020/discurso-do-presidente-da-rep (...)

48The code “resistance” (35; 10 %) indicates the ways in which it is necessary to resist and react to this environmental-climate politicization. For example, as it appeared mainly in Araújo and Carvalho, the resistance happens in the recommendation of books, videos, and documentaries with alternative information “to understand why the greenhouse effect and the alarmism about the emission of gases are great hoaxes”51. Resistance also through intimidation by force, as suggested by Bolsonaro: “And how do you dissuade this [interest in the Amazon]? Having a prepared Armed Forces”52. In addition to strength, resistance passes, above all, through truth: “We, in perseverance, in determination and in truth, must resist. This [Amazon] region is very rich. […] we must resist. To show the truth, above all”53.

• 54 https://g1.globo.com/politica/noticia/2019/07/06/brasil-e-uma-virgem-que-todo-tarado-de-fora-quer-d (...)
• 55 https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=368494320532084 (Accessed on January 2023)
• 56 https://twitter.com/jairbolsonaro/status/1311325653179006977 (Accessed on (...)

49Finally, the “moral leader” code is a code that take us directly to the concept of populism. It is a code that appeared relatively few times (8; 2 %), however, with significant strength. In the five times that the “moral leader” code appeared in Bolsonaro, he placed himself as defender of the national interests, and in opposition to the other political leaders of the past: “When other presidents went to these meetings [abroad] as I went, they would come back here and demarcate dozens of indigenous areas [pressured by lobbying and money from abroad]”54. The defense of truth and freedom is also added in this opposition: “In the past, heads of state in Brazil used to campaign negatively against their own country. They lied about numbers of abandoned children, hunger, deforestation. This is changing: John 8:32. [‘And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free’]”55. Finally, a leader that differentiates himself from an immoral left wing and who is, above all, defender of the Brazilian sovereignty, as he wrote in Twitter in response to the democratic candidate Joe Bidden, in 2020: “What some have not yet understood is that Brazil has changed. Today, its President, unlike the left-wing, no longer accepts bribes, criminal demarcations, or unfounded threats. OUR SOVEREIGNTY IS NON-NEGOTIABLE” (emphasis in the original)56.

• 57 Müller, Jan-Werner, What is populism?, 1^st edition, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylv (...)
• 58 Ibidem, p. 10.

50In this paper, we tried to show how conspiracy theories around environmental-climate issues were mobilized in strengthening a populist ideology in the first two years of the Bolsonaro administration. For the concept of populism, we rely mainly on Müller’s approach, which argues that populism is “a particular moralistic imagination of politics, a way of perceiving the political world”57 and that this perception is based on “a set of distinct claims and has what one might call an inner logic”58. The logic of populism is based on a self-sustaining tripod: the moral struggle between the “good people” and a “corrupt elite”; of the leader as the only legitimate representative of this people because he defends their moral values; and the conspiracy theory that feeds the politics of fear, victimization and Manichaeism against the enemies of the people and of the leader – thus closing the circle people-leader-enemies that makes the populist movement gain traction and roots. Understanding how environmental-climate conspiracy theories contributed to this logic and this movement was the main purpose of this article.