“And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free”: environmental-climate conspiracy theories and populism at the beginning of the Bolsonaro administration (2018-2020)

Abstract

The main argument presented in this paper is that the environmental-climate conspiracy theories propagated at the beginning of the Bolsonaro administration helped to foster a populist ideology – that is, the idea that there is a moral struggle between the 'good people' against 'corrupt elites' and that the populist leader is the only legitimate representative of this people because he represents their moral values. To support this argument, we conducted a qualitative content analysis of 36 conspiratorial speeches around the environmental-climate issue delivered by five actors from the Bolsonaro administration top positions (Jair Bolsonaro, Eduardo Bolsonaro, Ernesto Araújo, Filipe Martins and Olavo de Carvalho) between 2018 and 2020. From this qualitative analysis, we evidenced a conspiratorial structure as follows: global, intellectual, technocratic, and left-wing elites seek to instrumentalize the environmental-climate agenda – in particular by ideological indoctrination and alarmism – to justify widespread control over the nations sovereignties and the individuals freedoms. It was found that unmasking and resisting environmentalism were the two main moral messages that this conspiratorial structure emanates. In the face of this moral struggle between truth and freedom, in which climate change and the Amazon are embedded, Bolsonaro is presented as a patriotic leader who defends sovereignty, development, and the interests of the people and the nation.