The staggering rate of environmental pollution and animal abuse despite constant efforts to educate the public and raise awareness challenges the prevailing belief that the absence of serious action is a consequence of a poorly informed public. In recent decades alternative explanations of social and political inaction have emerged, including denialism. Challenging the information-deficit model, denialism proposes that people actively avoid unpleasant information that threatens their established worldviews, lifestyles, and identities. Environmental and Animal Abuse Denial: Averting Our Gaze analyzes how people avoid awareness of climate change, environmental pollution, animal abuse, and the animal industrial complex. The contributors examine the theory of denialism in regards to environmental pollution and animal abuse through a range of disciplines, including social psychology, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, and law.

Contributions by: Kristian Bjørkdahl, José De Giorgio-Schoorl, Joe Gray, Tomaž Grušovnik, Helen Kopnina, Karen Lykke Syse, Katja Maria Hydle, Atsuko Matsuoka, Martin Lee Mueller, Opi Outhwaite, John Piccolo, Adam See, John Sorenson, Reingard Spannring, Susanne Stoll-Kleemann, Craig Taylor, Arne Johan Vetlesen, Haydn Washington