We often allude to the industry-funded attacks against climate change science, and the dubious cast of characters involved, here at RealClimate. In recent years, for example, we’ve commented on disinformation efforts by industry front groups such as the “Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute, the Fraser Institute, and a personal favorite, The Heartland Institute, and by industry-friendly institutions such as the Wall Street Journal editorial board, and other media outlets that assist in the manufacture and distribution of climate change disinformation.
When it comes to the climate change disinformation campaign, we have chosen to focus on the intellectually bankrupt nature of the scientific arguments, rather than the political motivations and the sometimes intriguing money trail. We leave it to others, including organizations such as SourceWatch.org, the sleuths at DeSmogBlog, authors such as Ross Gelbspan (author of The Heat is On, and The Boiling Point), and edited works such as Rescuing Science from Politics to deal with such issues.
One problem with books on this topic is that they quickly grow out of date. Just over the past few years, there have been many significant events in the ‘climate wars’ as we have reported on this site. Fortunately, there is a book out now by our friends at DeSmogBlog (co-founder James Hoggan, and regular contributor Richard Littlemore) entitled Climate Cover Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming that discusses the details of the contrarian attacks on climate science up through the present, and in painstaking detail. They have done their research, and have fully documented their findings, summarized by the publisher thusly:
Talk of global warming is nearly inescapable these days — but there are some who believe the concept of climate change is an elaborate hoax. Despite the input of the world’s leading climate scientists, the urgings of politicians, and the outcry of many grassroots activists, many Americans continue to ignore the warning signs of severe climate shifts. How did this happen? Climate Cover-up seeks to answer this question, describing the pollsters and public faces who have crafted careful language to refute the findings of environmental scientists. Exploring the PR techniques, phony “think tanks,” and funding used to pervert scientific fact, this book serves as a wake-up call to those who still wish to deny the inconvenient truth.
There are interesting new details about the Revelle/Singer/Lancaster affair and other tidbits that were new to me, and will likely to be new to others who been following the history of climate change contrarianism. Ross Gelbspan who has set the standard for investigative reporting
when it comes to the climate change denial campaign, had this to say about the book:
absolutely superb-one of the best dissections of the climate information war I
have ever seen. This is one terrific piece of work!
There is an important story behind the climate change denial effort that goes well beyond the scientific issues at hand. Its not our mission at RealClimate to tell that story, but there are others who are doing it, and doing it well. Hoggan and Littlemore are clearly among them. Read this book, and equally important, make sure that others who need to do as well.
Didn’t quite a few people turn up here, misquote people left right and centre, slander the whole lot of the AGW scientists on the IPCC and then when brought to task for not answering questions saud “I’m done here. You lot just won’t listen”?
“This is why efforts to demonstrate simple models are useful ”
This would work, tharanga, except that as soon as you talk about science models, especially simple science models (like the single column model that you can run yourself) or the model that Arrhenius et al used before computers were invented, the explanation gets drowned out by “skeptics” saying “yes, but you’ve got clouds all wrong”.
And after explaining that, you’ve now got a complex model that you are trying to avoid.
Scylla Charybdis
Lynn, 243:
You are taking yourself, and thinking that other people would be so zealous. I don’t know where you are getting your 100% wind electricity, but that simply isn’t a choice for most people; they get whatever their utility gives them. Yes, you can walk into somebody’s house or life and see various energy savings they could make. Smart meters could make people more aware of their usage, as well. But for many people, they need a sharper financial incentive to chase down those savings. You saw that it took $137 oil for many people to change their driving behaviours or car-buying habits. Particularly when there is a long payback period – you or I might be happy to spend extra money on some gadget that uses less energy, but if it takes 15 years for the energy cost savings to justify the initial purchase cost, most people won’t bother.
It puzzles me that some people seem to think we could decrease emissions to the desired levels without any economic cost at all. Even the Stern review, in which the conclusions are quite supportive of making emissions cuts, spells out the costs. If you go from cheap coal to more expensive anything else, then things will simply cost more. Yes, there are some cost-free conservation measures you can take that don’t reduce productivity, but it’ll take more than those to get there – there will be a cost. It’s just that the cost of mitigation is less than the cost of inaction. Of course, there could be some technological breakthrough that makes various alternative sources dirt-cheap, but that would be a hope, not something on which to base economic projections.
truth, here I went to all the trouble to actually try to be nice and you didn’t even bother reading my little missive, did you? I will repeat. It is about evidence, and there is a severe paucity of it on the denialist side. The problem is that your “well credentialed scientists” don’t publish–and most of them have no credentials at all when it comes to climate science.
Look, truth, it is obvious that your main concern is about the possible political implications of the need for mitigation. That’s fine. We need to be careful to avoid adverse consequences. Unfortunately, physical reality doesn’t give a fig about your concerns–or mine. And science is concerned about physical reality. To date, ALL the evidence suggests we’re in deep kimchee. The science says we need to do something. We can either go with science or anti-science. The former has a much, much better track record.
note to moderators: no need to say “stop” I’ve said all I can say and the evidence is out there. printing this will just make dog desire to respond to this message and if you put “OK stop” it’ll just make me want to post one more to show that I’m not intimidated, which gets us nowhere.
Thanks for your forbearance on letting me respond to dog’s crazed attack (IMO).
Comment 229 by Lloyd Flack describes very well a concern many moderate skeptics have. Its encouraging that at least some AGW believers acknowledge it can be difficult for some to completely buy in to the IPCC projections. Having some doubts doesn’t mean we are flat earthers and all that other nonsense put out by what are probably non-scientist rabid AGW worshipers.
#6 So we are left with three possible conclusions:
1) An overwhelming majority of international climate experts agree about much of the tenants of AGW and are honest.
2) An overwhelming majority of international climate experts are ignorant about their own expertise in a sudden and collective manner.
3) These scientists have all agreed to conspire to delude the billions of folks on the planet and just a very tiny percentage of them (and mostly unpublished) are trying to save us all from this mass hoax.
Shouldn’t you give credit to CS Lewis for this line of thinking?
A group of Nazi scientists under Nobel Laureate Philipe Lenard had published a pamphlet Fifty Scientists Against Einstein. When told about it, Einstein said: ‘If I were wrong, one would have been enough.’
I thought I read somewhere that the Nazis had 31,000 scientists.
Yes, truth, we all know there is a big problem here…
It’s called filling up the oceans and atmosphere and soil with all manner of industrial and agricultural effluent, while at the same time stripping off a good percentage of the pre-existing biomass, largely for agricultural space but also for industrial and residential development.
Global warming comes about because of the increase in infrared-absorbing but visible-transparent atmospheric constituents, primarily CO2, CH4 and N2O. These gases were also present during pre-industrial and pre-historical eras, and we know that fluctuations in their levels played a major role in the determining the amplitude of glacial cycles, though it appears the timing of those glacial cycles was set by planetary orbital characteristics.
The two fundamental physical theories that apply here are the interaction of light and matter, and fluid dynamics. CO2 & friends absorb in the infrared, thus acting as a blanket around the Earth; this blanket is gauzy but persistent and, thanks primarily to the addition of fossil fuels to the energy mix is growing thicker. Deforestation and disruption of other natural carbon cycle processes plays a secondary but important role – at least for climate. The climate can return to earlier values, the wholesale elimination of species is not reversible – also, note that while the Eastern Islanders did wipe out all their large co-species, their cousins to the west managed to do a little better (i.e. their more rugged mountainous islands acted as reservoirs of species diversity).
The fossil carbon is the problem – no matter where you put it. In the oceans, it leads to acidification, and in the atmosphere to warming. So, the only solution is to eliminate fossil fuels from the energy mix and to halt deforestation. CCS doesn’t work.
This, as you note, causes problems for people who need electricity for lighting, fuel for warmth, and so on. Indeed, without reliable energy sources, agriculture and industry rapidly collapse back to the subsistence village scale.
Luckily, we have a large suite of alternative methods for generating and storing energy that don’t involve digging anything out of the ground and pumping it into the atmosphere – all based in one way or the other on converting the energy coming at us from the big thermonuclear ball of fire in the sky.
As an added benefit, converting to such energy sources will also reduce increasing global tension over access to fossil fuel reserves, as well as free many developing economies from dependence on shipments of said fossil fuels for their agricultural and industrial sectors – a win-win for everyone.
Except for those who will see their fossil fuel sales slip away into nothingness, that is… now, that’s quite a bunch. Everyone from Saudi monarchs to Venezuelan revolutionaries, old-school Russian Marxists and fanatical Ayn Rand / Wall Street devotees – plus your London bankers, oil future dealers, coal mine owners – all brought together by their collective shared fear of change.
Now, now, it’s going to be okay – just put your money in renewables and have a cool drink.
“I don’t know where you are getting your 100% wind electricity”
I think that was illustrative hyperbole, rather than a forecast or requirement.
Too many rambling personal attacke here.
Please reduce diatribes to compact “You are dumb !” and optional response “No you are!” for easier reading.
Way off topic here, but I had a fun idea about how to solve global warming in the shower this morning. I’m actually here as a sceptic, but muddling through the mess to fight off closed mindedness.
Anyway, the main article we’re commenting on had a bit about adding chemicals to the atmosphere to cut solar radiation incident on the earth. Sounds messy and dangerous to me, but how about a big mirror outside the atmosphere? I understand that several thousand square miles of space tinfoil is unrealistic, but if you move it farther from earth, and closer to the sun, the proportions get smaller. I call it the “sunbrella”.
Probably impractical, but it accounts for another denialist property I represent. If AGW is really not a crock of soup, we’ll find a way to beat it.
Kevin, I just put the record out there.
You can draw the conclusions from the information available to you and not get involved or do as you are in #261 and get involved.
Choice.
Scary, innit.
tharanga wrote: “I don’t know where you are getting your 100% wind electricity, but that simply isn’t a choice for most people; they get whatever their utility gives them.”
I get 100 percent wind-generated electricity through my local utility, which is PEPCO in the Washington, DC area. It costs a little bit more than PEPCO’s “standard mix” which is about 80 percent coal-generated, with the rest coming mostly from natural gas and nuclear (Calvert Cliffs). This is not the same as “offsets” — I am buying wind-generated electricity from wind turbine “farms” in the mid-Atlantic region that feed into PEPCO’s grid. Certainly the availability of wind-generated electricity will vary around the country, but it has been available in this area for years, to thousands of residential and commercial customers. There are a number of businesses (e.g. restaurants, natural foods markets, etc) in the area that advertise the fact that they use 100 percent wind power.
On another note, I appreciate the moderators’ openness to all sorts of “points of view” but is it really necessary to print all the long-winded, incoherent, repetitive, demented, idiotic, offensive, malicious drivel and outright lies from the commenter who calls himself “truth”? It is utter garbage and conveys nothing but this person’s Limbaugh-fueled, obsessive hatred of the one-dimensional, cartoon comic-book stereotypes of “leftists” and “liberals” that he imagines are hiding under his bed. It has nothing whatever to do with climate science or even with climate & energy policy. It’s just buffoonishly hateful Ditto-Headism.
>> I haven’t even started. Not until I get my electric car
>> to plug into my 100% wind powered electricity.
> … where you are getting your 100% …
From the future, e.g. here:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-path-to-sustainable-energy-by-2030
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091019122954.htm
and here:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081103130924.htm
http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/OL.33.002527
256, John Phillips:
I agree that Lloyd (229) well laid out some reasons why some sceptics with technical backgrounds are the way they are. But that was no justification for them being that way. The problem is, at the root of it is sheer laziness by those sceptics in learning about the state of the field.
We often see these sceptics lecture us on how climate must be a complex non-linear system, and post a link to a math book, or discuss some topic in their own field. Well, of course it’s complicated – what’s your point? Do you think climate scientists don’t know this? Instead of just telling us that weather is chaotic, have the sceptics stopped to consider whether there is some predictability to climate?
Or, perhaps in their field, they use a model that isn’t based on physical principles like the conservation of energy, but are just curve-fits to empirical data. Somehow, they then assume that climate models have a few parameters which are tweaked so that the model reproduces the 20th century mean surface temperature history. Why do they assume that? Why are they assuming things when they could spend a week, read a few papers, and see how the models are formulated?
Or, often we hear that the models aren’t validated, and we are treated to a lecture on how, in their field, they check model results against observations. Well, haven’t they ever stopped to actually look in the literature whether models are validated against observations? Of course they are.
OK, so maybe these sceptics don’t want to get into learning about the models, as they are big and complicated. So why then make definitive statements about something you don’t know about? Or, why not look at simplified models, to get started on the basic idea? Or, why not look at the field and the observations more generally, and see how much one can learn without applying a sophisticated coupled model at all? I don’t need a big fancy model to tell me that CO2 absorbs IR, that this must warm the surface, that there are various feedbacks, and there is little observed evidence for a huge negative feedback that would make the whole thing harmless.
truth
“A massive global bureaucracy is to be established to police the mandates of the Climate Change Convention—and it will reach into the operations of every economy—every industry and business in all our countries—controlling our living standards according to its mandates, no matter how much an individual country tries to establish its own policy for its own conditions.”
I wish!
I work in the negotations. This ain’t gonna happen. And even if it was going to happen, gavin is correct. It’s got nothing to do with climate sensitvity to CO2, which is well established.
“It will levy many new taxes—and fine any country not seen to be toeing the global line—all run by the dysfunctional UN of course , as is the IPCC.”
1 – The IPCC is run by the parties, not the UNFCCC. What lives in IPCC reports comes from scientists who are not employed by the UN. How it gets presented is largely down to scientists, but the summary for policymakers is largely driven by governments. National governments, not the UN.
2 – There is ZERO chance of any kind of international ‘fine’ being introduced at Copenhagen. Zero. Would that there was, but it won’t be agreed.
“It will require developed democracies to provide funding for developing countries and to transfer their own homegrown technologies to developing countries”
And it will provide an oppotunity for the companies who own that technology to make a vast pile of money.
You do /know/ that we already transfer vast sums AND technology to China, right? The sums suggested for climate finance are tiny in comparison to FDI.
Do you buy /anything/ made in Communist China?
If you don’t have a problem with cheap crap from China, then why do you have a problem with sorting out the climate problem?
“including those like Communist China, whose developing status has something to do with the fact that it [ the Communist State], murdered millions of its best and brightest not too many years ago.”
I’m not econmic historian, but the idea that China is /more/ developed because of the insanities of Mao is … well … insane. Deng bought growth to China by introducing capitalism. That’s an established fact (look at Chinese GDP growth under Mao, and then Deng)
“The global climate enforcers [ aptly known by the acronym COP] will require every country to have an emissions trading scheme or equivalent”
No they won’t.
“under which regime, prices will increase on everything we buy, and every service we pay for.”
It’s certainly true that energy prices will increase. It is also certainly true that energyu prices will increase WITHOUT a climate regime, since we are running out of energy and demand is going up.
As I said before, should the world pay $25+ trillion for sticking with fossil fuels, or $30 trillion (or a bit less) for moving to renewables AND not trashing the planet?
Economic analysis says it’s cheaper to reduce emissions and therefore reduce damage costs than stick with cheap solutions and pay vast damage costs later.
“To meet the targets required, many more nuclear power facilities will be built, many probably inevitably in politically and seismically unstable regions.”
Possibly.
“There is no energy scientist, as far as I know, who will pretend that any renewables will be ready to provide base load power in the foreseeable future, or that anything but coal and nuclear power can fill the needs of the next half century.”
Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air is freely available and sets out the arguments. I’ve not read it yet, but I think he largely agrees with you
BUT
Ever heard of CCS?
“For industry and housing and other purposes, that leaves mainly coal .”
CCS
“Obama said that no new coal-fired power stations would be built—or if they were, his administration would bankrupt them.”
No he didn’t. He said they’d have to fit CCS.
“Where he stands now, no one seems to know—but we do know that nothing is available take the place of the ones that were planned, presumably because they were needed.”
CCS. Plenty of people know it.
“CCS is not at all certain to be viable, and has already met with great public resistance in small scale trials.”
Indeed. But I believe public resistance to climate change is greater.
And CCS almost certainly works, because we’ve been doing it for 30 years (at smaller scale)
“Meanwhile, Germany plans more coal-fired facilities and more nuclear.”
Indeed. And is working on CCS
“China plans to build more than 800 new coal-fired power stations.”
Indeed. A big problem that needs solving, n’cest pas? But you seem to be opposed to working with China to develop clean alternatives.
“India is importing ever more coal—some of it of the dirtiest kind.”
What I said for China stands for India too. Except the bit about Deng, of course.
“The media in just about every country ignores all of the difficult issues , shuts down debate and information—and throws all its focus on the IPCC and the science of the AGW[CO2] consensus.”
The media debate would certainly more well informed if we moved away from debating the science of climate change (the broad outlines of which are settled) and into a mature adult debate about how to deal with the consequences of this.
I doubt you agree.
“So if ever science needed to be right and scrupulous about the truth it’s now—but what do we have?”
We have an excellent body of peer reviewed science that’s freely available for scrutiny in the public domain. Thankfully.
“We have scientists refusing to allow their data to be seen by those who might question their conclusions—”
really?
“character assassination of dissenting scientists”
really?
” and for many, career damage or worse—legitimate questions on data and methods ridiculed and then ignored, even when they go right to the core of this issue, and even when those questioning have been proven right on other occasions.”
Lindzen, eh?
“And this new attitude to science is spelt out and labelled as the new way of doing things, by a prominent member of the consensus club in his exposition of ‘post-normal science’, where he says scientists must ‘trade truth for influence’, and ‘recognise the soc ial limits of their truth-seeking’ .”
So because, er, one person said this, that makes it all corrupt, right?
“Most people want to get this right, for their own countries and the world, but how can we be anything but sceptical?”
There’s skepticsm, and there’s outright denial. Big difference between the two.
If this is a problem, we should do something about it, right?
“The response the world needs is for scientists [whether they be mathematicians, solar scientists or any of the sciences related to climate science]who disagree with the consensus to be treated with respect, and their ideas to be explored and discussed with the seriousness and maturity that the enormity of this issue requires.”
Which is EXACTLY what RealClimate does. I’m amazed you can think differently, to be honest.
Ike Solem wrote:
Actually those who are worried about their fossil fuel sales are more likely to belong to the group that financed the religious right rather than among the fanatical Ayn Rand devotees. And some Ayn Rand devotees aren’t that fanatical — particularly those who lean more towards David Kelley and his bunch rather than Leonard Peikoff and his. But I would expect most of the former to be fairly ideological when it comes to global warming — they just aren’t fanatical Ayn Rand devotees.
In fact just about individual who might be worried about fossil fuel sales among the Ayn Rand bunch that I can think of would be Ellis Wyatt — who is/was into shale oil. But he’s a fictional character from “Atlas Shrugged.” Plenty of “Objectivists” may have trouble telling the difference beween “Atlas Shrugged” and reality, but I trust you don’t.
Mark, so I’m not to read what someone wrote, I’m to read what someone didn’t write and go from there.
KevinM,
Sorry to disappoint you, but this has been thought of. Basically, you place a large mirror at the L1 Lagrange point. However, if you do the math, you find that it still has to be HUGE. And it has to be able to control position and attitude and not get blown around in the solar wind (ever hear of a solar sail?), and stand up to radiation, and you have to be able to deploy it. And, perhaps most difficult of all, you have to lift it into orbit around the Sun and place it at L2. This exceeds current technology and foreseeable technology by quite a bit. Currently, the best we can do is this:
http://www.stsci.edu/jwst/overview/design/sunshade.html
and that just barely. Believe me. I know.
#257 Blogreader:
“Shouldn’t you give credit to CS Lewis for this line of thinking?”
I have never read CS Lewis. My post is original so I guess that CS Lewis said something similar? I bet he didn’t use “tenants” though. :)
KevinM and RodB are just trying to get you wound up and off topic.
For all possible values of ‘you’
Lloyd Flack (229) — Such a book already exists: “A Climate Modelling Primer” by Henderson-Sellers. Also there is quite a bit in “The Discovery of Global Warming” by Spencer Weart:
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.html
and also some FAQs here:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/11/faq-on-climate-models/
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/01/faq-on-climate-models-part-ii/langswitch_lang/tk
Rod B, you’re to read what they wrote, not what you think they wrote.
Plenty examples around for that.
Mark York:
There’s always room for one more, but what you say is just not true. Kim Stanley Robinson, famous for his Mars series, among others, has created a series about global warming called Science in the Capital:
40 signs of Rain, 50 degrees below, 60 days and counting.
I have been on 100% wind for over a decade, and that’s in a state where the alternative was 100% hydro.
Rod B. and Mark–mea culpa. I could have expressed my thoughts more clearly. It is just that having expressed similar thoughts multiple times, I made the mistaken assumption that they were familiar and could be summarized in the 5 minutes between beam runs.
The topic was?
Oh yeah, Climate Coverup: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming, a book by James Hoggan and Richard Littlemore.
Which covers the funding and details of contrarian attacks on climate science.
Sure enough, the topic is prompting contrarians to attack here, employing the usual techniques to divert the subject. How many of the contrarians here are funded by the sources identified in the book?
There is a rise in contrarian activity as the potential of action on Capitol Hill increases.
The denial blogosphere is simultaneous these days; a piece of nonsense is propagated within hours on one blog after another. Today Hansen’s supposed statement 20 years ago that the West Side drive will be under water by now is all the rage. And Lindzen-Choi article, of course they like that one, since it was peer-reviewed. (Who let that dog out?)
The book is excellent, I will finish reading it soon. I hope it makes a dent on the public. The public has come to believe that much more science is disputed and can’t be relied on as a consequence of the attacks on climate science, tobacco smoke, the ozone hole, etc., by ‘experts’ or at least loudmouths. If the idea that much of the public controversy is lies generated by special interests, maybe it will restore science to its role in improving human life.
my name is jeremy and i currently wrote a very clever short piece that is capable of both grabbing the general pupils’s attention as well as getting the awareness of global warming out there. It’s not a breakthrough by any means however it deserves its 15 minutes of fames. I am a blogging virgin crying out for someones guidance as to where i could post this for optimal attention in the medias eye on this website for constructive criticism. if anyone can help me please email the link to jeremygogan@hotmail.com, it would be GREATLY appreciated
#253, I never said people WOULD reduce, only that they COULD, and that therefore, I wouldn’t have much sympathy for them as I pass them crying all the way to the poor house, while I laugh all the way to the bank.
I fact I’m rather pessimistic. I don’t think most people will reduce, even if it saves them money, even if the gov puts mega-tax on carbon. I don’t think they’ll reduce even if it saves their descents’ lives, or their children’s lives, or their own lives, or spares them from going to that place a lot hotter than a globally warmed world, where the devoils will be pouring boiling, burning oil on them for all eternity.
How else do you explain why people smoke and do all sorts of other self- and other-destructive things. How do you explain crime, terrorism, war. Let’s face it, people are just bad, worse, and worst.
RE wind energy, I reduced my GHGs by 30-50% BEFORE moving to Texas and going on Green Mountain’s 100% wind energy — and I could have reduced even more, except that hubbie didn’t want to sacrifice by lowering our living standard. We actually ended up raising it; hubbie got a 15 watt CF bulb to replace the 40 watt incandescent above the stove and has been happy as a clam cooking ever since, now that he can see.
Here’s something that Sweden is doing to help those who want to reduce — they are putting the CO2 emissions of various foods listed on packages and menus:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/23/world/europe/23degrees.html?_r=amp;scp=1&sq=to%20cut%20global%20warming&st=cse
As the story goes, some people just ignore these labels….
RE Stern, well, he’s British and they are already at about half of the typical American’s GHG emissions, so they don’t have as much “fat” to cut out. We in American are just going to live and die in our stupifying profligacy. End of story, end of earth.
Re 265 Hank
I might be misreading Lynn, but I think the context was today, not the future. It sounds to me like Lynn has access to the same sort of choice that Secular Animist describes in 264. (Choosing a utility or program that is based on green energy).
264 Secular Animist:
Right, I’m aware that’s a choice in some locales, but as you note, it depends on where you live. I don’t think it’s common. Do you have an idea of how many people take up that wind option?
A perhaps overly pedantic point, sorry, but it’s probably better to say that you’re paying for wind-generated electricity, rather than actually getting it. It’s all on the same grid. Hopefully the utility obtains as much wind energy (or more) as the amount consumed by people signed up for wind.
Took the words from my mouth, Mark. Maybe there’s still time to move into NGO work.
Timothy, the only point that I was trying to make is that the issue is ablout economic agendas, not about ideological stances. In fact, what is so remarkable about the diehard global warming denialists is the wide variety of ideological stances that they all share – here we have Karl Marx shaking hands with Milton Friedman and Keynesian economists over the need to deny physical reality in favor of sustained profitability, or (for Marxists), preservation of the oil-fueled worker’s paradise. People who have radically different political views (Chavez & Bush, say) end up united over the desire to keep fossil fuel sales high.
It’s all very understandable from the short-term, mindless economic perspective – for example, if you own shares in a coal fired utility, in a coal mine, and in the railway that delivers the coal from the mine to the utility, then you have a nice little cash cow that spins and spins and spins – you can live in luxury, own a private jet, travel the world – unless people decide they don’t want any more coal, in which case all that goes away. In the case of solar power, you still have the utility, but there’s no coal mine or railroad profits – sunlight is free and not really meter-able. That means less money, which is anathema to shareholders. Thus, you see shareholders financing large-scale denialist campaigns in all the various media outlets.
The proof is in the pudding – look at EPA projections for the House “climate bill”:
Bills that appear to address energy issues but really just support the status quo? This has been the norm in California for about a decade now – ask any installer about the real effects of the “Million Solar Roofs” bill – it undercut net metering and led to a drop-off in solar installations, not an increase, even thought the fossil fuel-financed politicians tried to sell it as a boon for industry. Now, it appears that this strategy has gone national.
Given the large public support for renewable energy development (75% is a typical polling number), the fossil fuel lobby and their owned politicians have no choice but to give lip service to renewables in public – but make no mistake, they’re still doing the fossil fuel lobby’s bidding in private. The “clean coal” push is a just another facet of this reality.
“sunlight is free and not really meter-able”
From an economics perspective, one could consider the solar panels (or whatever conversion device is used) to be the ‘fuel’.
Cigarettes cause cancer, and they also weaken the cardiovascular system to a point that surviving cardiac arrest is significantly less likely for smokers than non-smokers. People know this, yet people still smoke.
That’s because the smoker is getting the benefit of the cigarette (nicotine high) and the future smoker, who won’t exist for decades, is the one getting screwed.
Now take that system of human behavior and apply it to industrial civilization. This isn’t the all the fault of the energy companies and their lobbyists – it’s the consumers. We know the ultimate prognosis, but the person getting screwed is decades away. Industrial civilization isn’t going to slow down until it gets whacked on the head. Hard. That’s just the way we roll. Smoke ’em if you got ’em.
> it’s the consumers
That’s the PR line of such groups as the “Center for Consumer Freedom, Promoting Personal Responsibility and Protecting Consumer Choice” — who will tell you that the American Public Health Association exists take away your personal freedom to consume only what’s most profitable in the short term.
Read up on the British East India Company and the organizations people formed to get free of that corporation’s control, sometime. Think about it. It has to be done repeatedly.
Most people reading here will know how to look this up; here’s how:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Consumer_Freedom
So, Steve@285, what about those of us who don’t smoke?
Scott Mandia @6 not tenants but tenets
ta …
Fran
#272 David Benson,
Thanks. I’ll take a look at that book. I’ve already referred people to the websites you mentioned especially Spencer Weart’s ste.
The Sources of Opposition to Climate Science, Part I of IV: Ideology
Ike Solem wrote:
But for a lot of people it is about ideology. Many are conservatives or libertarians — people who were opposed to passing laws about where you could smoke and who are now opposed to regulating fossil fuel — even though they haven’t suddenly switched from owning tobacco companies to owning oil companies or from family-owned tobacco farms to independent oil fields. Chances are the vast majority of them never owned either one — or sold either tobacco or fossil fuel — unless it was while working for only a little more than minimum wage at a convenience store. Some are opposed to environmentalism, seeing it as the new communism — and they view the recognition of anthropogenic global warming as the back door to radical environmentalism. And many of those oppose environmentalism as they see it requiring widespread birth con-trol.
Some of these libertarians follow in the footsteps of Ayn Rand. Others take pride in certain accidents of birth involving their high albedo and are fervent believers in state rights. Still others believe that Old Testament law should become the law of the land — or at least that we are entering the End Times — and the UN Will be on the wrong side. The latter are likely supporters of state vou-chers for school removing evolution from school curricula, or at least teaching some form of crea-tionism in science classes when the subject turns to evolutionary biology.
*
Even some of the big name sthink tanks were ideologically-motivated, at least in the beginning — and for all appearances even now. Look at Naomi Oreskes’ video…
The American Denial of Global Warming
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T4UF_Rmlio
… and the origins of the George C. Marshall Institute. Ideology. First they opposed com-munism and supported the Star Wars Defense System, then they opposed what they saw as the dangerous setting of precedent in the expansion of the role of government. Cigarettes, CFCs and ozone, fossil fuel.
The Sources of Opposition to Climate Science, Part II of IV: Religious
Look at:
A Call to Truth, Prudence, and Protection of the Poor:
An Evangelical Response to Global Warming
By E. Calvin Beisner, Ph.D., Paul K. Driessen, Esq.,
Ross McKitrick, Ph.D., and Roy W. Spencer, Ph.D.
http://web. arc hive.org/web/20060827200338/www.interfaithstewardship.org/pdf/CalltoTruth.pdf
Although the good majority of evangelical organizations that have taken a position on global warming have come out in support of the science, those that endorsed the above have come out against — and they see it as a religious issue. Ross McKitrick and Roy Spencer (a proponent of intelligent design) are listed among the evangelicals, Richard Lindzen simply as one of the non-evangelical allies.
What of the Heritage Foundation?
Their concerns certainly extend well beyond fossil fuel:
What of their funding? Some of the wealth behind it certainly comes from fossil fuel. For example, the Scaife Family Foundations and Koch Family Foundations.
Please see:
The Sources of Opposition to Climate Science, Part III of IV: The Scaife Family
But what of those who fund the opposition to climate science? At present, let’s consider the men behind the Scaife Family Foundations and the Koch Family Foundations.
Richard Scaife a major funder variety of right-wing and libertarian organizations:
I assume you are familiar with a few of those names.
Richard Scaife is also a major funder of the religious right:
The Sources of Opposition to Climate Science, Part IV of IV: The Koch Family
Looking at Koch Industries, we find that they are owned by a founding member of the anti-communist John Birch Society and a libertarian who is responsible for a significant amount of the funding of the Cato Insitute:
Which is more fundamental for them? Their ideological or economic concerns? It is difficult to say. Koch and Scaife wealth is in no small part due to oil, but they have been funding libertarian, rightwing and relgious right causes for quite some time, causes that are oftentimes only distantly related to their investments in fossil fuel.
However, regardless of what ultimately motivates the wealthy individuals who fund much of the propaganda behind attacks on climate science, the people who they influence don’t have anywhere near as much personal wealth riding on this — but they do buy into the ideologies promoted by the organizations that these wealthy men finance.
“Mark York:
There’s always room for one more, but what you say is just not true. Kim Stanley Robinson, famous for his Mars series, among others, has created a series about global warming called Science in the Capital:
40 signs of Rain, 50 degrees below, 60 days and counting.”
Yes I read them, but they don’t refute Crichton in his own style. Living in a tree house in Rock Creek Park in 50 below weather in between frisbee games isn’t exactly the kind of thing that lends credence in fiction either.
Lloyd Flack, there’s also the CCSP report on climate models’ strengths and limitations. It’s not a primer on climate modeling, but it addresses many of the issues you mentioned in a quite readable and helpful way. (IMO. YMMV).
http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap3-1/final-report/sap3-1-final-all.pdf
Stan Robinson is a neighbor and friend, and he is an articulate spokesperson on global warming. Last week he emceed our local Wild and Scenic River Film Festival, where he gave an impassioned talk about the need to immediately work feverishly to reduce CO2 to lower levels than we currently have. He also gently chided the Sierra Club for not taking on population growth as a key issue to increased CO2 emissions. Maybe he doesn’t refute Crichton, but Robinson truly gets it when it comes to global warming.
Let me add that I read a substantial portion of Mark A. York’s book, and it’s very good. I wish some major publisher would take it up.
Blatently off topic however The UK Science Museum is running an online poll/petition…
“”I’ve seen the evidence. And I want the government to prove they’re serious about climate change by negotiating a strong, effective, fair deal at Copenhagen.”
You can choose to Count Me In or Cout Me Out, the resulting totals will be sent to the UK Government….
Now since the US ‘sceptical’ website WattsUpWithThat featured the poll there has been a surge in the Count me Out numbers – even though the petition is for strong representation at Copenhagen by the UK Government.
Cast your vote here … http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/proveit.aspx
“From an economics perspective, one could consider the solar panels (or whatever conversion device is used) to be the ‘fuel’.”
Except the fuel doesn’t get consumed, so you can’t consider it fuel.
More a catalyst.