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Vocabulary > Earth > Environment >
Global warming denial / skepticism
Milt Priggee
Seattle (WA)
Cagle
18 August 2011
climate denial
USA
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/opinion/l24climate.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/18/opinion/18mon1.html
climate change scepticism
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climate-change-scepticism
climate change skepticism
USA
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/opinion/climate-change-science-vs-skepticism.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/14/opinion/friedman-is-it-weird-enough-yet.html
climate skeptics
USA
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/opinion/climate-change-science-vs-skepticism.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/14/opinion/friedman-is-it-weird-enough-yet.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/07/opinion/in-the-land-of-denial-on-climate-change.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2OHAuvoUkQ
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/23/science/earth/23virginia.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/nov/08/scientists-unite-climate-sceptics
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/19/science/earth/19fossil.html
Doonesbury
by Garry Trudeau
Gocomics
September 25, 2011
http://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury#mutable_672086
Leak
Offers Glimpse of Campaign Against Climate Science
February
15, 2012
The New York Times
By JUSTIN GILLIS and LESLIE KAUFMAN
Leaked
documents suggest that an organization known for attacking climate science is
planning a new push to undermine the teaching of global warming in public
schools, the latest indication that climate change is becoming a part of the
nation’s culture wars.
The documents, from a nonprofit organization in Chicago called the Heartland
Institute, outline plans to promote a curriculum that would cast doubt on the
scientific finding that fossil fuel emissions endanger the long-term welfare of
the planet. “Principals and teachers are heavily biased toward the alarmist
perspective,” one document said.
While the documents offer a rare glimpse of the internal thinking motivating the
campaign against climate science, defenders of science education were preparing
for battle even before the leak. Efforts to undermine climate-science
instruction are beginning to spread across the country, they said, and they fear
a long fight similar to that over the teaching of evolution in public schools.
In a statement, the Heartland Institute acknowledged that some of its internal
documents had been stolen. But it said its president had not had time to read
the versions being circulated on the Internet on Tuesday and Wednesday and was
therefore not in a position to say whether they had been altered.
Heartland did declare one two-page document to be a forgery, although its tone
and content closely matched that of other documents that the group did not
dispute. In an apparent confirmation that much of the material, more than 100
pages, was authentic, the group apologized to donors whose names became public
as a result of the leak.
The documents included many details of the group’s operations, including
salaries, recent personnel actions and fund-raising plans and setbacks. They
were sent by e-mail to leading climate activists this week by someone using the
name “Heartland insider” and were quickly reposted to many climate-related Web
sites.
Heartland said the documents were not from an insider but were obtained by a
caller pretending to be a board member of the group who was switching to a new
e-mail address. “We intend to find this person and see him or her put in prison
for these crimes,” the organization said.
Although best-known nationally for its attacks on climate science, Heartland
styles itself as a libertarian organization with interests in a wide range of
public-policy issues. The documents say that it expects to raise $7.7 million
this year.
The documents raise questions about whether the group has undertaken partisan
political activities, a potential violation of federal tax law governing
nonprofit groups. For instance, the documents outline “Operation Angry Badger,”
a plan to spend $612,000 to influence the outcome of recall elections and
related fights this year in Wisconsin over the role of public-sector unions.
Tax lawyers said Wednesday that tax-exempt groups were allowed to undertake some
types of lobbying and political education, but that because they are subsidized
by taxpayers, they are prohibited from direct involvement in political
campaigns.
The documents also show that the group has received money from some of the
nation’s largest corporations, including several that have long favored action
to combat climate change.
The documents typically say that those donations were earmarked for projects
unrelated to climate change, like publishing right-leaning newsletters on drug
and technology policy. Nonetheless, several of the companies hastened on
Wednesday to disassociate themselves from the organization’s climate stance.
“We absolutely do not endorse or support their views on the environment or
climate change,” said Sarah Alspach, a spokeswoman for GlaxoSmithKline, a
multinational drug company shown in the documents as contributing $50,000 in the
past two years to support a medical newsletter.
A spokesman for Microsoft, another listed donor, said that the company believes
that “climate change is a serious issue that demands immediate worldwide
action.” The company is shown in the documents as having contributed $59,908
last year to a Heartland technology newsletter. But the Microsoft spokesman,
Mark Murray, said the gift was not a cash contribution but rather the value of
free software, which Microsoft gives to thousands of nonprofit groups.
Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the Heartland documents was what they did
not contain: evidence of contributions from the major publicly traded oil
companies, long suspected by environmentalists of secretly financing efforts to
undermine climate science.
But oil interests were nonetheless represented. The documents say that the
Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation contributed $25,000 last year and was
expected to contribute $200,000 this year. Mr. Koch is one of two brothers who
have been prominent supporters of libertarian causes as well as other charitable
endeavors. They control Koch Industries, one of the country’s largest private
companies and a major oil refiner.
The documents suggest that Heartland has spent several million dollars in the
past five years in its efforts to undermine climate science, much of that coming
from a person referred to repeatedly in the documents as “the Anonymous Donor.”
A guessing game erupted Wednesday about who that might be.
The documents say that over four years ending in 2013, the group expects to have
spent some $1.6 million on financing the Nongovernmental International Panel on
Climate Change, an entity that publishes periodic reports attacking climate
science and holds lavish annual conferences. (Environmental groups refer to the
conferences as “Denialpalooza.”)
Heartland’s latest idea, the documents say, is a plan to create a curriculum for
public schools intended to cast doubt on mainstream climate science and budgeted
at $200,000 this year. The curriculum would claim, for instance, that “whether
humans are changing the climate is a major scientific controversy.”
It is in fact not a scientific controversy. The vast majority of climate
scientists say that emissions generated by humans are changing the climate and
putting the planet at long-term risk, although they are uncertain about the
exact magnitude of that risk. Whether and how to rein in emissions of greenhouse
gases has become a major political controversy in the United States, however.
The National Center for Science Education, a group that has had notable success
in fighting for accurate teaching of evolution in the public schools, has
recently added climate change to its agenda in response to pleas from teachers
who say they feel pressure to water down the science.
Mark S. McCaffrey, programs and policy director for the group, which is in
Oakland, Calif., said the Heartland documents revealed that “they continue to
promote confusion, doubt and debate where there really is none.”
Steven Yaccino
contributed reporting from Chicago.
Leak Offers Glimpse of Campaign Against Climate Science, NYT, 15.2.2012,
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/science/earth/in-heartland-institute-leak-a-plan-to-discredit-climate-teaching.html
Climate
Change: Science vs. Skepticism
September
19, 2011
The New York Times
To the
Editor:
Re “Is It Weird Enough Yet?,” by Thomas
L. Friedman (column, Sept. 14):
I agree strongly that “we need to take steps to mitigate climate change — just
in case Governor Perry is wrong.”
The French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal, in what has become known
as Pascal’s wager, suggested that even people who did not believe in God should
act as if they did, since being wrong could be catastrophic.
I would say to the climate skeptics: If you do not believe in climate change but
act as if you did, even if you are right, the result would be a society with
clean, sustainable jobs, less dependence on Mideast oil and healthier lives. But
if you are wrong and we do not act immediately, the results would be
catastrophic.
PHILLIP GOTTSCHALK
Montville, N.J., Sept. 14, 2011
To the Editor:
Thomas L. Friedman is obviously correct to point out that Gov. Rick Perry’s and
Representative Michele Bachmann’s views on climate change are wrong. But it’s
clear that they won’t have their minds changed simply by showing them more
scientific data or by explaining to them that 97 percent of the most published
climate researchers — the group of people on the planet most knowledgeable about
the subject — agree that human activities are causing rapid climate change.
The problem is that their denial of reality is a byproduct of a culture that
marginalizes the scientific method as a way of thinking and promotes faith as a
virtue, even if it is in direct opposition to the facts. Changing their minds
about climate change will take more than presenting the evidence for it. It will
require a seismic shift in the way they choose to understand reality.
MARK BESSOUDO
Toronto, Sept. 15, 2011
To the Editor:
Like many people, I don’t know if the climate is actually changing or, if it is,
whether or not it is caused by carbon emissions, agricultural practices, solar
activity or even cow flatulence. I do know, though, that like most people who
want to breathe clean air and have a healthy planet, I strongly support
realistic, comprehensible and well-enforced regulations that will protect our
environment without stifling economic growth.
I think it is called common sense.
VAUGHN GILBERT
McKeesport, Pa., Sept. 14, 2011
To the Editor:
Thomas L. Friedman claims there is dispositive scientific proof of climate
change. The fires in Texas are a result of droughts, caused by the hottest Texas
summer on record, which was caused by climate change, which was caused by
manmade carbon emissions.
There’s just one little problem. The previous temperature record was set in
1934. This raises the question, if hot weather and droughts today are a result
of climate change caused by increased manmade carbon emissions, what were the
hot weather and droughts (remember the Dust Bowl?) in 1934 caused by? Maybe the
science isn’t so irrefutable.
FREDRIC MORCK
Redwood City, Calif., Sept. 14, 2011
To the Editor:
Thomas L. Friedman suggests that Representative Michele Bachmann and Gov. Rick
Perry are crazy for denying the existence of global warming. They’re not crazy;
they are ideologues. After all, it’s nearly impossible to deny that the planet
is warming. The only real debate is whether global warming is caused by humans.
Mr. Friedman says America needs to implement a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade
system to mitigate the emission of greenhouse gases, which cause global warming.
I agree, but now is not the time for that regulation. For the 14 million
Americans who are currently unemployed, Washington has one job and that’s
getting American workers back to work. Increased environmental regulation would
only add to the uncertainty of economic conditions, discouraging corporate
investment in job creation.
MIKE BROST
Eau Claire, Wis., Sept. 14, 2011
To the Editor:
I can’t help but note that politicians like Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann, who
demand absolute scientific proof that climate change is real, are the same ones
who treat as undisputed fact the assumption that tax cuts for the wealthy create
jobs for the unemployed.
BRUCE HARVILLE
Madison, Wis., Sept. 14, 2011
Climate Change: Science vs. Skepticism, NYT, 19.9.2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/opinion/climate-change-science-vs-skepticism.html
Is It Weird Enough Yet?
September
13, 2011
The New York Times
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Every time
I listen to Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and Representative Michele Bachmann of
Minnesota talk about how climate change is some fraud perpetrated by scientists
trying to gin up money for research, I’m always reminded of one of my favorite
movie lines that Jack Nicholson delivers to his needy neighbor who knocks on his
door in the film “As Good As It Gets.” “Where do they teach you to talk like
this?” asks Nicholson. “Sell crazy someplace else. We’re all stocked up here.”
Thanks Mr. Perry and Mrs. Bachmann, but we really are all stocked up on crazy
right now. I mean, here is the Texas governor rejecting the science of climate
change while his own state is on fire — after the worst droughts on record have
propelled wildfires to devour an area the size of Connecticut. As a statement by
the Texas Forest Service said last week: “No one on the face of this earth has
ever fought fires in these extreme conditions.”
Remember the first rule of global warming. The way it unfolds is really “global
weirding.” The weather gets weird: the hots get hotter; the wets wetter; and the
dries get drier. This is not a hoax. This is high school physics, as Katharine
Hayhoe, a climatologist in Texas, explained on Joe Romm’s invaluable
Climateprogress.org blog: “As our atmosphere becomes warmer, it can hold more
water vapor. Atmospheric circulation patterns shift, bringing more rain to some
places and less to others. For example, when a storm comes, in many cases there
is more water available in the atmosphere and rainfall is heavier. When a
drought comes, often temperatures are already higher than they would have been
50 years ago, and so the effects of the drought are magnified by higher
evaporation rates.”
CNN reported on Sept. 9 that “Texas had the distinction of experiencing the
warmest summer on record of any state in America, with an average of 86.8
degrees. Dallas residents sweltered for 40 consecutive days of grueling 100-plus
degree temperatures. ... Temperature-related energy demands soared more than 22
percent above the norm this summer, the largest increase since record-keeping of
energy demands began more than a century ago.”
There is still much we don’t know about how climate change will unfold, but it
is no hoax. We need to start taking steps, as our scientists urge, “to manage
the unavoidable and avoid the unmanageable.” If you want a quick primer on the
latest climate science, tune into “24 Hours of Reality.” It is a worldwide live,
online update that can be found at climaterealityproject.org and will be going
on from Sept. 14-15, over 24 hours, with contributors from 24 time zones.
Not only has the science of climate change come under attack lately, so has the
economics of green jobs. Here the critics have a point — sort of. I wasn’t
surprised to read that the solar panel company Solyndra, which got $535 million
in loan guarantees from the Department of Energy to make solar panels in
America, filed for bankruptcy protection two weeks ago and laid off 1,100
workers. This story is an embarrassment to the green jobs movement, but the
death by bankruptcy was a collaboration of the worst Democratic and Republican
impulses.
How so? There is only one effective, sustainable way to produce “green jobs,”
and that is with a fixed, durable, long-term price signal that raises the price
of dirty fuels and thereby creates sustained consumer demand for, and sustained
private sector investment in, renewables. Without a carbon tax or gasoline tax
or cap-and-trade system that makes renewable energies competitive with dirty
fuels, while they achieve scale and move down the cost curve, green jobs will
remain a hobby.
President Obama has chosen not to push for a price signal for political reasons.
He has opted for using regulations and government funding. In the area of
regulation, he deserves great credit for just pushing through new fuel economy
standards that will ensure that by 2025 the average U.S. car will get the
mileage (and have the emissions) of today’s Prius hybrid. But elsewhere, Obama
has relied on green subsidies rather than a price signal. Some of this has
really helped start-ups leverage private capital, but you also get Solyndras.
The G.O.P. has blocked any price signal and fought every regulation. The result
too often is taxpayer money subsidizing wonderful green innovation, but with no
sustainable market within which these companies can scale.
Let’s fix that. We need revenue to balance the budget. We need sustainable
clean-tech jobs. We need less dependence on Mideast oil. And we need to take
steps to mitigate climate change — just in case Governor Perry is wrong. The
easiest way to do all of this at once is with a gasoline tax or price on carbon.
Would you rather cut Social Security and Medicare or pay a little more per
gallon of gas and make the country stronger, safer and healthier? It still
amazes me that our politicians have the courage to send our citizens to war but
not to ask the public that question.
Is It Weird Enough Yet?, NYT, 13.9.2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/14/opinion/friedman-is-it-weird-enough-yet.html
In Climate Denial, Again
October 17, 2010
The New York Times
Former Vice President Dick Cheney has to be smiling. With one
exception, none of the Republicans running for the Senate — including the 20 or
so with a serious chance of winning — accept the scientific consensus that
humans are largely responsible for global warming.
The candidates are not simply rejecting solutions, like putting a price on
carbon, though these, too, are demonized. They are re-running the strategy of
denial perfected by Mr. Cheney a decade ago, repudiating years of peer-reviewed
findings about global warming and creating an alternative reality in which
climate change is a hoax or conspiracy.
Some candidates are emphatic in their denial, like the Nevada Republican Sharron
Angle, who flatly rejects “the man-caused climate change mantra of the left.”
Others are merely wiggly, like California’s Carly Fiorina, who says, “I’m not
sure.” Yet, over all (the exception being Mark Kirk in Illinois), the
Republicans are huddled around an amazingly dismissive view of climate change.
A few may genuinely believe global warming is a left-wing plot. Others may be
singing the tune of corporate benefactors. And many Republicans have seized on
the cap-and-trade climate bill as another way to paint Democrats as
out-of-control taxers.
In one way or another, though, all are custodians of a strategy whose guiding
principle has been to avoid debate about solutions to climate change by denying
its existence — or at least by diminishing its importance. The strategy worked,
destroying hopes for Congressional action while further confusing ordinary
citizens for whom global warming was already a remote and complex matter. It was
also remarkably heavy-handed.
According to Congressional inquiries, White House officials, encouraged by Mr.
Cheney’s office, forced the Environmental Protection Agency to remove sections
on climate change from separate reports in 2002 and 2003. (Christine Todd
Whitman, then the E.P.A. administrator, has since described the process as
“brutal.”)
The administration also sought to control or censor Congressional testimony by
federal employees and tampered with other reports in order to inject uncertainty
into the climate debate and minimize threats to the environment.
Nothing, it seemed, could crack the administration’s denial — not Tony Blair of
Britain and other leaders who took climate change seriously; not Mrs. Whitman
(who eventually quit after being undercut by Mr. Cheney, who worked for the
energy company Halliburton before he became vice president and received annual
checks while in office); and certainly not the scientists.
In 2007, when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its most
definitive statement on the human contribution to climate change, Mr. Cheney
insisted that there was not enough evidence to just “sort of run out and try to
slap together some policy that’s going to try to solve the problem.” To which
Mrs. Whitman, by then in private life, said: “I don’t see how he can say that
with a straight face anymore.”
Nowadays, it is almost impossible to recall that in 2000, George W. Bush
promised to cap carbon dioxide, encouraging some to believe that he would break
through the partisan divide on global warming. Until the end of the 1990s,
Republicans could be counted on to join bipartisan solutions to environmental
problems. Now they’ve disappeared in a fog of disinformation, an entire
political party parroting the Cheney line.
In Climate Denial,
Again, NYT, 17.10. 2010,
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/18/opinion/18mon1.html
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