I am sure that this post should get all those juices flowing and the flurry of BS will ensue……cool, huh?
For decades there has been a raging debate, no, an argument, argument has been blowing in the wind…….emotions run high and some billionaires have spent a butt load of cash to stifle the debate on climate change. I mean the mindless argument that because there is snow there can be NO climate change or should I use global warming?
The debate has gotten sillier by the year…now the entire debate has come down to the exchange of stats and links and when that gets old they trot out a so-called “expert” to insult the other side of the argument…….and in the end nothing is accomplished with the exception of some hurt feelings and the situation gets worse.
But for some the argument is accomplishing the very aim of the debate…..to obfuscate the issue until NO one has any idea of what is being said and the lack of action…….
Heatwave summers will be the norm in Europe by the 2040s as a result of climate change, the Met Office has said.
Average temperatures across Europe will exceed those seen in 2003 – when Britain recorded its highest ever temperature of 38.5C (101.3F) – in more than half the summers that decade.
While the prospect of warmer weather may bring cheer to many, the hot summer of 2003 saw more than 2,000 excess deaths in the UK as pensioners in particular struggled to cope with the heat. More than 20,000 people died as a result of the heat across Europe.
Scientists also warned that climate change was likely to have a series of negative effects for the UK, including food price spikes, increased incidence of asthma and allergies, and more flooding.
Of course this post will ignite a flurry of well meaning comments….the endless array of links and hearsay will be the norm…….and while we spend our time disputing all views the change goes on and people will die……but that is somehow okay….as long as we do not have to face the music….that is until it is too late….and then it will be….just that….TOO LATE!
“But for some the argument is accomplishing the very aim of the debate…..to obfuscate the issue until NO one has any idea of what is being said and the lack of action…”
Perhaps one of the best books about how this “obfuscation” came about is Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming by Naomi Preske and M.M. Conway
It all began in 1979 with a few highly acclaimed highly scientist in the fields of physics and rocket science, headed by Fred Seitz, who were anti-communist at heart and were determined to make Reagan’s Star Wars fantasy a reality. Here are but a few notes I have taken from the book and other sources.
ON THE PHRASE “CLIMATE CHANGE”
In 2003 a memo was sent out to GOP candidates <written by Frank Luntz, a paid pollster and political consultant for the GOP, that advised candidates to avoid the term “global warming”.
The phrase “global warming” should be abandoned in favor of “climate change”, Mr Luntz says, and the party should describe its policies as “conservationist” instead of “environmentalist”, because “most people” think environmentalists are “extremists” who indulge in “some pretty bizarre behavior… that turns off many voters”. SOURCE
Luntz was aware that the IPCC 3rd assessment report in 2001 had confirmed a consensus among climate scientists who believed that “most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations”. Luntz claimed in his memo that voters were ignorant of this confidence among climate scientists so it was suggested that the GOP candidates exploit this voter weakness.
“Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate.”
This campaign to foster the notion that the science was unsettled began back in the 1980’s by handful of people who had worked for the Reagan administration’s SDI program. They formed the George C. Marshall Institute think tank that wrote paper after paper, none that were properly peer-reviewed with the scientific community, casting doubt on the consensus concerning global warming.
these people originally were paid consultants for the tobacco industry to propagate what the industry termed “doubt-mongering” in a 1969 memo entitled “Smoking and Health Proposal”
“Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the “body of fact” that exists in the mind of the general public.” SOURCE – http://tobaccodocuments.org/landman/332506.html
The George C. Marshall Institute helped establish the following doubt mongering strategies:
EXPLOIT COMPLEXITY OF ISSUE
Claim there is “many unresolved problems”
Take details out of context
Confuse people with true but irrelevant information
EXPLOIT SCIENTIFIC “UNCERTAINTY”
“It isn’t proven”
CREATE IMPRESSION OF SCIENTIFIC DEBATE
Highlighting and exploiting real but minor dissent
Take small disagreements about details out of context
Create a Potemkin Village through think tanks funded by the fossil fuel industry – an impressive facade or show designed to hide an undesirable fact or condition
Everything in the climate denier camp has been staged to create enough doubt about the uncertainty of the problem and therefore doubt among the public and sympathetic politicians to do anything about man-made global warming
Ben Santer with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison Project has demonstrated that green houses gathering in the lower atmosphere, the troposphere, is getting warm while the outer atmosphere, the stratosphere, is actually cooling. If natural climate variation, like solar radiation from the sun was the cause of Earth’s increased global warming then the research data collected by satellites would show the stratosphere warming. It’s not. What these satellites are showing however is that the troposphere is warming and this can only result from heat being trapped in green house gases. SOURCE
The distinction between the troposphere and the stratosphere became part of the Supreme Court hearing in the the case of Massachusetts et al v. the EPA in which 12 states sued the government for failing to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. Justice Anton Scalia dissented, arguing that there was nothing in the law to require the EPA to act – but the honorable justice also got lost in the science, at one point referring to the stratosphere when he meant the troposphere. A lawyer for Massachusetts replied, “Respectfully, your honor. It is not the stratosphere. It’s the troposphere. Scalia answered, “Troposphere, whatever. I told you before I am not a scientist. That’s why I don’t want to deal with global warming”. Naomi Oreskes, Merchants of Doubt introduction
Do climate deniers deserve equal time with the climate science?
The simple answer is no. While the idea of equal time for opposing opinions makes sense in a two-party political system, it does not work for science because science in not about opinion. It is about evidence. It is about claims that can be, and have been, tested through scientific research – experiments, experience and observation – research that is then subject to critical review by a jury of scientific peers. Claims that have not gone through that process – or have gone through it and failed – are not scientific and do not deserve equal time in a scientific debate. From Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes
Larry, the very reason I refused a job at a think tank……they provide the conclusion and you must make the case to fit that conclusion…..great comment….thanx my friend…..
“they provide the conclusion and you must make the case to fit that conclusion”
That appears to have been the strategy at the GCM think tank started by Fred Seitzer.
Almost all have the same technique…..Left and Right….
well said — lobbyists have (and will continue) to create the illusion of scientific uncertainty where none really exists. But there is a way around this. A major US university (I can’t remember which) did a survey on whether people agreed with the scientific evidence behind climate change. All survey participants were presented identical scientific evidence and were then asked if they agreed with the science. But half were given this evidence in the context of climate change needing major government intervention to manage; half were given the context of climate change creating tremendous opportunities fro energy and technology innovation. The group to whom the science was explained in the context of technology and business opportunity were more than twice as likely to accept the science behind climate change. My point: there are actually few true science deniers — there are many, however, who fear the solution and therefore convince themselves they don’t believe the science
Thanx mik I appreciate your input…..there will be an op-ed later today that touches on this point……..
Good point mik. Many in the climate science community have realized that their communication skills are lacking and speaking in clearer ways that not only confuse the layperson but avoiding the alarmists comments without sacrificing the urgency to act is an area of focus for some.
Professor Richard C. J. Somerville’s book called the The Forgiving Air is an excellent example of how a climate scientist and an effective communicator specialist can work hand in hand to get the facts out to a poorly informed and confused public.