Global Warming Denial
Second Firm Exits Coal Group That Opposes Climate Bill
Published September 09, 2009 @ 07:30PM PT
Is the coal industry's anti-climate action front group losing steam?
Five weeks ago, news broke that a PR firm hired by one of the most prominent coal lobby groups, the "American Coalition for Clean Coal Energy," had sent forged letters to Congress in opposition to the Waxman-Markey clean energy and climate action bill. The letters were made to look as if they were from community groups. Rep. Ed. Markey has since spearheaded a House investigation into the letters, uncovering several more fakes.
A week ago, Duke Energy announced that it had left ACCCE, because powerful members of the pro-coal group oppose the climate legislation, which Duke supports.
Today another company has fled the ACCCE embrace: Alstom Power, a French company that manufactures power plant parts, and works on carbon sequestration.
Inhofe Watch: Oklahoma senator's torture denial
Published September 03, 2009 @ 04:24PM PT
Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) is the Congressional standard-bearer for global warming denial.
(And the recipient of hundreds of thousands in campaign contributions from the oil, gas, and utility industries.)
Yesterday, he demonstrated that his is an equal opportunity capacity for self-delusion, when he told constituents at a town meeting that there has "never been a case of torture" at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.
If only this were true. But it's just as accurate as Senator Jim's claims about global warming, which is to say not accurate at all. The the Center for Constitutional Rights, International Committee for the Red Cross, and the CIA itself have all documented the use of torture by American interrogators against detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison.
It's unlikely that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder would have bucked the wishes of his boss, President Obama, and appointed a prosecutor to investigate abuses of detainees by the CIA, if there were no case to be made.
What's this got to do with global warming? It goes to credibility.
How to Fail at Climate Change Journalism
Published September 01, 2009 @ 12:36PM PT
When does reporting on climate change become reporting fail?
When The Washington Post, one of the nation's most important national newspapers, leaves off sifting for useful facts and dialogue on climate change, in favor of republishing a lot of lowest common denominator yammer.
This is what veteran reporter Doug Feaver did when he lifted around two dozen reader responses to a story, published in yesterday's print and online editions, about how environmentalists are coping with oil lobby tactics for defeating climate policy reform this year. The article focused in particular on the lobbies' efforts to fend off establishment of a carbon dioxide emissions cap, as well as a market for trading carbon emissions credits -- both included in the House-passed climate and energy bill.
As the Senate prepares to take up its versions of the House bill, reporter David Fahrenthold writes, oil and coal lobbies are organizing astroturf rallies. They're also running TV ad blitzkrieg campaigns in the Mountain West, the region that's home to several crucial Senate swing votes.
Environmentalists, meanwhile, are staying largely inside the Beltway, and in his analysis "are struggling in a fight they have spent years setting up."
[Environmentalists] are making slow progress adapting a movement built for other goals -- building alarm over climate change, encouraging people to "green" their lives -- into a political hammer, pushing a complex proposal the last mile through a skeptical Senate.
Even now, these groups differ on whether to scare the public with predictions of heat waves or woo it with promises of green jobs. And they are facing an opposition with tycoon money and a gift for political stagecraft.
"Progressives and clean-energy types . . . made a mistake and slacked off" after the House of Representatives passed its version of a climate-change bill in June, said Joseph Romm, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress who blogs on climate issues. "And the other side really kept making its case."
[Then again]..."People have been naysaying all year long," said Josh Dorner of the Sierra Club. But, he said, "We got a bill through the House, and you know . . . all signs point to yes" in the Senate.
That's not to say it's a level playing field: climate change activists are by and large not sitting on the giant pools of money available to fossil energy lobbyists and campaign operatives.
Still, this is a provocative and useful bit of reporting. My own professional observations often support it: When it comes to a substantial "national dialogue" on energy policy and climate change action, I still hear crickets chirping.
Five Videos to Watch This Week: From Climate Denial to Keen Electric Sportscar
Published August 11, 2009 @ 07:41PM PT
Okay, I know it's summer. But look away for just a few minutes from Darth Vader dancing to Hammer and Mean Kitty vs FlippyCat and check out this week's haul of nifty and informative videos about global warming:
1. Climate Denial Crock of the Week
Peter Sinclair's "Climate Denial Crock of the Week" is an ongoing and very enjoyable video series that debunks global warming myths. This installment, which mentions Anthony Watts of the prominent global warming denial blog wattsupwiththat.com, was temporarily taken down by YouTube after Mr. Watts complained it had violated some copyright rules.
Pat Buchanan Confuses Global Warming Science w/Birther Religion
Published August 03, 2009 @ 04:38PM PT
Pat Buchanan, the conservative political pundit, one-time advisor to Presidents Nixon, Ford and Reagan, and sometimes-presidential-candidate, this evening compared the reality of human-propelled global warming with believing in a conspiracy theory.
But on tonight's broadcast of Hardball With Chris Matthews on MSNBC (where both Matthews and Buchanan are employed as political commentators), Buchanan's the one who comes off as paranoid, by comparing a human-caused phenomenon to the "birthers" who are deluding themselves that Barack Obama is not the legal president:
PAT BUCHANAN: Global Warming is now a hoax--
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Do you think Global Warming is a hoax?
BUCHANAN: I do think it's a hoax.
MATTHEWS: It's a hoax?BUCHANAN: I think it goes up and down. The idea this is grave--
MATTHEWS: -- CO2 emissions, greenhouse gases, doesn't exist?
BUCHANAN: No, it does, of course it exists. The idea we're all gonna die of this is utter nonsense. It's a power transfer to governments here, and governments abroad.
MATTHEWS: And the motivation is what?
BUCHANAN: And the motivation is power. It always is in government.
MATTHEWS: So people like Al Gore have cooked this up to get what?
BUCHANAN: No, I think he believes it, Chris, like the Birthers believe it. He's just like they are. It's a religious belief with them.
Buchanan (currently a commentator on MSNBC) can often come across with the astute political analysis that more center and progressive pundits might miss. Still, the network would do the viewing audience a service by bringing on board someone whose grasp of science is as good as her or his insights into right-of-center politics, rather than offering up a mini-mirror image of Fox News.
Being politically conservative doesn't have to mean losing one's grip on the truth. The common trait that birthers and global warming denialists share? Fear of change.
(Hat tip to Media Matters for America)
It's Stop Global Warming, not "Debate Global Warming"
Published July 25, 2009 @ 09:18AM PT
Above: Sea ice off Baffin Island, July 2009. Source: NASA Earth Observatory. See end of post for more info.
"Why do good, smart people like [Mother Jones'] own Kevin Drum continue to debate those who insist global warming isn't caused primarily by human action?" asks my colleague Osha Gray Davidson (on a Mother Jones blog) "It's not like the facts aren't out there. This is settled science (as far as science can ever be considered settled).
"A list-serv of enviro-journo types to which I belong recently went through a small spasm along these same lines: 'How can we best convince doubters that global warming is real?'"
Some people who have doubts about the reality of human-propelled global warming want to learn more. I'm pleased that we can have these conversations here; this blog network is called Change.org, after all. Skepticism is fine (it's certainly a job requirement in journalism), as long as it's open to being answered by facts.
But unfortunately, they're an extreme minority. And despite inner resolutions not to get into pointless tit for tat with the rest, I fall off the wagon sometimes. Sometimes I'm asked why we don't do more around here about debunking denial memes, also.
Osha's answer is almost manifesto for what I want Stop Global Warming to be:
Once upon a time that was a legitimate question. No more.
...I've lost interest in what motivates climate deniers. Religion? Politics? Money? I don't know and I don't care. The battle between those who accept global warming and those who don't is like a really bad marriage where the two sides bicker endlessly over who's right. This marriage cannot be saved. It's time for a divorce.
Journalists and others need to turn our attention to solutions. Debating solutions to global warming is a sign of a healthy relationship. All sides have a common baseline and can help each other figure out where we need to go from here.
Politically, massive resources should be used to defeat everyone in Congress who still wants to debate the modern equivalent of "Is the earth really round?" We need to divorce pols who are divorced from reality, and the proper venue for that is the ballot box (or in some cases the recall petition).
And then, we need to get on with our lives, with creating solutions to the largest problem facing us: global warming.
A colleague told me recently that global warming denial echo chamber still reverberates strongly in Washington, D.C. This is why (this editor tells me) smart climate activists and bloggers whose professional lives are oriented toward influencing the inside-the-Beltway crowd, like Joe Romm of Climate Progress, and the team at Wonk Room, still spend so much time debunking falsehoods about the reality of global warming.
Little doubt that this is why some of the entities most responsible for spreading global warming misinformation, like the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (caked with an inch of greenwash, that!) are located in or near Washington, D.C. as well.
I love me some good policy wonking, and with Congress seriously considering climate legislation, there's plenty of reason to report on the doings on Capitol Hill.
But thank [whatever], there's a wealth of important climate news, views, and action happening beyond the bounds of Route 495, too. Most of it is about finding solutions to global warming, from curbing greenhouse gas pollution, to transforming our energy economy, inventing new materials and new ways to manufacture goods, more ethical ways to do business, and more sustainable ways to grow food and use water.
Taken nationally and globally, only the most minute part of all this activity involves debating the reality of global warming. So that's pretty much the ratio of debunking to informed news and conversation that I aim to have around here.
-----
About this image, via NASA Earth Observatory:
In the depths of winter, ice hugs the coastline of Canada’s Baffin Island. Summertime sunlight, however, dramatically melts the ice away from the coastline. Seasonal sea ice retreat was well underway when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this natural-color (photo-like) image on July 11, 2009.
Clouds often hover over the Arctic during the Northern Hemisphere summer, making cloud-free images such as this one relatively rare. Although a few wispy clouds appear in the upper right and lower left corners of this image, the delicate swirls of white running along the eastern edge of Baffin Island are sea ice. Eddies along Baffin Island’s coast have fashioned the ice into interlocking swirls, especially near Cumberland Sound. Farther north, a long band of ice holds fast to the shore east of Barnes Icecap. Although less inclined to move with the currents, this ice also shows signs of weakening, as its edges splinter, and pieces float away.
The sea ice retreat captured in this image appears typical of seasonal melt. Since the turn of the twenty-first century, however, Arctic sea ice extent has declined sharply, experiencing a series of low summertime extents and poor wintertime recoveries. Arctic sea ice extent set a record low in September 2007. As of July 22, 2009, the National Snow and Ice Data Center reported that, in the first half of July 2009, sea ice declined faster than it did in 2008, but not as fast as it did in 2007.
Links
National Snow and Ice Data Center. (2009, July 22). Arctic Sea Ice News and Analysis. Accessed July 23, 2009.
Scott, M. (2009, April 20). Sea Ice. Earth Observatory. Accessed July 23, 2009.
Palin's Higher Calling? Fame, Fortune via Global Warming Denial
Published July 14, 2009 @ 02:32PM PT
Does Sarah Palin understand global warming, why it's happening, and how to slow it down? In the wake of her opinion piece in today's edition of The Washington Post, in which she rehashes several false arguments against carbon cap and trade, as well as other parts of the clean energy legislation in front of Congress, we don't really know.
But those aren't the right questions to be asking, really. The real question is how far she will advance her political ambitions on the exhaust of global warming denial.
Naturally, according to Palin, America's energy security and national security will be ensured only if we drill, baby, drill. (It won't.) Charitably, she's displaying her storied grasp of factual information and public policy details. But it's equally likely that Palin's embracing the "cap and tax" crowd for the cynical purpose of walking an easy path to political fame and personal fortune.
(Which isn't to say she shouldn't be debunked. Media Matters has done a fast, good job of clearing the fog from around Palin's op-ed on federal climate and energy legislation, which is chock-full of misinformation. And let's recall that in an interview last summer, Palin did deny the reality of global warming. "A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location," she said. "I'm not one though who would attribute it to being man-made.")
Give the woman credit: By applying her charisma, sex appeal, and will to power to national energy policy, Palin has made a crafty move. Here's why:
- First of all, she'll bring a surface gloss of expertise to energy security issues; she was governor of oil and gas-stoked Alaska for two and a half years, right? And before that sat on an important state oil and gas board for all of 11 months. It's sufficiently plausible believability to keep her narrow base of conservative supporters in tow. (Although keep in mind that for this crowd, the facts ultimately don't matter, and Palin understands that.)
- This same veneer of energy security acumen may entice a few fellow politicians (who might otherwise opt to keep Sarah Barracuda and her swirl of crazy at arm's length) to use Palin to advance their own anti-climate/clean energy agendas.
- Second, skepticism toward carbon cap-and-trade markets has a ready audience among libertarian and some independent voters, the only arenas where Palin has any potential to expand her base. These voters have been made wary of the House energy and climate legislation (softened up, so to speak) by the flood of disinformation preceding Palin onto the scene.
- Third, Palin -- demonstrably no slouch when it comes to identifying a free meal -- has surely noticed that there's a lot of money to be made in professionally opposing cap and trade, which goes hand in hand with organized global warming denial. ExxonMobil alone gave millions to such groups between 2002 and 2005. Last year, as the UK's Telegraph newspaper reported a couple weeks ago, ExxonMobil gave gave $75,000 to the National Center for Policy Analysis, $50,000 to the Heritage Foundation, and $245,000 to the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research.
Opponents of the Obama administration's plans for expanding clean energy and fighting global warming are probably thrilled to have Sarah Palin's pearly whites smiling in their direction. But the reality-based world can take heart by remembering that Palin's bright light has often overexposed matters she and others hoped would remain in the dark.
So pay attention as Palin embraces energy and climate policy as her "higher calling." Her presence may ultimately prove as helpful to the global warming denialists as it was to the McCain campaign, and her loyalty as true.
