A Map of Organized Climate Change Denial

[mrlupin]

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/02/a-map-of-organized-climate-change-denial/

A Map of Organized Climate Change Denial

By ANDREW C. REVKIN

Oct. 3, 9:00 p.m. | Updated

A chart of “key components of the climate change denial machine” has been produced by Riley E. Dunlap, regents professor of sociology at Oklahoma State University, and Aaron M. McCright, an associate professor of sociology at Michigan State University. The diagram below (reproduced here with permission) is from a chapter the two researchers wrote on organized opposition to efforts to curb greenhouse gases for the new Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society.

That there are such well-financed and coordinated efforts is not contentious. And this is not the first attempt to map them.

But it’s important to keep in mind that not everyone skeptical of worst-case predictions of human-driven climate disruption, or everyone opposed to certain climate policies, is part of this apparatus.

And there’s plenty to chart on the other edge of the climate debate — those groups and outlets pursuing a traditional pollution-style approach to greenhouse gases.

[Don Hudson]

Éric, Malcolm, many thanks for posting these important links for consideration in the climate change discussion. In my view these discussions and concerns are closely related to the present "Occupy X" events.

The link to Dr Nisbet's work is particularly interesting in the context of the human disposition for here-and-now thinking and the priorities of a society which are constrained and imbalanced by the business and corporate world view. As one of the signs carried in yesterday's march through Vancouver said, "We can't shop our way out of everything!"

With the Occupy X movement as it now can be called, hopefully the genie of public response and resistance to these two related social, economic and political tropes is out of the bottle. Business is already madly at work with their standard propaganda machine, which looks very much like the map posted here, to discredit and marginalize the "rabble's" response. A more positive way to view any corporate and government response may be simply that any responsiveness and change can itself be profitable.

One thing is certain with regard to both climate change and our current political economy: the status-quo cannot be maintained.

[Mitch Cronin]

One thing is certain with regard to both climate change and our current political economy: the status-quo cannot be maintained.

The resistance to that recognition is really quite remarkable, though I suppose, predictable. People who see an end to their gravy train are strongly motivated, and most influential.

[Don Hudson]

The resistance to that recognition is really quite remarkable, though I suppose, predictable. People who see an end to their gravy train are strongly motivated, and most influential.

Mitch - yes, it truly is remarkable, isn't it?

The notion and the act of "resistance" itself, is historical and thus its justification is institutionalized. So one not only looks after his own interests despite obvious and significant harm to others, one has an entire legitimizing set of beliefs available, some even based upon religious views, to help him along in doing so. It is one form of pathology; there are others.

I bought "Limits to Growth" when it came out in 1972 and I distinctly recall discussing it with a person who was obviously a businessman and being summarily dismissed along with the book, the authors and the organization which spawned the book, the Club of Rome. The Club of Rome was founded in April 1968 by Aurelio Peccei, an Italian industrialist, and Alexander King, a Scottish scientist. The book's (and the Club of Rome's) thesis was simple enough for anyone to understand: Unlimited growth was unsustainable and harmful to mankind and other living things. While in university training to become a teacher I recall teaching these elementary notions to children (Grades 4 & 5), in the early 70s from those sections reserved for the closing chapters of science textbooks fashionably known at the time as "Conservation". We had just come out of the "hippy generation" and business was re-occupying its traditional commons which had been appropriated by the world-wide protests over "the War" and other things. Business was actually viewed very positively as a contributing "member" of society and perhaps the opinion was even deserved.

In any case, the businessperson with whom I had errantly broached the notion that perhaps not all business goals were as lofty and worthy as both business and the public believed, not only stood his ground but, perhaps recalling the recent "hippie generation" and "whacko environmentalists" who were making inconvenient observations about pollution, poked with a firm verbal finger-on-the-chest instructing me on how unfavourable were such views to "progress". I had obviously pushed a button that at the time I didn't know existed.

Here we are today, 7-billion strong doing the same thinking regarding "pollution". The smoke from industry's stacks no longer blots the skies but "our" environment, (the earth doesn't have an "environment", it only has circumstances which are more, or less, favourable to life), is known to be growing less congenial to our form of life. While Sarah Palin truly believes that only Alaska will be saved when Armageddon arrives, (and all are welcome to join her in Wassila), those who take reality just a bit more seriously are speaking the same truths that were spoken in the sixties and getting the same treatment as I recall getting when I tried to begin an intelligent discussion on the limits to our growth with someone who instantly recognized heresy when he heard it.

We will be 9-billion in 2050, when, like millions of the first generation after the baby-boomers, our children, will be retiring. Perhaps we'll bumble through.

Business isn't about hope, vision and compassion and with the clear exception of Jack Layton, since the early 70s neither are our politicians.

Don

[J.O.]

Fighting a rich and powerful juggernaut doesn't exactly come cheap. That was pretty gratuitous, IMO.

[mrlupin]

I always wonder why there is so much resistance to the idea of global warming/ or ozone layer depletion etc.

Whether you want to believe that the weather is changing or not, it would just seem like a safe bet to accept that we need to reduce pollution, reduce energy expenditure, reduce the impact we have on our environment.

The idea that we should just accept the status quo scares me to no end...

[Don Hudson]

I always wonder why there is so much resistance to the idea of global warming/ or ozone layer depletion etc.

Whether you want to believe that the weather is changing or not, it would just seem like a safe bet to accept that we need to reduce pollution, reduce energy expenditure, reduce the impact we have on our environment.

The idea that we should just accept the status quo scares me to no end...

Éric, get hold of Alex Carey's "Taking the Risk Out of Democracy". A reasonable answer to your question can be found in his work. The first 17 pages of the book can be read here.

While you're waiting for the book, take a look at Carey's essay, "Reshaping the Truth: Pragmatists and Propagandists in America", published by Meanjin Quarterly, an Australian journal, here.

Cheers,

Don

[mrlupin]

Thanks, I'll have a look at the book Don.

At the moment, I have a full time student work load and am immersed in lectures for uni so little time is left for my peripheral interests. So much to read... so little time. I am sure the book would be more interesting the reading the IFRS...

[FireFox]

I always wonder why there is so much resistance to the idea of global warming/ or ozone layer depletion etc.

Whether you want to believe that the weather is changing or not, it would just seem like a safe bet to accept that we need to reduce pollution, reduce energy expenditure, reduce the impact we have on our environment.

The idea that we should just accept the status quo scares me to no end...

Hello Mr. Lupin,

I don't think you are listening to many posters. A number, like myself, don't have any problem with reducing pollution and the impact we have on our environment, and in fact carry this out in their day to day lives. It's been expressed over & over. You seem to want to ignore them by lumping them all into one bunch. And in the process, expressing a great deal of angst over how they all just don't seem concerned about our poor planet.

This is far from the truth.

A big concern of mine is the amount of people that are willing to run around like Chicken Little based on faulty data provided by the hugely discredited CPCC and of course Al Gore.

The lunatic fringe / conspiracy theorist / anarchist flavour of the month cults are all alive & well and latching onto whatever agenda they can.

Of course everyone in their camp wasn't like this, and as a result they have lost a lot of support. The public (and government) that was initially so willing to believe their predictions of doom and gloom have by and large wised-up.

Peace,

Voted THE BEST SCIENCE BLOG at the 2011 Weblog Awards;

Watt's Up

(#20 is priceless)

In the beginning there was Gore, and a skeptical polar bear.

Hmm, so far, Al’s not getting the lift he needs after Katrina. The USA recently went over 1000 days without a major hurricane landfall. Watts Up with That?

According to some, Arctic Sea Ice is THE metric by which to gauge “global warming”. There’s only one problem. The ice is keeping its own schedule and temperature doesn’t seem to be much of a factor.

Sea level! Yes that’s it. Sea level rise is a primary indicator of global warming! Let’s have a look.

Polar bears are being threatened. They need rescue from climate change!

What temperature trend?

Where’s the warming?

Hockey sticks anyone?

Consensus says so!

Weather is not climate, unless we say it is.

[Mitch Cronin]

A big concern of mine is the amount of people that are willing to run around like Chicken Little based on faulty data provided by the hugely discredited CPCC and of course Al Gore. [emphasis added]

Well I think you can relax if that's your big concern. There really aren't many people doing that.

[Mitch Cronin]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15373071

"Global warming 'confirmed' by independent study

The Earth's surface really is getting warmer, a new analysis by a US scientific group set up in the wake of the "Climategate" affair has concluded.

The Berkeley Earth Project has used new methods and some new data, but finds the same warming trend seen by groups such as the UK Met Office and Nasa.

The project received funds from sources that back organisations lobbying against action on climate change."

[Don Hudson]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15373071

"Global warming 'confirmed' by independent study

The Earth's surface really is getting warmer, a new analysis by a US scientific group set up in the wake of the "Climategate" affair has concluded.

The Berkeley Earth Project has used new methods and some new data, but finds the same warming trend seen by groups such as the UK Met Office and Nasa.

The project received funds from sources that back organisations lobbying against action on climate change."

Mitch;

Pity nobody listens to Richard Feynman anymore. Richard was a very funny guy, great safecracker and a brilliant physicist. George Carlin is a brilliant satirist can make what Feynman said come alive with laughter, until that laughter echoes...

[GDR]

I always wonder why there is so much resistance to the idea of global warming/ or ozone layer depletion etc.

Whether you want to believe that the weather is changing or not, it would just seem like a safe bet to accept that we need to reduce pollution, reduce energy expenditure, reduce the impact we have on our environment.

The idea that we should just accept the status quo scares me to no end...

Just a couple of thoughts. I believe that reducing pollution and global warming are different issues although there is an overlap. Pollution involves all sorts of things whereas global warming is about CO2 emissions, at least from the human side of things.

Global warming is happening but it is an open question as to how much of that is caused by humans. The major emphasis seems to be on cutting down emissions. That isn't a bad idea but from what I understand we could eliminate all emissions and we would still have global warming.

What we need to be doing is accepting that global warming is happening and prepare for it. If we spend all of our energies on the idea that we can cut emissions and eliminate the problem I think that we'll just be spinning our wheels.

JMHO

Greg

[boestar]

OK everyone stop breathing for one week. That should just about take care of it.

[Moon The Loon]

...and no farting

[mrlupin]

Muzzled Scientists = 80% Reduction in Media Coverage of Climate Change

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/muzzled-scientists-80-reduction-in-media-coverage-of-climate-change.html#ixzz1bzcxRqB4

Muzzled Scientists = 80% Reduction in Media Coverage of Climate Change

by Annie Urban

October 26, 2011

7:00 pm

28 comments Muzzled Scientists = 80% Reduction in Media Coverage of Climate Change

If you follow the news in Canada, you may mistakenly be under the impression that climate change is not as pressing an issue as it was five years ago. Unfortunately, it is. However, since 2007, Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been using a variety of control tactics to carefully craft and restrict the things that the media learns about his government. One of those tactics includes muzzling government scientists by preventing them from speaking to the media about the research that they are doing and their findings. The result: there has been an 80% reduction in media coverage of climate change issues since 2007.

Last year, as part of Right to Know Week, Kathryn O’Hara explained how the Harper government, which ran on a platform of transparency and accountability, has been muzzling government scientists and how the openness they promised “is being held ransom to media messages that serve the government’s political agenda.” O’Hara went on to explain the problem further:

The signs were there in spring last year, when press reports revealed that climate scientists in the government department Environment Canada were being stymied by Harper’s compulsive message control. Our researchers were prevented from sharing their work at conferences, giving interviews to journalists, and even talking about research that had already been published. Carefully researched reports intended for the public — Climate Change and Health, from Health Canada, and Climate Change Impacts, from Natural Resources Canada — were released without publicity, late on Friday afternoons, and appeared on government websites only after long delays. This is not a government that is comfortable with climate change or the implications for action, as its largely obstructionist stance at climate talks has shown.

This is only one example of many where federal government scientists have been prevented from speaking to the press. So it is no wonder that this week, when Environment Canada scientist David Tarasick was given a rare opportunity for a highly supervised and controlled conversation with the media about his work, that he took the opportunity to share his opinions frankly. Tarasick works in atmospheric monitoring and was advised this summer that his job could be cut or that funds could be taken away from their monitoring work. Tarasick explained that:

If the taxpayer in his infinite wisdom were to give me 10 times the budget I have now, I think I could use all that money quite usefully and do good science with it. I don’t think we’re wasting a penny . . . Could we get by on less money? Well, we could do less with less money. We could do more with more money.

According to Postmedia News, officials at Environment Canada tried to limit the topics of discussion prior to the interview with Tarasick, saying that he would not answer questions about potential cuts to the ozone monitoring network. Additionally, according to Environment Canada, spokeswoman Renee David intervened and tried to prevent Tarasick from answering some questions during the interview. When Tarasick was asked about the government’s previous efforts to keep him from speaking about his work, she said: “David is here and available to speak to you now, so I think that’s kind of a moot point.” However, Tarasick chose to answer the question, adding “Well I’m available when media relations says I’m available. I have to go through them.”

Canada already has a poor reputation as a result of its inaction on climate change. Muzzling government scientists isn’t going to change that reputation, but it may legitimately hinder the public’s ability to be engaged in the process of reducing harm, both through personal action and through their votes.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/muzzled-scientists-80-reduction-in-media-coverage-of-climate-change.html#ixzz1bzd766Sy

[Miles]

If only the IPCC would use proper scientific process(peer reviewed, for just one example), maybe more skeptics would be convinced it's all man made. "Trust us cuz we said so" just doesn't cut it in science.

Now for me, I have no problem wrapping my brain around global warming. It seems reasonable to me that it's happening, and there's plenty of evidence showing it's happening. My problem is the multi-billion dollar industry and social engineering experiment that has been created in order to convince us all that it's cause is man made CO2 emmisions.

My opinion? Nature dwarfs anything man can produce in way of emissions. Volcanic eruptions and forest fires, just to name two.

If you want to do something 'environmental' then go after over fishing, water and air pollution, deforestation, poaching animals to extinction, landfills, dumping of hazardous waste, the food we eat! CO2? don't make me laugh. CO2 should not be top of the list as there are far more pressing issues we should be concentrating on. There are large sections of the ocean that were once teeming with life, and are now desolate wastelands.

Water vapour is a far more effective greenhouse gas than CO2! Maybe we should put restrictions on that! No more boiling water allowed! Maybe steam should no longer be used to generate electricity!

[Don Hudson]

Muzzled Scientists = 80% Reduction in Media Coverage of Climate Change

by Annie Urban

October 26, 2011

7:00 pm

If you follow the news in Canada, you may mistakenly be under the impression that climate change is not as pressing an issue as it was five years ago. Unfortunately, it is. However, since 2007, Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been using a variety of control tactics to carefully craft and restrict the things that the media learns about his government. One of those tactics includes muzzling government scientists by preventing them from speaking to the media about the research that they are doing and their findings. The result: there has been an 80% reduction in media coverage of climate change issues since 2007.

Last year, as part of Right to Know Week, Kathryn OHara explained how the Harper government, which ran on a platform of transparency and accountability, has been muzzling government scientists and how the openness they promised is being held ransom to media messages that serve the governments political agenda. OHara went on to explain the problem further:

The signs were there in spring last year, when press reports revealed that climate scientists in the government department Environment Canada were being stymied by Harpers compulsive message control. Our researchers were prevented from sharing their work at conferences, giving interviews to journalists, and even talking about research that had already been published. Carefully researched reports intended for the public Climate Change and Health, from Health Canada, and Climate Change Impacts, from Natural Resources Canada were released without publicity, late on Friday afternoons, and appeared on government websites only after long delays. This is not a government that is comfortable with climate change or the implications for action, as its largely obstructionist stance at climate talks has shown.

. . . .

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/muzzled-scientists-80-reduction-in-media-coverage-of-climate-change.html#ixzz1bzd766Sy

We should remember that when it came to message-control Jean Chretien ran a no-less-tyrannical caucus and was just as ruthless with those who strayed off-message. Harper learned well from Chretien.

Noam Chomsky and Ed Herman wrote Manufacturing Consent, the Political Economy of the Mass Media in 1988. What has become "the Propaganda Model", (how to tell when something is propaganda and when it is less dishonest media reporting), is described in the first few chapters. The book was made into a film by Mark Akbar and is still relevant and still available, (Amazon).

Thought control, or propaganda in a democratic society was pioneered by Ed Bernays and critiqued by Walter Lippmanand others. Because a government could no longer "influence" its population through direct tyrannical violence it had to "convince" its population using other means. The best recent example is George W Bush who maximized the Culture of Fear which all US governments used to frighten people into compliance.

Here, "message management" is not about invading other countries or fighting proxy wars it is about ensuring that Canada's corporations retain and increase their economic and political power. The story about climate change is purely economic and so the "radical environmentalists" must be controlled.

In effect, it is the discussion that is being controlled as well as the message. Whether scientists work for government or private corporations, their message will be controlled according to the interests of those who are paying those scientists and their studies.

It is about as stupid a process as one can imagine in a democratic society..."Let's bury our heads instead of discussing the validity of the concerns." But science was never George W Bush's strong point either; he seemed a bit more influenced by religion.

Harper is a corporate-friendly politician. We can judge Harper's government's systematic message and media control on climate change partly by using the model and partly by doing the same kind of work and using our heads as Annie Urban who wrote the above article.

"Not reporting the story" is a standard technique for thought control in a democratic society, so that society has to find alternate means to sources of information in order to build the story themselves. The internet is one source if one knows how to use it and has a very keen crap-detector. There are journals and other media which are independent of the Harper government's brand of thought control which can be found but it takes a bit of work critical thinking skills.

Chomsky and Herman observed five effective filters through which thought control was exercised in a "free" society.

"1. Concentration of media ownership"

"The size, and profit-seeking imperative of the dominant media corporations is said to create a bias. The authors point to how in the early nineteenth century, a radical British press had emerged which addressed the concerns of workers but excessive stamp duties, designed to restrict newspaper ownership to the 'respectable' wealthy, began to change the face of the press. Nevertheless there remained a degree of diversity. In postwar Britain, radical or worker-friendly newspapers such as the Daily Herald, News Chronicle, Sunday Citizen (all since failed or absorbed into other publications) and the Daily Mirror (at least until the late 1970s) regularly published articles questioning the capitalist system. The authors posit that these earlier radical papers were not constrained by corporate ownership, and were therefore free to criticize the capitalist system.

"Herman and Chomsky argue that since mainstream media outlets are currently either large corporations or part of conglomerates (e.g. Westinghouse or General Electric), the information presented to the public will be biased with respect to these interests. Such conglomerates frequently extend beyond traditional media fields, and thus have extensive financial interests that may be endangered when certain information is widely publicized. According to this reasoning, news items that most endanger the corporate financial interests of those who own the media will face the greatest bias and censorship.

"It then follows that if to maximize profit means sacrificing news objectivity, then the news sources that ultimately survive must be fundamentally biased, with regard to news in which they have a conflict of interest.

"2. Funding"

"The second filter of the propaganda model is funding generated through advertising. Most newspapers have to attract and maintain a high proportion of advertising in order to cover the costs of production; without it, they would have to increase the price of their newspaper. There is fierce competition throughout the media to attract advertisers; a newspaper which gets less advertising than its competitors is put at a serious disadvantage. Lack of success in raising advertising revenue was another factor in the demise of the 'people's newspapers' of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

"The product is composed of the affluent readers who buy the newspaper who also comprise the educated decision-making sector of the population while the audience includes the businesses that pay to advertise their goods. According to this filter, the news itself is nothing more than "filler" to get privileged readers to see the advertisements which makes up the real content, and will thus take whatever form is most conducive to attracting educated decision-makers. Stories that conflict with their "buying mood", it is argued, will tend to be marginalized or excluded, along with information that presents a picture of the world that collides with advertisers' interests. The theory argues that the people buying the newspaper are themselves the product which is sold to the businesses that buy advertising space; the news itself has only a marginal role as the product.

"3. Sourcing"

"The third of Herman and Chomsky's five filters relates to the sourcing of mass media news: "The mass media are drawn into a symbiotic relationship with powerful sources of information by economic necessity and reciprocity of interest." Even large media corporations such as the BBC cannot afford to place reporters everywhere. They therefore concentrate their resources where major news stories are likely to happen: the White House, the Pentagon, 10 Downing Street, and other centralised news "terminals". Although British newspapers may occasionally complain about the "spin-doctoring" of New Labour, for example, they are in fact highly dependent upon the pronouncements of "the Prime Minister's personal spokesperson" for government-related news. Business corporations and trade organizations are also trusted sources of stories considered newsworthy. Editors and journalists who offend these powerful news sources, perhaps by questioning the veracity or bias of the furnished material, can be threatened with the denial of access to their media life-blood - fresh news.[3] Thus, the media become reluctant to run articles that will harm corporate interests that provide them with the resources that the media depend upon.

"This relationship also gives rise to a "moral division of labor", in which "officials have and give the facts," and "reporters merely get them". Journalists are then supposed to adopt an uncritical attitude that makes it possible for them to accept corporate values without experiencing cognitive dissonance.

"4. Flak"

"The fourth filter is 'flak', described by Herman and Chomsky as 'negative responses to a media statement or [TV or radio] program. It may take the form of letters, telegrams, phone calls, petitions, law-suits, speeches and Bills before Congress, and other modes of complaint, threat and punitive action'. Business organizations regularly come together to form flak machines. Perhaps one of the most well-known of these is the US-based Global Climate Coalition (GCC) - comprising fossil fuel and automobile companies such as Exxon, Texaco and Ford. The GCC was started up by Burson-Marsteller, one of the world's largest public relations companies, to attack the credibility of climate scientists and 'scare stories' about global warming.

"For Chomsky and Herman "flak" refers to negative responses to a media statement or program. The term "flak" has been used to describe what Chomsky and Herman see as targeted efforts to discredit organizations or individuals who disagree with or cast doubt on the prevailing assumptions which Chomsky and Herman view as favorable to established power (e.g., "The Establishment"). Unlike the first three "filtering" mechanisms which are derived from analysis of market mechanisms flak is characterized by concerted and intentional efforts to manage public information.

"5. Anti-communism and fear"

"The fifth and final news filter that Herman and Chomsky identified was 'anti-communism'. Manufacturing Consent was written during the Cold War. Chomsky updated the model as "fear", often as 'the enemy' or an 'evil dictator', including dictators such as Colonel Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein, or Slobodan Milosevic. This is exemplified in British tabloid headlines of 'Smash Saddam!' and 'Clobba Slobba!'.[5] The same is said to extend to mainstream reporting of environmentalists as 'eco-terrorists'. The Sunday Times ran a series of articles in 1999 accusing activists from the non-violent direct action group Reclaim The Streets of stocking up on CS gas and stun guns.[5]

"Anti-ideologies exploit public fear and hatred of groups that pose a potential threat, either real, exaggerated, or imagined. Communism once posed the primary threat according to the model. Communism and socialism were portrayed by their detractors as endangering freedoms of speech, movement, the press, and so forth. They argue that such a portrayal was often used as a means to silence voices critical of elite interests."

So I think when we talked about the "fifth filter" we should have brought in all this stuff -- the way artificial fears are created with a dual purpose...partly to get rid of people you don't like but partly to frighten the rest. Because if people are frightened, they will accept authority. Noam Chomsky

[mrlupin]

If only the IPCC would use proper scientific process(peer reviewed, for just one example), maybe more skeptics would be convinced it's all man made. "Trust us cuz we said so" just doesn't cut it in science.

Now for me, I have no problem wrapping my brain around global warming. It seems reasonable to me that it's happening, and there's plenty of evidence showing it's happening. My problem is the multi-billion dollar industry and social engineering experiment that has been created in order to convince us all that it's cause is man made CO2 emmisions.

My opinion? Nature dwarfs anything man can produce in way of emissions. Volcanic eruptions and forest fires, just to name two.

If you want to do something 'environmental' then go after over fishing, water and air pollution, deforestation, poaching animals to extinction, landfills, dumping of hazardous waste, the food we eat! CO2? don't make me laugh. CO2 should not be top of the list as there are far more pressing issues we should be concentrating on. There are large sections of the ocean that were once teeming with life, and are now desolate wastelands.

Water vapour is a far more effective greenhouse gas than CO2! Maybe we should put restrictions on that! No more boiling water allowed! Maybe steam should no longer be used to generate electricity!

I have always considered there to be a high degree of correlation between CO2 and pollution emissions am out to lunch? Green house gases, climate change, global warming or pollution, what difference does it make what you are calling it? To put it simply, that big yellow dome over all the big cities... It doesn't appear healthy it certainly doesn't smell healthy. I do not think forest fires are to blame for that yellow cloud over our larger cities. Sure at some point in the summer we can get a haze from forest fires... what about the rest of the year?

The air you breath just isn't going to get cleaner by running more gas guzzling vehicles. At some point some measures to constrain people from doing the activities that pollute (even if it means less air traffic) are going to be necessary. We are still using resources as if we were the last generation that will inhabit this planet... maybe some longer term vision is necessary in our politicians...

I would rather look at the substance instead of playing with semantics. What it is called it is irrelevant, the end result is polluted air.

Health Canada

[mrlupin]

Evening Don,

I am familiar with Edward Burnays and his work. He's quite a character...

The story about climate change is purely economic and so the "radical environmentalists" must be controlled.

If that is the case, why are so many so vehemently opposed to any measures that would see pollution reduced?

[Don Hudson]

Evening Don,

I am familiar with Edward Burnays and his work. He's quite a character...

If that is the case, why are so many so vehemently opposed to any measures that would see pollution reduced?

I think we have to take a look at the nature of the arguments of those who are "vehemently opposed". There is always a large measure of bandwagon-thinking and cocktail conversation. But the serious objectors to the science have to be examined more closely, as do the rebuttals to these arguments.

There are two measures here which may be helpful: One is, who is (demonstrably) being kept silent through the controls discussed above? Another is, what are the conclusions being drawn in the peer-reviewed, independent papers who are, as far as can possibly be shown, not associated with either government or corporate interests?

Neither of these institutions and organizations are on our side so we better get some answers elsewhere. Our government and our private corporations have their own very serious, financial interests in maintaining the current political economy.

And where they appear, the contributions from both the left and the right should not be dismissed outright, but read with a very critical eye.

The other groups to read with a critical mind are the think tanks and the (monthly/bi-annual or whatever) periodicals they issue in support of points of view.

Such an approach takes time, energy, discipline and critical thinking. It is incredibly easy to leap onto forums and say things because no one has the time to properly critique them or back these things up so the potential for growing their own propaganda (whether it actually is the truth or whether it isn't), is high.

Independent thinking and good research is key to ensure a more reliable answer. But critical thinking, the freedom to say, "Says who?...", isn't even taught in schools. I tried to get such a course going in Surrey and they wouldn't hear of it because parents didn't want it, they wanted jobs for their kids. Can't blame them I suppose, but with the state we're in, some decent thinking skills are in order.

In the end, these changes are over a very large geological time scale in which it is not possible to comprehend let alone "manage".

Though geological history may not support the notion, we may have very well set all this in motion a century ago and all after our actions is inevitable, or things may be changing despite our activities, and our meek efforts to address just the question independent of the present government's and our corporations' agenda, or we may be "just in time" to turn history around and intervene in one of the many catastrophes that has extinquished life on this planet before.

Thing is, we don't know and we're not standing up to either government or corporate interests which have their, not our, interests in mind.

The propensity to roll the dice merely in the face of the question, while such human behaviour has a very long history, isn't very bright. Perhaps that has its own reward in the face of irreversible artificially-generated, natural events, but why be so compliant in the face of powerful interests who don't care about anything except the polls and their quarterly reports?

I'm not a "climate change believer" so much as I am a very strong believer in suspending judgement in favour of curiosity and inviting the discussion.

There isn't a government on earth that is serious about addressing this question. They are instead badly distracted by other "local" matters which ARE of our own making.

So I think people should do their own research and they should strive to be as aware as possible about their own biases, because nature ignores even a very good argument.

It's not that the corporate scientists and the government scientists are "wrong" and that's that. Coming to the conclusion that climate change is either inevitable, (in which case we should just keep on dancing), or it's a falacy created by commie-pinko academia, (in which case we can just keep on dancing), refusing to continue asking the question and not insisting on knowing the biases and interests of those who pronounce on the issue, is, for an intelligent species and in the face of the possibilities, just plain stupid in my view.

That's how I'd do it, to start with anyway.

Yeah, Ed Bernays lived to 101 and was indeed a character. These guys weren't trying to dupe ordinary people, they just wanted to tell business how to sell things, and the brilliance of his ideas caught on elsewhere. We can judge for ourselves whether it was for good or not so good.

[deicer]

Independent thinking and good research is key to ensure a more reliable answer. But critical thinking, the freedom to say, "Says who?...", isn't even taught in schools

There is the most important statement imho.

I see it that there has been a concerted effort to raise a generation of non-thinking droids who will be happy with McJobs to the benefit of the 1%. Dealing with the education system as it currently exists is a painful experience. One has to constantly be on the teachers and principals to ensure that your child is being educated to a decent standard.

Problem is, the majority of parents don't want to get involved because it interferes with the retail therapy or the hockey game.

For example. My son's school is dealing with declining enrolment for it's area. No problem. Where the problem lies is that they have only 28 students in his grade. One class? No, what they did was split his grade level into two 'split classes'. Now instead of a single class of 28 students all at the same grade level, they have two split classes of 30 students with two different grade levels being taught in each class. Harder on the students, harder on the teacher. There was even a case in Toronto where they wanted to have three different grades in one classroom? How can they even entertain such thinking?

Why?

When I talked to the principal, she only rolled her eyes and said it was 'politics'. Needless to say, I gave her an earful, however, I was the only one.

So where are these 'policies' coming from? The population is going up, student numbers are rising, yet standards are dropping.

The best example of this is allowing cellphones in the classroom. What ever happened to going to school to learn? Being in a youth organisation, I am 'Facebook Friends' with alot of kids. Seeing the updates that are coming from their phones at all hours of the day is disturbing. Aren't they there to learn?

We need to fight back and get people thinking for themselves again. Soon....

[mrlupin]

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/10/climate-change-deniers-abandon-befuddled-warmist-physicist-who-came-around-on-global-warming.php?m=1

TPMDC

Climate Change Deniers Abandon ‘Befuddled Warmist’ Physicist Who Came Around On Global Warming

Brian Beutler October 22, 2011, 8:14 AM

Climate change deniers thought they had an ally in Richard Muller, a popular physics professor at UC Berkeley.

Muller didn’t reject climate science per se, but he was a skeptic, and a convenient one for big polluters and conservative anti-environmentalists — until Muller put their money where his mouth was, and launched the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, in part with a grant from the Charles G. Koch foundation.

After extensive study, he’s concluded that the existing science was right all along — that the earth’s surface is warming, at an accelerating rate. But instead of second-guessing themselves, his erstwhile allies of convenience are now abandoning him.

“When we began our study, we felt that skeptics had raised legitimate issues, and we didn’t know what we’d find,” Muller wrote in a Friday Wall Street Journal op-ed. “Our results turned out to be close to those published by prior groups. We think that means that those groups had truly been very careful in their work, despite their inability to convince some skeptics of that. They managed to avoid bias in their data selection, homogenization and other corrections. Global warming is real. Perhaps our results will help cool this portion of the climate debate.”

That’s put a small but influential group of anthropogenic global warming skeptics and climate change deniers on the war path.

Blogger Anthony Watts — a meteorologist and blogger who doubts greenhouse gases contribute to warming — was excited about Muller’s group’s work and in March boasted “I’m prepared to accept whatever result they produce, even if it proves my premise wrong.”

On Thursday he appended an asterisk to that contention — he can’t accept the group’s conclusions because they haven’t been peer reviewed.

“Since the paper has not completed peer review yet, it would be inappropriate for me to publicly comment on the conclusions, especially in light of a basic procedural error that has been discovered in the methodology that will likely require a rework of the data and calculations, and thus the conclusions may also change,” Watts wrote.

Taking a different approach, Marc Morano — a former aide to Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) and author of the website Climate Depot has a different, subtler line of attack: “[T]he climate debate has not centered on whether the Earth has warmed since the end of the Little Ice Age about 1850 or since the 1950s. The climate debate is about how much humans may or may not be contributing to the warming trend,” Morano wrote Friday, calling Muller a “befuddled warmist.”

Climate Depot since at least March of 2011 had been publicly warning that Muller’s entire BEST project was a predetermined con set up to take down a straw man argument. See: On 3-23-11, Climate Depot wrote in group email to fellow skeptics: ‘This whole [Muller] project has to be a set up to screw skeptics. Who disputes warming has taken place? Why have we allowed Muller to set up a straw man argument to take cheap shots at skeptics? It appears Muller is incapable of running this project.

He’s right. Muller’s conclusions aren’t technically in conflict with the views of a subset of skeptics — those that accept the Earth is warming, but deny the conclusion that humans are driving the warming. But they could easily refurbish the credibility of climate science in the public mind.

“Our biggest surprise was that the new results agreed so closely with the warming values published previously by other teams in the US and the UK,” Muller said in a prepared statement. That’s why these skeptics are still so miffed.

Climate Change, Global Warming

Brian Beutler

Brian Beutler is TPM's senior congressional reporter. Since 2009, he's led coverage of health care reform, wall street reform, taxes, the GOP budget, the government shutdown fight, and the debt limit fight. He can be reached at brian@talkingpointsmemo.com.

TOPIC: Climate Change

Climate Change Deniers Abandon 'Befuddled Warmist' Physicist Who Came Around On Global Warming

[Don Hudson]

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/10/climate-change-deniers-abandon-befuddled-warmist-physicist-who-came-around-on-global-warming.php?m=1

TPMDC

Climate Change Deniers Abandon ‘Befuddled Warmist’ Physicist Who Came Around On Global Warming

Brian Beutler October 22, 2011, 8:14 AM

Climate change deniers thought they had an ally in Richard Muller, a popular physics professor at UC Berkeley.

. . . .

etc

The Wiki review of BEST has some more details about the project. If we are to believe what they say about their approach to the problem, then BEST deserves serious attention. There will be those who see such openness as a threat but that is to be expected. As with the Greek debt problem, this is not a time to navel-gaze. And this, from a group partly funded by Charles and David Koch - wow...interesting, (the Kochs do not see eye-to-eye with either George Soros or Warren Buffet).

The argument some advance, (yes, the earth is warming but we didn't do it) merely moves the original question back one step so to speak, by begging the question, "Why warming at all?"

The implication, one senses, is that the question is answered (and we can keep on dancing), so is not worth finding out why. Duh. Isn't it at least worth sorting out so either way we can prepare/act/change, etc?

Clearly, the point of the objection isn't to find things out, it is to stop the discussion by answering the question "once and for all". We can tell right away that special interests not associated with advancing understanding of the question, are at work.

I hadn't heard of the BEST project but I think its worth reading and thinking further about.

[mrlupin]

Of relevance to the thread...

http://www.southernstudies.org/2011/10/special-investigation-whos-behind-the-information-attacks-on-climate-scientists.html

SPECIAL INVESTIGATION: Who's behind the 'information attacks' on climate scientists?