http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/11/28/meet-the-climate-denial-machine/191545
Despite the overwhelming consensus among climate experts that human activity is contributing to rising global temperatures, 66 percent of Americans incorrectly believe there is "a lot of disagreement among scientists about whether or not global warming is happening." The conservative media has fueled this confusion by distorting scientific research, hyping faux-scandals, and giving voice to groups funded by industries that have a financial interest in blocking action on climate change. Meanwhile, mainstream media outlets have shied away from the "controversy" over climate change and have failed to press U.S. policymakers on how they will address this global threat. When climate change is discussed, mainstream outlets sometimes strive for a false balance that elevates marginal voices and enables them to sow doubt about the science even in the face of mounting evidence.
Here, Media Matters looks at how conservative media outlets give industry-funded "experts" a platform, creating a polarized misunderstanding of climate science.
Heartland Institute And James Taylor
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Chris Horner And The American Tradition Institute
Manhattan Institute And Robert Bryce
Heritage Foundation
Cato Institute And Patrick Michaels
American Enterprise Institute
Marc Morano
Anthony Watts
Steve Milloy
Joe Bastardi
Matt Ridley
Larry Bell
{The details are fascinating and enraging picture of how obsession with personal self-interest and disregard for all others
coupled with a full hard-on for Profits Über Alles can create (evolve*) the slimiest of a humans. }
For the details of how this PR campaign got started and evolved, a historian has written a well documented book of specifically how this attack on science develop, she names names and offers dates and details. She is also ruthlessly savaged by the contrarian crowd, who have probably never read her book for the most part, but being good parrot they've adopted the tribal strategy ignore and ridicule.
http://www.merchantsofdoubt.org
The troubling story of how a cadre of influential scientists have clouded public
understanding of scientific facts to advance a political and economic agenda.
The U.S. scientific community has long led the world in research on public health, environmental science, and other issues affecting the quality of life. Our scientists have produced landmark studies on the dangers of DDT, tobacco smoke, acid rain, and global warming. But at the same time, a small yet potent subset of this community leads the world in vehement denial of these dangers.
In their new book, Merchants of Doubt, historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway explain how a loose–knit group of high-level scientists, with extensive political connections, ran effective campaigns to mislead the public and deny well-established scientific knowledge over four decades. In seven compelling chapters addressing tobacco, acid rain, the ozone hole, global warming, and DDT, Oreskes and Conway roll back the rug on this dark corner of the American scientific community, showing how the ideology of free market fundamentalism, aided by a too-compliant media, has skewed public understanding of some of the most pressing issues of our era.
For a fascinating lecture:
The American Denial of Global Warming -
Perspectives on Ocean Science - UCTV
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T4UF_Rmlio
though there is the documentary now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlMkzixi8R0
We should start a list here of these scientific frauds being paid royally for their betrayal of the public trust.
Global Warming Deniers:
Fred Singer-
Siegfried Frederick Singer (S. Fred Singer) is a former space scientist and government scientific administrator.
Singer runs the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP), an organization which focuses on global warming skepticism. According to their website, SEPP also covers topics such as nuclear radiation, DDT, science and regulation at EPA, energy policy, and space exploration.
According to leaked documents, Singer has been receiving $5,000 a month from the Heartland Institute.
Stance on Climate Change
“[U]nlike the land surface, the atmosphere has shown no warming trend, either over land or over ocean — according to satellites and independent data from weather balloons."
Singer also contends that data collected from tree rings “don't show any global warming since 1940."
Here's a much longer list:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming
As things start to get much worse we should keep this in mind, these people are largely responsible for nothing meaningful being done about a growing human caused disaster. They are effectively targeting all of us for some of the most unpleasant outcomes for our future, I think turnabout is fair play. At the very least it would be real justice to see some of them in prison for life for what they've done. The word fraud really doesn't encompass what these psychopaths have helped make happen.
Peabody coal's contrarian scientist witnesses lose their court case
Peabody Energy brought contrarians Spencer, Happer, and Lindzen to testify on their behalf, but the judge wasn’t convinced by their case
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2016/may/02/peabody-coals-contrarian-scientist-witnesses-lose-their-court-case
John Abraham | May 2, 2016
In Minnesota, an administrative hearing resulted in a judicial recommendation that will have impacts across the country. It was a case argued mainly between environmental groups (such as Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, and their clients Fresh Energy and the Sierra Club) and energy producers (such as the now-bankrupt coal company Peabody Energy) regarding what a reasonable social cost of carbon should be.
I was called as an expert witness in the case along with respected climate scientist Dr. Andrew Dessler. We were opposed by the well-known contrarians Drs. Roy Spencer, Richard Lindzen, and William Happer (who has recently received attention related to his charged fees in the case). (bold added) In full disclosure, Dr. Dessler and I were not paid for our work in the case. I recently wrote about the testimony and provided links to the testimonies submitted for the case. The judge’s recommendations and how they will impact energy decisions in the USA were the keys to this trial.
... A summary of the ruling can be found here and the full report is available here.
The Psychopath Whisperer: The Science of Those Without Conscience, Kent A. Kiehl, PhD
As Dr. Kent Kiehl shows, psychopaths can be identified by a checklist of symptoms that includes
pathological lying; lack of empathy, guilt, and remorse; grandiose sense of self-worth; manipulation; and failure to accept one’s actions.
Actually perhaps it's at the heart of the problem, ever listen to the likes of Lindzen, Seitz, Happer, the Heartland crowd, etc………..
Throw in Canadian global warming denier Tim Ball. http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=1164
There seems to be a clear lack of ability to feel empathy on the part of these people, and they clearly have no issue with lying on a level that is already resulting in catastrophic consequences. The result is stark, it’s analogous that what would have happened if for instance Ted Bundy had the resources of an entire nation to stalk and murder his targets. In this case all the psychopaths have to do is keep lying in such an effective fashion that any action to prevent total catastrophe becomes impossible. We’re getting close to that point now.
The Psychopath Whisperer: The Science of Those Without Conscience, Kent A. Kiehl, PhD
As Dr. Kent Kiehl shows, psychopaths can be identified by a checklist of symptoms that includes
pathological lying; lack of empathy, guilt, and remorse; grandiose sense of self-worth; manipulation; and failure to accept one’s actions.
Actually perhaps it's at the heart of the problem, ever listen to the likes of Lindzen, Seitz, Happer, the Heartland crowd, etc………..
Here’s another sadly relevant recent book that reviews the dirty game.
Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle to Stop Climate Change Failed--and What It Means For Our Future
http://environment.as.nyu.edu/object/esnews.jamieson.reasoninadarktime
By Dale Jamieson
http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/currente/jamieson.htm
The complete review's Review:
Dale Jamieson's starting-points in Reason in a Dark Time are that anthropogenic climate change is a given -- specifically through the release of greenhouse gases (and especially CO2) through human activity that leads directly to climate change -- (amazingly, something that some still call into question) and that, to date, efforts to address the problem have, by and large, failed miserably. A philosopher by training, Jamieson does consider the philosophical issues that play a role here, specifically the commons-problem that this global-sized problem involves, as well as the broader ethical issues that are (and should be) considered, but he also considers the science; the history of efforts to deal with the issue in recent decades; and the economics and economic approaches to the issue. It makes for a useful introductory overview -- particularly because Jamieson is realistic about any expectations of government leadership in this area, especially from and in America (to wit: it ain't happening).
Jamieson's quick tour of international efforts to address climate change is particularly useful (and depressing), suggesting the intractable obstacles, given the different state-actors. His domestic focus is largely on the US -- in part also because of the US's large (and consistently obstructionist) role -- though similar political forces are, of course, also at work in many other countries (and these have reared their ugly heads to set up roadblocks along the way to international agreements too). Still, it's always worth being reminded that, for example:
Indeed, the policies of Reagan and both Bushes were remarkably consistent: do as little as possible on climate change, rationalized by casting doubt on the science and exaggerating the costs of action.
Jamieson also helpfully considers the doubts about the science, patiently explaining how the absence of scientific certainty about any number of details should not lessen concern about the fairly obvious bigger picture. As he notes, the public image of science -- expecting certainty, and sudden great advances, when in fact: "Doing science is usually more like piling twigs than stacking logs" -- is one of the many obstacles in climate change getting the attention it is due -- though Jamieson thinks public ignorance is, by and large, less of a problem (though he does acknowledge that the breathtaking ignorance of politicians is more problematic). He does note, however, that several scientific principles must be more widely understood:
It matters, for example, that many people see climate change as a "flow" problem involving emissions rather than a "stock" problem involving concentrations. They imagine that when emissions go down, the risk of climate change must also be abating. What they fail to recognize is that concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere may increase even while emissions decrease, in the same way the water in a bathtub may increase even while the flow of water into the bathtub is reduced.
Economics -- specifically the costs of addressing climate change -- also come into play, as people argue that it is too costly to do much, especially given the uncertainty about what present-day remedies can accomplish anyway, and Jamieson walks readers through the various calculations. Acknowledging the uncertainty -- especially in determining a discount rate (on which all calculations dealing with present and future hinge) -- he stresses the limited usefulness of trying to boil down tackling approaches to climate change to a 'simple' cost-benefit analysis.
Finally, Jamieson also considers the moral implications of climate change and (in)action on it -- and suggests this is an avenue that should (or, indeed, must) be pursued, that our sense of morality must adapt to our changing circumstances. Specifically:
An ethics for the Anthropocene would, in my view, rely on nourishing and cultivating particular character traits, dispositions, and emotions: what I shall call "virtues." These are mechanisms that provide motivation to act in our various roles from consumer to citizens in order to reduce GHG emissions and to a great extent ameliorate their effects regardless of the behavior of others.
Jamieson's case is convincing enough in the philosophical-abstract -- but morality is a weird beast, and given prevailing norms, especially in the US, where the United Nations and international treaties (especially those that come with international obligations) continue to be dirty words and 'international coöperation' is pretty invariably of the my-way-or-the-highway sort, this looks like a very tall order, indeed.
In summing up, Jamieson also suggests several steps to take immediately, most notably:
The use of coal should be discouraged, limited, and phased out as soon as possible.
Though hardly controversial, this too is a tall, tall, order, and in a book that has dealt more generally with various issues is a pretty big thing to tack on like this at the end. He addresses some of the ramifications of phasing out coal use, but, really, that alone needs a book unto itself.
Jamieson helpfully does emphasize the reality of climate change -- it's happening -- and hence the need to face that reality. Amelioration is certainly something to be aimed for, but adaptation to our changing circumstances must also be tackled head-on. This, and Jamieson's approach throughout, make Reason in a Dark Time a useful introductory overview of the current state of climate change and the debate surrounding it, admirably broad in considering the relevant history, science, economics, and philosophy, all succinctly and quite entertainingly presented.
- M.A.Orthofer, 1 April 2014