… and living within a hermetically sealed echo-chamber of their own devising.
Because the reality of climate change demands we abandon our wanton and ever increasing consumption of Earth’s resources on many level.
It is anathema to a tribe of people who put gratification of self-interest above all other human concerns.
They back up their denial of the science,
with a self-created alternate faux universe inhabited by dogma driven scholars, presumptuous talkers,
and faith in faith, rather than in learning and reason.
People who think they are smarter than actual experts who have dedicated their lives to studying and better understanding our Earth.
Folks who see all opposing information, or opinion, as an enemy to be vanquished by any means necessary.
For details of the story here are two excellent books. One written by a couple scholars and historians, very detailed, and fact rich.
It produces the evidence you can follow up on if you don’t believe them.
The second by a journalist who’s written extensively on various science topics.
Merchants of Doubt http://www.merchantsofdoubt.org Naomi Orestes and Erik Conway 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. “A well-documented, pulls-no-punches account of how science works and how political motives can hijack the process by which scientific information is disseminated to the public."—Kirkus Reviews
Republican War on Science http://www.waronscience.com/book.php Chris Mooney Science has never been more crucial to deciding the political issues facing the country. Yet science and scientists have less influence with the federal government than at any time since the Eisenhower administration. In the White House and Congress today, findings are reported in a politicized manner; spun or distorted to fit the speaker’s agenda; or, when they’re too inconvenient, ignored entirely. On a broad array of issues—stem cell research, climate change, abstinence education, mercury pollution, and many others—the Bush administration’s positions fly in the face of overwhelming scientific consensus. In The Republican War on Science, Chris Mooney tied together the disparate strands of the attack on science into a compelling and frightening account of our government’s increasing unwillingness to distinguish between legitimate research and ideologically driven pseudoscience.