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Global Climate Change Deniers – what is their motivation?
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Location: Blogs The Green Zone an environmental blog |
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| Posted by: Dave Rhea |
8/30/2007 11:19 AM |
There are very few stragglers out there who still doubt climate change and our industrial exacerbation of it. It is ponderous to me, but there are. They fall into a couple of categories, generally. Those are: radical-right talk show listeners and corporate water carriers.
There are very few stragglers out there who still doubt climate change and our industrial exacerbation of it. It is ponderous to me, but there are. They fall into a couple of categories, generally. Those are: radical-right talk show listeners and corporate water carriers.
Now, I don’t want to sit here and beat a dead horse about people who listen to Limbaugh all day. (…or Hannity or O’Reilly or Beck or Savage or Ingraham – ad infinitum, ad nauseum.) Those people are figured out. Radio on – speaker speak – listener believe. Simple, efficient, effective. Period.
THE OTHER GROUP
It is the other group that is down right scary. The corporate water carriers are in a position of influence, and they are able to, on a much larger level, introduce confusion and stall progress in order to preserve the bottom line of their industry.
Whether or not they actually believe what they are saying is debatable. What is not debatable is their need to hold the line on denying global warming – because their paychecks are at risk. Money talks. We all know what walks.
Take, for instance, our own local denier, Ocala Utility director Becky Mattey. In a story called “Floridians support Crist's global warming initiatives”, our talented writer Fred Hiers wrote:
“Some in the utility industry said people were jumping on the global warming bandwagon too fast. (Mattey) is not convinced global warming is occurring, and, if it is, whether human behavior is the only cause.”
Straw man alert: No one is saying that human behavior is the only cause.
She was quoted in the story saying: "It is generally known that the general population, as well as government leaders, have finished debating the issue of global warming. I still think the science can be debated."
That is certainly convenient, seeing how she works for an industry that directly profits from the status quo. Can you imagine the loss of “sweet crude” profit that the utility companies would experience if voters (as they starting to do already) elected representatives that demanded they accept responsibility for what they pump into the atmosphere?
Oh the humanity! People would lose – of all sacred things – MONEY! Now the motivation of our Becky, and many other paid-for-science types, comes into focus. They are indeed conservationists – of money.
But at what expense to the rest of us?
“Dating back to the 1980s, the strategy of the oil, gas and coal companies was to fund research projects that call into question the science of climate change,” said Gerry Karnas, director on Environmental Defense’s Florida Climate Change Project, in a phone conversation this morning.
“It is not solid science that is peer reviewed,” he said. “It is merely PR attempts to confuse the public.”
Take another example in the news right now. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that the Georgia House held a hearing called “Climate Change: Fact of Fiction?” that “found mostly disdain for the idea of global warming.”
The story said: "I believe this issue is being driven by hysteria right now," said Patrick Michaels, a professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia and senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute, a Washington-based think tank.”
Pat Michaels, of course, is wider known as the corporate-friendly, far-right editorialist who accepted over a hundred thousand dollars (some say more) from the fossil fuels industry to create confusion about an otherwise scientific consensus about pollution.
Michaels also fought against the “hysteria” about chlorofluorocarbons that cause a thinning of the ozone layer. He was proved wrong, and in 1989 Montreal Protocol stipulated that CFCs and other ozone-depleting elements be phased out over time. The result has been an international success.
“Let me tell you who Pat Michaels is,” said Karnas. “He never provided one peer-reviewed scientific journal entry on this issue. He has zero credibility on the issue of climate change, and he is completely corrupted by oil money.”
Also, In February, Britian’s The Guardian published this report about a right-wing think tank and an oil company who is offering to pay deniers:
“Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.
“Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded think tank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasize the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
“Travel expenses and additional payments were also offered.”
MOTIVATION?
So what is the motivation of these industry-connected climate change deniers? Well, the quick end of it is this: "confusion leads to profit." (Check out this link to an ABC story about this subject)
Here is the nightmare scenario for industry-motivated climate change deniers, in three short acts:
ONE: If you, a voter, decide “enough is enough,” and you vote for an elected official who is in agreement with you, they will join with representatives of thousands of others who are thinking the same thing: “I want to correct this. How do I do this? I will vote for like-minded politicians.”
(Aside: this does not automatically translate to democrat versus republican. Republican Crist is an excellent example of forward-thinking republicans.)
TWO: That elected representative will call to task the sources of polluters and rampant carbon emitters, i.e. coal, oil, gas, etc. These industries, because of a groundswell of support from the would-be victims of climate change aggravated by these industries, would be forced to be responsible and operate more cleanly. That will cost money. There we go again jeopardizing that sacred cow of free-marketist politicians and their corporate lobbyists: profit.
THREE: Politicians will force these industries accept responsibility. Youch!
Thus, you have this quasi-elected director of our quasi-public utility company carrying water for her industry with outdated talking-point arguments. To me, that is scarier than people who take Rush Limbaugh seriously.
Karnas continued in our phone conversation this morning:
“We are on what is now the fourth International Panel of Climate Change assessment - the IPCC report just came out. 2100 scientists, who all have backgrounds in climate and who represent every nation on the planet - including all the oil producing countries of the world, including the United States - are in unanimous agreement. They said that, with a 94 percent certainty, the rapid climate change that we are seeing now on this planet is attributable to humans.”
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