Climate change denial - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

This article is about campaigns to undermine public confidence in scientific opinion on climate change
Scientific opinion on climate change
The predominant scientific opinion on climate change is that the Earth is in an ongoing phase of global warming primarily caused by an enhanced greenhouse effect due to the anthropogenic release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases...

. For challenges to the scientific consensus, see global warming controversy
Global warming controversy
Global warming controversy refers to a variety of disputes, significantly more pronounced in the popular media than in the scientific literature, regarding the nature, causes, and consequences of global warming...

.

Climate change denial is a term used to describe organized attempts to downplay, deny or dismiss the scientific consensus

Scientific consensus

Scientific consensus is the collective judgment, position, and opinion of the community of scientists in a particular field of study. Consensus implies general agreement, though not necessarily unanimity. Scientific consensus is not by itself a scientific argument, and it is not part of the...

on the extent of global warming

Global warming

Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...

, its significance, and its connection to human behavior, especially for commercial or ideological reasons. Typically, these attempts take the rhetorical form of legitimate scientific debate, while not adhering to the actual principles of that debate. Climate change

Climate change

Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...

denial has been associated with the energy lobby

Energy Lobby

"Energy lobby" is the umbrella term used to name the paid representatives of large fossil fuel and electric utilities corporations who attempt to influence governmental policy...

, industry advocates and free market

Free market

A free market is a competitive market where prices are determined by supply and demand. However, the term is also commonly used for markets in which economic intervention and regulation by the state is limited to tax collection, and enforcement of private ownership and contracts...

think tank

Think tank

A think tank is an organization that conducts research and engages in advocacy in areas such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, and technology issues. Most think tanks are non-profit organizations, which some countries such as the United States and Canada provide with tax...

s, often in the United States. Some commentators describe climate change denial as a particular form of denialism

Denialism

Denialism is choosing to deny reality as a way to avoid an uncomfortable truth: "[it] is the refusal to accept an empirically verifiable reality...

.

Peter Christoff, writing in The Age
The Age
The Age is a daily broadsheet newspaper, which has been published in Melbourne, Australia since 1854. Owned and published by Fairfax Media, The Age primarily serves Victoria, but is also available for purchase in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and border regions of South Australia and...

in 2007, said that climate change denial differs from skepticism

Skepticism

Skepticism has many definitions, but generally refers to any questioning attitude towards knowledge, facts, or opinions/beliefs stated as facts, or doubt regarding claims that are taken for granted elsewhere...

, which is essential for good science. He went to say that "almost two decades after the issue became one of global concern, the 'big' debate over climate change is over. There are now no credible scientific sceptics challenging the underlying scientific theory

Scientific theory

A scientific theory comprises a collection of concepts, including abstractions of observable phenomena expressed as quantifiable properties, together with rules that express relationships between observations of such concepts...

, or the broad projections, of climate change." The relationships between industry-funded denial and public climate change skepticism have at times been compared to earlier efforts by the tobacco industry to undermine what is now widely accepted scientific evidence relating to the dangers of secondhand smoke, or even linked as a direct continuation of these earlier financial relationships. Aside from private industry groups, climate change denial has also been alleged regarding the statements of elected officials.

Scientists (notably climatologists

Climatology

Climatology is the study of climate, scientifically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of time, and is a branch of the atmospheric sciences...

) have reached scientific consensus

Scientific opinion on climate change

The predominant scientific opinion on climate change is that the Earth is in an ongoing phase of global warming primarily caused by an enhanced greenhouse effect due to the anthropogenic release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases...

that global warming is occurring and is mainly due to human activity. However, political

Politics of global warming

The politics of global warming have involved corporate lobbying, funding of special interest groups and public relations campaigns by the oil and coal industries which have affected policy decisions and legislation worldwide...

and public debate

Global warming controversy

Global warming controversy refers to a variety of disputes, significantly more pronounced in the popular media than in the scientific literature, regarding the nature, causes, and consequences of global warming...

continues regarding the reality and extent of global warming and what actions (including economic

Economics of global warming

-Definitions:In this article, the phrase “climate change” is used to describe a change in the climate, measured in terms of its statistical properties, e.g., the global mean surface temperature. In this context, “climate” is taken to mean the average weather. Climate can change over period of time...

ones), to take in response. Numerous authors, including several scholars, have asserted that some conservative think tanks, corporations and business groups have engaged in deliberate denial of the science of climate change since the 1990s. On the other hand, some commentators have criticized the phrase as an attempt to delegitimize skeptical views and portray them as immoral.

Meanings of the term

The August 2007 Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...

cover story "The Truth About Denial" reported that "this well-coordinated, well-funded campaign by contrarian scientists, free-market think tank

Think tank

s, and industry

Supermajor

Supermajor is a name commonly used to describe the world's five largest publicly owned oil and gas companies.-Composition:Trading under various names around the world, the supermajors are considered to be:* BP p.l.c...

has created a paralyzing fog of doubt around climate change." "As soon as the scientific community began to come together on the science of climate change, the pushback began," according to University of California, San Diego

University of California, San Diego

The University of California, San Diego, commonly known as UCSD or UC San Diego, is a public research university located in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, United States...

historian Naomi Oreskes

Naomi Oreskes

Naomi Oreskes is an American science historian, and Professor of History and Science Studies at the University of California San Diego. She has worked on studies of geophysics, environmental issues such as global warming, and the history of science...

. The article went on to say that individual companies and industry associations—representing petroleum, steel, autos and utilities, among others—formed lobbying groups to enlist greenhouse doubters to "reposition global warming as theory rather than fact," and to sow doubt about climate research just as cigarette makers had about smoking research. Newsweek subsequently published a piece by Robert J. Samuelson

Robert J. Samuelson

Robert Jacob Samuelson is a contributing editor of Newsweek and The Washington Post where he has written about business and economic issues since 1977. His columns appear in both publications. His articles also appear in the Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, and other influential newspapers...

, who called the article "a vast oversimplification of a messy story" and "fundamentally misleading" because although global warming had already occurred, we "lack the technology" to unwind it, and the best we can hope to do is cut emissions. He argues that "journalists should resist the temptation to portray global warming as a morality tale... in which anyone who questions its gravity or proposed solutions may be ridiculed".

Journalists and newspaper columnists including George Monbiot

George Monbiot

George Joshua Richard Monbiot is an English writer, known for his environmental and political activism. He lives in Machynlleth, Wales, writes a weekly column for The Guardian, and is the author of a number of books, including Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain and Bring on the...

and Ellen Goodman

Ellen Goodman

Ellen Goodman is an American journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist.- Career :Goodman worked as a researcher and reporter for Newsweek magazine between 1963 and 1965, and has worked as an associate editor at the Boston Globe since 1967.In 1998, Goodman received the Elijah...

, among others, have described climate change denial as a form of denialism

Denialism

Denialism is choosing to deny reality as a way to avoid an uncomfortable truth: "[it] is the refusal to accept an empirically verifiable reality...

. Several commentators, including Goodman, have also compared climate change denial with Holocaust denial

Holocaust denial

Holocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews in World War II, usually referred to as the Holocaust. The key claims of Holocaust denial are: the German Nazi government had no official policy or intention of exterminating Jews, Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas...

, though others, such as conservative radio talk show host Dennis Prager

Dennis Prager

Dennis Prager is an American syndicated radio talk show host, syndicated columnist, author, and public speaker. He is noted for his conservative political and social views emanating from conservative Judeo-Christian values. He holds that there is an "American Trinity" of essential principles,...

, have decried those comparisons as inappropriate and trivializing Holocaust denial. Institute of Economic Affairs

Institute of Economic Affairs

The Institute of Economic Affairs , founded in 1955, styles itself the UK's pre-eminent free-market think-tank. Its mission is to improve understanding of the fundamental institutions of a free society by analysing and expounding the role of markets in solving economic and social...

member Richard D. North

Richard D. North

Richard D. North, born 1946, is a UK conservative commentator. He worked for The Independent newspaper as its first environment correspondent and then as environmental columnist for The Sunday Times...

notes that outright denial by climate scientists of the major points of scientific consensus is rare, though scientists are known to dispute certain points. He says, "It is deeply pejorative to call someone a 'climate change denier'. This is because it is a phrase designedly reminiscent of the idea of Holocaust Denial ...". He acknowledges that "there are many varieties of climate change denial", but says that "[s]ome people labeled as 'deniers', aren't." Peter Christoff also emphasizes the distinction between scepticism and denial, he says "Climate change deniers should be distinguished from climate sceptics. Scepticism is essential to good science."

The environmentalist writer and activist George Monbiot

George Monbiot

stated in his Guardian opinion column that he reserves the term for those who attempt to undermine scientific opinion on climate change

Scientific opinion on climate change

due to financial interests. Monbiot often refers to a "denial industry." However, he and other writers have described others as climate change "deniers," including politicians and writers not claimed to be funded by industry groups.

Mark Hoofnagle

Mark Hoofnagle

Mark Hoofnagle is an American medical doctor, physiologist and blogger. He was one of the originators of the concept of "denialism", especially in relation to global warming. His interest in denialism concerns the use of denialist tactics to confuse public understanding of scientific knowledge...

defines denialism as the employment of rhetoric

Rhetoric

Rhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the facility of speakers or writers who attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. As a subject of formal study and a productive civic practice, rhetoric has played a central role in the Western...

al arguments to give the appearance of legitimate debate where there is none, an approach that has the ultimate goal of rejecting a proposition on which a scientific consensus

Scientific consensus

exists. In recent years the term has been associated with a series of views challenging the scientific consensus on issues including the health effects of smoking and the relationship between HIV and AIDS, along with climate change.

History

In Requiem for a Species
Requiem for a Species
Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth about Climate Change is a 2010 book by Australian academic Clive Hamilton which explores climate change denial and its implications. It argues that climate change will bring about large-scale, harmful consequences for habitability for life on Earth...

: Why We Resist the Truth about Climate Change (2010), Clive Hamilton

Clive Hamilton

Clive Charles Hamilton AM FRSA is an Australian public intellectual and Professor of Public Ethics at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics and the Vice-Chancellor's Chair in Public Ethics at Charles Sturt University. He is the Founder and former Executive Director of the The...

describes a campaign to attack the science relating to climate change, originating with the astroturfing

Astroturfing

Astroturfing is a form of advocacy in support of a political, organizational, or corporate agenda, designed to give the appearance of a "grassroots" movement. The goal of such campaigns is to disguise the efforts of a political and/or commercial entity as an independent public reaction to some...

campaigns initiated by the tobacco industry in the 1990s. He documents the establishment of the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition
Advancement of Sound Science Center
The Advancement of Sound Science Center , formerly the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition, is an industry-funded lobby group which promotes the idea that environmental science on issues including smoking, pesticides and global warming is "junk science", which should be replaced by "sound science"...

(TASSC) as a 'fake front group

Front organization

A front organization is any entity set up by and controlled by another organization, such as intelligence agencies, organized crime groups, banned organizations, religious or political groups, advocacy groups, or corporations...

' set up 'to link concerns about passive smoking with a range of other popular anxieties, including global warming'. The public relations

Public relations

Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....

strategy was to cast doubt on the science, characterizing it as junk science

Junk science

Junk science is a term used in U.S. political and legal disputes that brands an advocate's claims about scientific data, research, or analyses as spurious. The term may convey a pejorative connotation that the advocate is driven by political, ideological, financial, or other unscientific...

, and therefore to turn public opinion against any calls for government intervention based on the science.
Naomi Oreskes

Naomi Oreskes

, co-author of Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming
Merchants of Doubt
Merchants of Doubt is a 2010 book by the American science historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway. It identifies parallels between the climate change debate and earlier controversies over tobacco smoking, acid rain and the hole in the ozone layer...

, describes how a small group of retired cold-war nuclear physicists, who through their weapons work had become well-connected, well-known and influential people, promoted the idea of 'doubt' in several areas of US public debate. According to Oreskes, they did this, "not for money, but in defense of an ideology of laissez-faire governance and opposition to government regulation". In 1984, Robert Jastrow

Robert Jastrow

Robert Jastrow was an American astronomer, physicist and cosmologist. He was a leading NASA scientist, populist author and futurist.- Biography :...

, Frederick Seitz

Frederick Seitz

Frederick Seitz was an American physicist and a pioneer of solid state physics. Seitz was president of Rockefeller University, and president of the United States National Academy of Sciences 1962–1969. He was the recipient of the National Medal of Science, NASA's Distinguished Public Service...

and William Nierenberg

William Nierenberg

William Aaron Nierenberg was an American physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project and was director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography from 1965 through 1986. He was a co-founder of the George C. Marshall Institute in 1984.- Background :Nierenberg was born on February 13, 1919, at 213 E...

were instrumental in founding the George C. Marshall Institute
George C. Marshall Institute
The George C. Marshall Institute is a politically conservative think tank established in 1984 in Washington, D.C. with a focus on scientific issues and public policy. In the 1980s, the Institute was engaged primarily in lobbying in support of the Strategic Defense Initiative...

, initially to defend Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative

Strategic Defense Initiative

The Strategic Defense Initiative was proposed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan on March 23, 1983 to use ground and space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles. The initiative focused on strategic defense rather than the prior strategic...

(SDI) against other scientists' boycott of it. Oreskes said that this first campaign of the Institute's, from 1984 to 1989, involved demanding equal air-time in the media when mainstream physicists and engineers were critical of the SDI, and producing militarily alarmist material such as the article America has five years left, published in 1987 by Jastrow in the National Review
National Review
National Review is a biweekly magazine founded by the late author William F. Buckley, Jr., in 1955 and based in New York City. It describes itself as "America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for conservative news, commentary, and opinion."Although the print version of the...

. At the same time, Seitz was employed as a consultant to R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. His principal strategy on their behalf, said Oreskes, was to defend their products by doubt-mongering, by insisting that the science was unsettled and therefore that it was always premature for the US government to act to control tobacco use.

After the Cold War

Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

ended, they continued through the Marshall Institute to campaign against environmental issues from acid rain

Acid rain

Acid rain is a rain or any other form of precipitation that is unusually acidic, meaning that it possesses elevated levels of hydrogen ions . It can have harmful effects on plants, aquatic animals, and infrastructure. Acid rain is caused by emissions of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen...

, the ozone hole

Ozone depletion

Ozone depletion describes two distinct but related phenomena observed since the late 1970s: a steady decline of about 4% per decade in the total volume of ozone in Earth's stratosphere , and a much larger springtime decrease in stratospheric ozone over Earth's polar regions. The latter phenomenon...

, second-hand smoke

Passive smoking

Passive smoking is the inhalation of smoke, called secondhand smoke or environmental tobacco smoke , from tobacco products used by others. It occurs when tobacco smoke permeates any environment, causing its inhalation by people within that environment. Exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke causes...

and the dangers of DDT

DDT

DDT is one of the most well-known synthetic insecticides. It is a chemical with a long, unique, and controversial history....

on to a campaign against global warming. In each case their argument was the same: simply that the science was too uncertain to justify any government intervention in the market place. It is only recently, Oreskes said, that historians such as her have been able to 'join the dots': Individual environmental scientists, finding opposition to their warnings about ozone layer depletion or DDT residues, were at the time unaware that the same institute was using the same arguments at the same time against other scientists who were warning about the dangers of smoking, of second-hand smoke, and about climate change itself.

Private sector

In one of the first attempts by industry to influence public opinion on climate change, a 1998 proposal (later posted online by Greenpeace

Greenpeace

Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, The Netherlands...

) was circulated among U.S. opponents of a treaty to fight global warming, including both industry and conservative political groups, in an effort to influence public perception of the extent of the problem. Written by a public relations

Public relations

Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....

specialist for the American Petroleum Institute

American Petroleum Institute

The American Petroleum Institute, commonly referred to as API, is the largest U.S trade association for the oil and natural gas industry...

and then leaked to The New York Times, the memo described, in the article's words, a plan "to recruit a cadre of scientists who share the industry's views of climate science and to train them in public relations

Public relations

Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....

so they can help convince journalists, politicians and the public that the risk of global warming is too uncertain to justify controls on greenhouse gases." Cushman quoted the document as proposing a US$ 5,000,000 multi-point strategy to "maximize the impact of scientific views consistent with ours on Congress, the media and other key audiences," with a goal of "raising questions about and undercutting the 'prevailing scientific wisdom.'"

The Guardian

The Guardian

The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

reported that after the IPCC

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a scientific intergovernmental body which provides comprehensive assessments of current scientific, technical and socio-economic information worldwide about the risk of climate change caused by human activity, its potential environmental and...

released its February 2007 report

IPCC Fourth Assessment Report

Climate Change 2007, the Fourth Assessment Report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , is the fourth in a series of reports intended to assess scientific, technical and socio-economic information concerning climate change, its potential effects, and options for...

, the American Enterprise Institute

American Enterprise Institute

The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research is a conservative think tank founded in 1943. Its stated mission is "to defend the principles and improve the institutions of American freedom and democratic capitalism—limited government, private enterprise, individual liberty and...

offered British, American, and other scientists $10,000, plus travel expenses, to publish articles critical of the assessment. The institute, which had received more than $US 1.6 million from Exxon and whose vice-chairman of trustees is Lee Raymond

Lee Raymond

Lee R. Raymond was the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of ExxonMobil from 1999 to 2005. He had previously been the CEO of Exxon since 1993. He joined the company in 1963 and has been president since 1987 and a director since 1984....

, former head of Exxon, sent letters that, The Guardian said, "attack the UN's panel as 'resistant to reasonable criticism and dissent and prone to summary conclusions that are poorly supported by the analytical work' and ask for essays that 'thoughtfully explore the limitations of climate model outputs'." More than 20 AEI employees worked as consultants to the George W. Bush administration

George W. Bush administration

The presidency of George W. Bush began on January 20, 2001, when he was inaugurated as the 43rd President of the United States of America. The oldest son of former president George H. W. Bush, George W...

. Despite her initial conviction that with "the overwhelming science out there, the deniers' days were numbered," Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer

Barbara Boxer

Barbara Levy Boxer is the junior United States Senator from California . A member of the Democratic Party, she previously served in the U.S. House of Representatives ....

said that when she learned of the AEI's offer, "I realized there was a movement behind this that just wasn't giving up."

The Royal Society

Royal Society

The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...

conducted a survey that found ExxonMobil had given US$ 2.9 million to American groups that "misinformed the public about climate change," 39 of which "misrepresented the science of climate change by outright denial of the evidence". In 2006, the Royal Society issued a demand that ExxonMobil withdraw funding for climate change denial. The letter, which was leaked to the media, drew criticism, notably from Timothy Ball and others, who argued the society attempted to "politicize the private funding of science and to censor scientific debate."

ExxonMobil has denied the accusations that it has been trying to mislead the public about global warming. A spokesman, Gantt Walton, said that ExxonMobil's funding of research does not mean that it acts to influence the research, and that ExxonMobil supports taking action to curb the output of greenhouse gasses. Gantt said, "The recycling of this type of discredited conspiracy theory diverts attention from the real challenge at hand: how to provide the energy needed to improve global living standards while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions."

Public sector

In 1994, according to a leaked memo, the Republican strategist Frank Luntz

Frank Luntz

Frank I. Luntz is an American political consultant and pollster. His most recent work has been with the Fox News Channel as a frequent commentator and analyst, as well as running focus groups after presidential debates...

advised members of the Republican Party, with regard to climate change, that "you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue" and "challenge the science" by "recruiting experts who are sympathetic to your view." In 2006, Luntz stated that he still believes "back [in] '97, '98, the science was uncertain", but he now agrees with the scientific consensus.

In 2005, the New York Times reported that Philip Cooney

Philip Cooney

Philip A. Cooney is a former member of the administration of United States President George W. Bush. Before serving in the federal government, he was a lawyer and lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute.-Personal:...

, former lobbyist

Energy Lobby

"Energy lobby" is the umbrella term used to name the paid representatives of large fossil fuel and electric utilities corporations who attempt to influence governmental policy...

and "climate team leader" at the American Petroleum Institute

American Petroleum Institute

The American Petroleum Institute, commonly referred to as API, is the largest U.S trade association for the oil and natural gas industry...

and President George W. Bush's chief of staff of the Council on Environmental Quality

Council on Environmental Quality

The Council on Environmental Quality is a division of the Executive Office of the President that coordinates federal environmental efforts in the United States and works closely with agencies and other White House offices in the development of environmental and energy policies and initiatives...

, had "repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents." Sharon Begley reported in Newsweek that Cooney "edited a 2002 report on climate science by sprinkling it with phrases such as 'lack of understanding' and 'considerable uncertainty.'" Cooney reportedly removed an entire section on climate in one report, whereupon an oil lobbyist

Energy Lobby

"Energy lobby" is the umbrella term used to name the paid representatives of large fossil fuel and electric utilities corporations who attempt to influence governmental policy...

sent him a fax saying "You are doing a great job." Cooney announced his resignation two days after the story of his tampering with scientific reports broke, but a few days later it was announced that Cooney would take up a position with ExxonMobil.

Connections to the tobacco lobby

Several journalists have argued that efforts to downplay the significance of climate change resemble the campaign by tobacco lobbyists, after being confronted with new data linking cigarettes to cancer

Cancer

Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...

, to shift public perception of the discoveries toward that of a myth, unwarranted claim

Theory of justification

Theory of justification is a part of epistemology that attempts to understand the justification of propositions and beliefs. Epistemologists are concerned with various epistemic features of belief, which include the ideas of justification, warrant, rationality, and probability...

, or exaggeration rather than mainstream scientific theory. In 2006, The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

discussed similarities in the methods of groups funded by Exxon

Exxon

Exxon is a chain of gas stations as well as a brand of motor fuel and related products by ExxonMobil. From 1972 to 1999, Exxon was the corporate name of the company previously known as Standard Oil Company of New Jersey or Jersey Standard....

, and those of the tobacco giant Philip Morris

Altria Group

Altria Group, Inc. is based in Henrico County, Virginia, and is the parent company of Philip Morris USA, John Middleton, Inc., U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Company, Inc., Philip Morris Capital Corporation, and Chateau Ste. Michelle Wine Estates. It is one of the world's largest tobacco corporations...

, including direct attacks on peer-reviewed science, and attempts to create public controversy and doubt.

Former National Academy of Sciences

United States National Academy of Sciences

The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...

president Dr. Frederick Seitz

Frederick Seitz

, who, according to an article by Mark Hertsgaard in Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair (magazine)
Vanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1983 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition. This revived the title which had ceased publication in 1935...

, earned about US$585,000 in the 1970s and 1980s as a consultant to R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company

The R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company , based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and founded by R. J. Reynolds in 1875, is the second-largest tobacco company in the U.S. . RJR is an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Reynolds American Inc...

, went on to chair groups such as the Science and Environmental Policy Project and the George C. Marshall Institute

George C. Marshall Institute

The George C. Marshall Institute is a politically conservative think tank established in 1984 in Washington, D.C. with a focus on scientific issues and public policy. In the 1980s, the Institute was engaged primarily in lobbying in support of the Strategic Defense Initiative...

alleged to have made efforts to "downplay" global warming. Seitz stated in the 1980s that "Global warming is far more a matter of politics than of climate." Seitz authored the Oregon Petition

Oregon Petition

The Global Warming Petition Project, usually referred to as the Oregon Petition, is a petition opposing the Kyoto Protocol and similar efforts to mitigate climate change. It was organized by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine , a non-profit organisation run by Arthur B. Robinson, between...

, a document published jointly by the Marshall Institute and Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine

Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine

The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine is a 501 non-profit organization located about seven miles from Cave Junction, Oregon. It is a private research institute that studies biochemistry, diagnostic medicine, nutrition, preventive medicine and the molecular biology of aging, and receives no...

in opposition to the Kyoto protocol

Kyoto Protocol

The Kyoto Protocol is a protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change , aimed at fighting global warming...

. The petition and accompanying "Research Review of Global Warming Evidence" claimed:

The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind. There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. ... We are living in an increasingly lush environment of plants and animals as a result of the carbon dioxide increase. Our children will enjoy an Earth with far more plant and animal life than that with which we now are blessed. This is a wonderful and unexpected gift from the Industrial Revolution.

George Monbiot wrote in the Guardian that this petition, which he criticizes as misleading and tied to industry funding, "has been cited by almost every journalist who claims that climate change is a myth." Monbiot has written about another group founded by the tobacco lobby, The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC), that now campaigns against measures to combat global warming. In again trying to manufacture the appearance of a grass-roots movement against "unfounded fear" and "over-regulation," Monbiot states that TASSC "has done more damage to the campaign to halt [climate change] than any other body."

Kivalina v. ExxonMobil

On February 26, 2008, attorneys for the Native American Rights Fund

Native American Rights Fund

The Native American Rights Fund, also known as NARF, is a non-profit organization that uses existing laws and treaties to ensure that state governments and the national government live up to their legal obligations...

and the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment brought suit against ExxonMobil Corporation and two dozen other members of the energy lobby, including BP, Chevron

Chevron Corporation

Chevron Corporation is an American multinational energy corporation headquartered in San Ramon, California, United States and active in more than 180 countries. It is engaged in every aspect of the oil, gas, and geothermal energy industries, including exploration and production; refining,...

, ConocoPhillips

ConocoPhillips

ConocoPhillips Company is an American multinational energy corporation with its headquarters located in the Energy Corridor district of Houston, Texas in the United States...

, and Royal Dutch Shell. The complaint sought to recover damages for the destruction of Kivalina, Alaska

Kivalina, Alaska

Kivalina is a city in Northwest Arctic Borough, Alaska, United States. At the 2000 census the population was 377.-History:...

, a village which "is being forced to relocate because of flooding caused by the changing Arctic

Arctic

The Arctic is a region located at the northern-most part of the Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Russia, Greenland, the United States, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. The Arctic region consists of a vast, ice-covered ocean, surrounded by treeless permafrost...

climate." Kivalina v. ExxonMobil was reported to be the first climate-change lawsuit with "a discretely identifiable victim." The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers determined in 2006 that Kivalina residents would be forced to relocate, at a minimum cost of US$95m, as soon as 2016. According to Stephan Faris, a writer for The Atlantic, the Kivalina suit accuses ExxonMobil et al. of

"... conspiring to cover up the threat of man-made climate change, in much the same way the tobacco industry tried to conceal the risks of smoking — by using a series of think tanks and other organizations to falsely sow public doubt in an emerging scientific consensus."

The suit was dismissed by the United States district court

United States district court

The United States district courts are the general trial courts of the United States federal court system. Both civil and criminal cases are filed in the district court, which is a court of law, equity, and admiralty. There is a United States bankruptcy court associated with each United States...

for the Northern District of California on September 30, 2009, on grounds that "the law suit raised non-justiciable political questions and that the plaintiffs did not have standing, because their harm was not fairly traceable to the defendants’ conduct." An appeal

Appeal

An appeal is a petition for review of a case that has been decided by a court of law. The petition is made to a higher court for the purpose of overturning the lower court's decision....

was filed with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals

United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is a U.S. federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts:* District of Alaska* District of Arizona...

in November 2009.

Effect

Some journalists attribute the government inaction to the effects of climate change denial. However, a recent Angus Reid poll indicates that global warming skepticism in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom has been rising, apparently continuing a trend that has progressed for "months, even years" There may be multiple causes of this trend, including a focus on economic rather than environmental issues, and a negative perception of the "role the United Nations has played in promoting the global warming issue."
Another cause may be weariness from overexposure to the topic: secondary polls suggest that "many people were turned off by extremists on both sides," while others show 54% of U.S. voters believe that "the news media make global warming appear worse than it really is." A poll in 2009 regarding the issue of whether "some scientists have falsified research data to support their own theories and beliefs about global warming" showed that 59% of Americans believed it "at least somewhat likely", of which 35% believed it is "very likely".

According to former U.S. senator Tim Wirth

Tim Wirth

Timothy Endicott Wirth is a former United States Senator from Colorado. Wirth, a Democrat, was a member of the House from 1975 to 1987 and was elected to the Senate in 1986, serving one term there before stepping down. He was Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs during the Clinton...

, the denial effort has affected both public perception and leadership in the United States. "They patterned what they did after the tobacco industry. [...] Both figured, sow enough doubt, call the science uncertain and in dispute. That's had a huge impact on both the public and Congress." Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...

reports that whereas "majorities in Europe and Japan recognize a broad consensus among climate experts that greenhouse gases —mostly from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas to power the world's economies— are altering climate," as recently as 2006 only one third of Americans considered human activity to play a major role in climate change; 64% believed that scientists disagreed about it "a lot." A 2007 Newsweek poll found these numbers were declining, although majorities of Americans still believed neither that scientists agree climate change is taking place, nor that scientists agree climate change is caused by human activity, nor that climate change has yet had noticeable effect. Citing the following remarks in Science
Science (journal)
Science is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is one of the world's top scientific journals....

by physicist and U.S. Representative Rush Holt, the Newsweek report attributes American policymakers' failure to regulate greenhouse gas emissions to consistent undermining of science by the "denial machine":

"...for more than two decades scientists have been issuing warnings that the release of greenhouse gases, principally carbon dioxide (CO₂), is probably altering Earth's climate in ways that will be expensive and even deadly. The American public yawned and bought bigger cars. Statements by the American Association for the Advancement of Science

American Association for the Advancement of Science

The American Association for the Advancement of Science is an international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for the...

, American Geophysical Union

American Geophysical Union

The American Geophysical Union is a nonprofit organization of geophysicists, consisting of over 50,000 members from over 135 countries. AGU's activities are focused on the organization and dissemination of scientific information in the interdisciplinary and international field of geophysics...

, American Meteorological Society

American Meteorological Society

The American Meteorological Society promotes the development and dissemination of information and education on the atmospheric and related oceanic and hydrologic sciences and the advancement of their professional applications. Founded in 1919, the American Meteorological Society has a membership...

, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

, and others underscored the warnings and called for new government policies to deal with climate change. Politicians, presented with noisy statistics, shrugged, said there is too much doubt among scientists, and did nothing."

External links

"Live Talk: Climate Change Deniers." Newsweek 8 August 2007
"Climate of Denial." Bill McKibben, Mother Jones, May/June 2005
"Some Like It Hot." Chris Mooney, Mother Jones, May/June 2005
"The Denial Machine." CBC
"Hot Politics" PBS Frontline
Timeline of the Political and Scientific Responses
U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (Minority). (2007–12–20). U.S. Senate Report: Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007. Retrieved 2009–12–25.
"Industry Ignored Its Scientists on Climate" By Andrew C. Revkin, The New York Times, 23 April 2009
PR Executive James Hoggan on "Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming" - video report by Democracy Now!
Democracy Now!
Democracy Now! and its staff have received several journalism awards, including the Gracie Award from American Women in Radio & Television; the George Polk Award for its 1998 radio documentary Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship, on the Chevron Corporation and the deaths of...

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Meanings of the term

History

Private sector

Public sector

Connections to the tobacco lobby

Kivalina v. ExxonMobil

Effect

See also

Further reading

External links