tagged w/ Climate Change Deniers
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Back in July last year in a boardroom of a western Australian free-market think tank, the extrovert British climate change sceptic Lord Christopher Monckton was holding court.
The topic for discussion? How to better capture the Australian media to help push a right-wing, free-market and climate sceptic agenda.
At the time, Lord Monckton was in Australia at the behest of a mining association to deliver a series of talks on climate change and spread his conspiracy theories that human-caused climate change is a left-wing plot to bring down the West.
At one point during the tour, Monckton told a boisterous partisan crowd:
"So to the bogus scientists who have produced the bogus science that invented this bogus scare I say, we are coming after you. We are going to prosecute you, and we are going to lock you up."Back in July last year in a boardroom of a western Australian free-market think tank,... more
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In June, Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC) became one of the first incumbent Republicans to be knocked off by a far-right insurgent Tea Party candidate. Since then, Inglis — who has maintained a very high 93 percent lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union — has blasted the GOP for using “racism” to whip voters into a frenzy, for “following those personalities [such as Fox News host Glenn Beck] and not leading,” and for deceiving voters with conspiracy theories about death panels and “preying on their fears.”
Yesterday morning, at a House subcommittee hearing on climate change, Inglis mocked his Republican colleagues for refusing to acknowledge the truth and danger of global warming, saying, “They slept at a Holiday Inn Express last night, and they’re experts on climate change.” He also warned that while they posture to score political points, China will surpass the U.S. in clean technology:
INGLIS: Because 98 of the doctors say, “Do this thing,” two say, “Do the other.” So, it’s on the record. And we’re here with important decision to be made. And I would also suggest to my Free Enterprise colleagues — especially conservatives here — whether you think it’s all a bunch of hooey, what we’ve talked about in this committee, the Chinese don’t. And they plan on eating our lunch in this next century. They plan on innovating around these problems, and selling to us, and the rest of the world, the technology that’ll lead the 21st century. So we may just press the pause button here for several years, but China is pressing the fast-forward button. And as a result, if we wake up in several years and we say, “geez, this didn’t work very well for us. The two doctors didn’t turn out to be so right. 98 might have been the ones to listen to.” [...]
There are people who make a lot of money on talk radio and talk TV saying a lot of things. They slept at a Holiday Inn Express last night, and they’re experts on climate change. They substitute their judgment for people who have Ph.D.s and work tirelessly [on climate change].
Indeed, a ThinkProgress analysis found that 50 percent of the incoming freshman GOP class deny the existence of manmade climate change, while a shocking 86 percent are opposed to any legislation to address climate change that increases government revenue. Meanwhile, all of the Republicans vying to chair the House Energy Committee — which handles climate and energy issues — in the new Congress are climate change deniers. They include Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), who infamously apologized to BP shortly after the company’s catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico this summer.
cont...In June, Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC) became one of the first incumbent Republicans to be... more
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So Bin Laden came out over the weekend to speak out as an activist for climate change.
Sort of.
Well, not really. It would seem al-Qaeda leader bin Laden got the memo that there is a new trend that people are paying attention to called "climate change".
Oh Osama! Climate change is so 2009! According to the Pew Research Center's recent poll, climate change is on the bottom of our political priority list for 2010,
Better luck next time.
I've already ranted about why we should kill the term climate change, so I won't get into that one again. But just in case you were about re-route a donation to Haiti Relief over to bin Laden on account of his recent appearance as climate activist, you might want to think twice.
Osama bin Laden is using the climate conversation to serve his own agenda with regards to the US and other industrial economies-this times around it's the reprehensible crime of climate change. Here's how it went down.
In an audio tape obtained by Al Jazeera, bin Laden criticized George W. Bush, the former US president, for rejecting the Kyoto pact and condemned global corporations.
"This is a message to the whole world about those responsible for climate change and its repercussions - whether intentionally or unintentionally - and about the action we must take," bin Laden said.
Sorry to say, we are going to have to add Bin Laden to "crimes against climate activists" list since his new claim has only given fuel to climate deniers, as discussed by Juliana Williams on the youth climate movement blog It's getting Hot in Here:
His strategy is not to stop global warming, but rather to draw broader global support for his anti-American efforts. What better way to wreak havoc and chaos in the nation of his enemies than to associate himself with one of the fastest growing sectors of the US economy: clean energy.
By highlighting the climate challenge, bin Laden opens the floodgates for climate deniers to claim that taking action on climate issues is now un-American, anti-American and that seeks to destroy the economy.
So thanks for nothing Bin Laden. We'll be adding you to our crimes-against-climate-activist hit list.
Related content:
Hipsters in Space: Jihad is Rad (video)
Welcoming the Environmental Journalist to the Endangered Species List (video)
Climate Change On Obama’s Back BurnerSo Bin Laden came out over the weekend to speak out as an activist for climate change.... more
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On December 7, 2009, the Danish Ministry of Climate and Energy will gather delegates from all over the world to meet in Copenhagen for the United Nations Climate Change Conference, (aka COP15). The goal of Danish government is that the “COP15 conference will result in an ambitious global agreement” that include every country of the world. This will be the global green event of the year and is controversial taboot.
Current Green will be keeping you up to date on all the latest developments and will provide a 360 degree point of view of the conference via guest bloggers over the course of the next few months. Today our guest blogger is Josh Nelson is a blogger, activist and new media consultant living and working in the Washington, D.C. area. His website, EnviroKnow.com, exposes the source documents behind environmental news headlines.
Senator Inhofe to Lead Anti-Science Delegation to International Climate Talks
Several members of the United States Senate have a serious credibility problem when it comes to climate change. Chief among them is Senator James Inhofe, whose career highlight was saying on the Senate floor that global warming is the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.”
Mr. Inhofe’s most recent assault on the debate over domestic climate legislation was his insistence on repeating a misleading analysis of the costs of climate legislation, despite all evidence to the contrary. Incredibly, when I asked Senator Inhofe’s staff to respond to the fact that his statements on climate legislation were clearly factually inaccurate, they responded with the single-most convoluted statement I’ve ever seen. This is what we’re up against folks, and it is neither logical, credible nor reality-based. I would engage in a point-counterpoint back and forth with Mr. Inhofe’s staff — as I recently did with Senator Murkowski’s staff on the same issue — but it would clearly be fruitless. Rather than respond to Mr. Dempsey’s largely irrelevant arguments, I’ll simply refer you to this FactCheck.org refutation of the crux of his argument. Flail away, Mr. Dempsey, but reality is on our side.
Now, obstructing domestic legislation is one thing, but taking the anti-science freakshow on the road is something else entirely. Sadly, this is apparently what Senator Inhofe intends to do.
Mr. Inhofe — who is widely considered the least credible member of the United States Senate — recently announced a plan to take his anti-science antics to dizzying new heights. Senator Inhofe intends to lead a truth squad of climate change deniers to the international climate change negotiations in Copenhagen this December with the specific intention of embarrassing the United States and undermining President Obama.
Predictably, Senator Inhofe broke the news to the arch-conservative National Review:
“Now, I want to make sure that those attending the Copenhagen conference know what is really happening in the United States Senate. Some people, like Senator Barbara Boxer, will tell the conference, with Waxman-Markey having passed in the House, that they can anticipate that some kind of bill will pass EPW.” Such statements, Inhofe says, deserve a bold response. “Look,” he says, “there is no bill that is bad enough to not pass out of our committee. There may be enough votes to get a bill out of EPW, but there is far from enough support in the Senate. The Democrats don’t have the votes. There are too many newly-elected Democrats in the Senate who don’t want to go home and tell voters that they just voted for the largest tax increase in American history.”
This is not the first time Senator Inhofe has embarrassed the United States at an international climate discussion. As The American Prospect reported years ago, Inhofe pulled a similar stunt in Milan in 2003 and was met with mockery:
Inhofe’s Milan appearance triggered considerable controversy, as well as some fun at the senator’s expense. The National Environmental Trust (NET) whipped up posters showing Inhofe’s picture and his famous quotation, displaying them for the delegates present. “The reaction in the halls was — well, they just believed it was lampoonable,” notes one Democratic Senate staffer.
Although Senator Inhofe’s frequent delusional outbursts are ripe for mockery, the subject matter is deadly serious.
Mr Inhofe’s embarrassing and irresponsible behavior on the international level raises important questions. Eric Kleefeld at TPM DC phrases it well:
It’s nice to see how seriously foreign policy is taken these days — when a member of the political minority will send his own delegation to an international conference, in order to undermine the government and tell other countries that they can’t work with the United States.
I can’t help but recall Speaker Pelosi’s March 2007 trip to Syria and the chorus of insults from media outlets and conservative politicians that accompanied it. I’m sure all of those who took Speaker Pelosi to task for undermining President Bush on the international stage will be setting their sites on Senator Inhofe in the days to come.
Related Content:
The Green Road to Copenhagen
360 Degrees of Copenhagen: Adopt a Negotiator
Video post cards from Hawaii (VIDEO)On December 7, 2009, the Danish Ministry of Climate and Energy will gather delegates... more
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Report identifies Koch Industries giving $73m to climate sceptic groups 'spreading inaccurate and misleading information'
A Greenpeace investigation has identified a little-known, privately owned US oil company as the paymaster of global warming sceptics in the US and Europe.
The environmental campaign group accuses Kansas-based Koch Industries, which owns refineries and operates oil pipelines, of funding 35 conservative and libertarian groups, as well as more than 20 congressmen and senators. Between them, Greenpeace says, these groups and individuals have spread misinformation about climate science and led a sustained assault on climate scientists and green alternatives to fossil fuels.
Greenpeace says that Koch Industries donated nearly $48m (£31.8m) to climate opposition groups between 1997-2008. From 2005-2008, it donated $25m to groups opposed to climate change, nearly three times as much as higher-profile funders that time such as oil company ExxonMobil. Koch also spent $5.7m on political campaigns and $37m on direct lobbying to support fossil fuels.
In a hard-hitting report, which appears to confirm environmentalists' suspicions that there is a well-funded opposition to the science of climate change, Greenpeace accuses the funded groups of "spreading inaccurate and misleading information" about climate science and clean energy companies.
"The company's network of lobbyists, former executives and organisations has created a forceful stream of misinformation that Koch-funded entities produce and disseminate. The propaganda is then replicated, repackaged and echoed many times throughout the Koch-funded web of political front groups and thinktanks," said Greenpeace.
"Koch industries is playing a quiet but dominant role in the global warming debate. This private, out-of-sight corporation has become a financial kingpin of climate science denial and clean energy opposition. On repeated occasions organisations funded by Koch foundations have led the assault on climate science and scientists, 'green jobs', renewable energy and climate policy progress," it says.
The groups include many of the best-known conservative thinktanks in the US, like Americans for Prosperity, the Heritage Foundation, the Cato institute, the Manhattan Institute and the Foundation for research on economics and the environment. All have been involved in "spinning" the "climategate" story or are at the forefront of the anti-global warming debate, says Greenpeace.
Koch Industries is a $100bn-a-year conglomerate dominated by petroleum and chemical interests, with operations in nearly 60 countries and 70,000 employees. It owns refineries which process more than 800,000 barrels of crude oil a day in the US, as well as a refinery in Holland. It has held leases on the heavily polluting tar-sand fields of Alberta, Canada and has interests in coal, oil exploration, chemicals, forestry, and pipelines.
more at link...Report identifies Koch Industries giving $73m to climate sceptic groups... more
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The similarities between the anti-evolution movement and climate change-denial seem to get more numerous by the day. The latest is that South Dakota’s state legislature called for a “balanced” approach to teaching about climate change in schools. But it’s pretty obvious from the get-go that they are abusing notions of fairness to advance a rather unbalanced view of the enduring scientific consensus on climate change.
"Carbon dioxide," the resolution declares, "is not a pollutant." Someone should tell that to the Supreme Court -- that bastion of unhinged earthy-crunchy types -- which instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to find that carbon dioxide is just that.
South Dakota schools, the resolution continues, should instruct their students that, "global warming is a scientific theory rather than a proven fact," and that a number of factors, including "astrological" (!!) ones can "effect [sic] world weather phenomena."
In any scientific inquiry, a healthy sense of doubt is important, particularly when it comes to predicting very precise climate outcomes resulting from very complicated earth systems. But it’s the big picture that really matters -- and the big picture is pretty concerning, with worryingly high probabilities of serious, if not finely predictable, consequences if we do nothing. Even many global warming deniers won’t dispute that the earth’s climate is changing, often arguing instead about what’s to blame. And on that second point, the arguments they make often revolve around small-bore distractions, such as the “Climategate” e-mail controversy or the recent questions over very particular predictions in the International Panel on Climate Change’s groundbreaking 2007 climate report. The South Dakota legislature’s resolution is full of these, such as its insistence that things other can greenhouse emissions can affect world weather phenomena, including, apparently, star signs. That’s no argument that rising levels of carbon in a finely-balanced atmosphere won’t affect the climate. It’s just a smokescreen meant to confuse South Dakota’s students into doubting the science more than the small chance it’s wrong warrants.
Maybe, though, the state’s children should study this. In English class, on how not to construct an honest argument.The similarities between the anti-evolution movement and climate change-denial seem to... more
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The Tea Party movement earned its stripes at town hall protests this summer by claiming that Democratic health care reform efforts would result in defenseless grannies being hauled before "death panels." Now the tea partiers have a new target—the cap-and-trade legislation moving through Congress—and new, unlikely victims to protect—the poor.
One of the key recruiting tools in conservative activists' push against the climate bill is a recent documentary called Not Evil, Just Wrong. The film styles itself as the latest conservative answer to Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. It has no commercial distributor, but instead debuted on an October 18 webcast heavily promoted by social conservative organizations like Focus on the Family and the American Family Association, as well as local Tea Party groups. Organizers claimed the online premiere attracted some 400,000 viewers.
Now the tea partiers are calling for local chapters to host screenings on November 21. An Escondido, California, branch recently invited members to a "record-setting international Cinematic Tea Party," in terms reminiscent of a social justice rally: "Join the Resistance against the extreme environmentalism that threatens the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people in the developed and developing world; this is the new road to poverty in America." (To facilitate these screenings, the filmmakers are selling a "Platinum Party Pack" on their online store, which for $99.95 gets you all the fixings for a rockin' party: invitations, T-shirts, posters, and even a small red carpet.)
Red carpet notwithstanding, Not Evil is unlikely to garner its creators, a pair of Irish former journalists, any Oscar nominations. The film is poorly organized and rehashes the familiar talking points of climate change deniers—global warming as bad science; climate concerns as hysteria akin to that over killer bees, etc. Pushing those views are the usual suspects, including Patrick Moore, the Greenpeace founder turned nuclear power lobbyist, and Thatcher-era British politician Sir Nigel Lawson.
Where Not Evil differs slightly from the standard denialist script is insistence that cutting carbon emissions will hurt the poor. "For too long, with environmentalists, it's not enough about people," says Ann McElhinney, one of the filmmakers, in an interview. "Is it warming? Is it cooling? Who knows? Is it caused by us? There's even more disagreement about that. All of these things should be about people. We should be fighting for the poor."
more at link...
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/11/tea-partiers-next-target-climate-bill
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So let's get this straight. The Tea Partiers are NOW concerned about the poor... not their health or medical bills, but their electricity bills. How thoughtful...The Tea Party movement earned its stripes at town hall protests this summer by... more
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Excerpt:
So, why are there still so many skeptics and deniers willing to spit into the wind of a mountain of 40 years of scientific evidence?
Personal skepticism about global warming is forged from ideological beliefs and peer beliefs, which result in people gravitating to what ever evidence they can find that reflects those beliefs.
This would explain the popularity of people like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and other conservative types, who tend to use their media platform to promote as much misinformation about global warming as possible.
Global warming deniers tend to exhibit a certain pride in being skeptics and associate it with challenging the government on everything in the percieved need to protect their freedom.
Millions of dollars have been spent by gas, coal, and oil industries to lobby against climate regulations that would cut into their profits.
According to a report by George Marshall, founder of Climatedeniers.org, research indicates that of over 192 books written on climate skepticism, 92% were found to have been associated with, or funded by, right-winged conservative think-tank groups.
(more at link)
http://www.examiner.com/x-5266-Seattle-Environmental-Policy-Examiner~y2009m11d4-Global-warming-the-pyschology-of-denialExcerpt:
So, why are there still so many skeptics and deniers willing to spit into... more
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On Friday at The Society Of Environmental Journalists conference, Al Gore got caught up in the increasingly common "town hall" moment with independent filmmaker Phelim McAleer. McAleer is making a documentary titled "Not Evil Just Wrong," which will attempt to debunk global warming by labeling such concerns "hysteria." McAleer starts the video stating he's going to ask Gore "tough questions," and during the Q & A starts aggressively questioning Gore about inconsistencies in An Inconvenient Truth and whether he accepts the British High Court's ruling that the film contains errors. McAleer goes on to badger Gore about polar bear statistics until he's asked to stop and then his mike is cut.
Watch how the former vice president reacts and the argument that ensues.On Friday at The Society Of Environmental Journalists conference, Al Gore got caught... more
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