Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Once a beacon of freedom

Please give Lord Christopher Monckton four minutes and 13 seconds of your time.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

"There is no problem with the climate, and even if there were, economically speaking, there's nothing we can do about it"

Well, that's a relief! Because if there were a climate disaster looming, and Monckton fought against taking measures to stop it, he would soon be reviled and despised by people for influencing them into resisting action that could save untold lives. This from the same Roman Catholic tory who is a regular guest of whack job Glenn Beck. The esteemed Mr. Monckton once wrote that the only way to stop AIDS is to screen the entire population regularly and to quarantine all carriers of the disease for life. "Every member of the population should be blood-tested every month ... all those found to be infected with the virus, even if only as carriers, should be isolated compulsorily, immediately, and permanently." What was it Yeats said? "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are filled with passionate intensity?" He has since withdrawn that position and now regards it as ridiculous. One down, one to go.

I'm sure that Mr. Monckton is distressed that 85% of Americans apparently have been "duped" into believing Global Warming is real, and that it poses serious problems. He's got his work cut out for him.

From 1998 to 2005, ExxonMobil directed almost $16 million to a group of 43 lobby groups in an effort to confuse Americans about global warming. After being criticized by the Royal Society in 2006, Exxon promised to end funding to groups questioning climate change. In May 2008, Exxon again issued a public mea culpa and pledged to cut funding to groups that “divert attention” from the need to develop and invest in clean energy. Yet, in 2008, while cutting contributions to the most extreme groups, Exxon still funded the National Center for Policy Analysis, the Heritage Foundation, and the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, all groups which publicly question or deny global warming.

Since the late 1980s, this well-coordinated, well-funded campaign by contrarian scientists, free-market think tanks and industry has created a paralyzing fog of doubt around climate change. Through advertisements, op-eds, lobbying and media attention, greenhouse doubters (they hate being called deniers) argued first that the world is not warming; measurements indicating otherwise are flawed, they said. Then they claimed that any warming is natural, not caused by human activities. Now they contend that the looming warming will be minuscule and harmless. "They patterned what they did after the tobacco industry," says former senator Tim Wirth, who spearheaded environmental issues as an under secretary of State in the Clinton administration. "Both figured, sow enough doubt, call the science uncertain and in dispute. That's had a huge impact on both the public and Congress.
(continued)

Unknown said...

Part II
As a result of efforts like this, 64% of people still think there is a lot of disagreement among scientists. There is a virtual consensus among scientists throughout the world that Global Warming is happening. The following science groups believe global warming is anthropogenic (human caused):

Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre
Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling & Analysis
Centre for Global Atmospheric Modelling
CSIRO Atmospheric Research
The Environmental Protection Agency
Deutsches Klimarechenzentrum
Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory
NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
The National Academy of Sciences
NERC Centres for Atmospheric Science
Laboratoire de Meteorologie Dynamique du CNRS
Max Planck Institute for Meteorology
MIT Center for Global Change Science Climate Modeling Initiative
National Center for Atmospheric Research
UK Universities Global Atmospheric Modeling Programme

The only question that remains is, at what point does purposeful ignorance qualify as mental illness? Again, there are only two courses of action in regards to climate change. Ignore the problem, discover too late that it is real, so that any action taken to reverse its effects is impossible. Or spend the time, resources, money and energy to offset the damage while it can have an impact. If we take the second course, and put into effect practices that insure a cleaner, safer environment, the cost will be offset by the fact that we're still alive and can bestow a healthier world on our children and grandchildren.

Ocean Acidification
TED presentation
Methane release increasing
Climate mega fires
Megafire transcript
100 effects of global warming
Yale study on Global Warming
NASA study on Climate
Climate Change is Human Induced
Scientists hit back at climate scepticism
Copenhagen conference on rapid temperature increase
Population growth driving climate change
Pacific garbage gyre
Fox news lies on global warming

Gordon said...

Dean,

I don’t doubt that Exxon spent $16 million over several years lobbying the issue over seven years. But I happen to know that GE spends over $20 million each year pushing Global Warming. There’s huge money in wars and crises, whether they’re real or not. Big business wants nothing more than a privileged place at the table when the government spreads the money around.

If you’re at all interested in the science, Google the “U.S. Senate Enivironment and Public Works Committee Minority Staff Report (Inhofe).” You can read short synopses (with links to their scientific articles) of the views of 400 scientists, many of whom were part of the UN's IPCC but left because of intellectual dissent, most of whom are published and tenured (700 scientists signed their final declaration). They include prominent members of each of the organizations you list -- plus another 200 or so universities.

What you won’t find are young, untenured scientists dissenting. While $16 or $20 million is a lot of change, $50 billion is the real money. That’s what governments have spent on global warming research, and that all dries up if we decide global warming is no threat. Most of the those organizations you list will cease to exist unless global warming is real.

Real scientists will follow the truth, but the idea that the "money" is in Global Warming skepticism is out of touch with reality.

Doughlas Remy said...

From today’s Baltimore Sun:

In 2006, Allstate announced it was no longer issuing new homeowners' policies in states up and down the East Coast. In Maryland, the company shut its doors to new customers across 11 eastern counties, including parts of Anne Arundel and Prince George's counties. Why? First, the company said, sea levels are definitely rising worldwide based on irrefutable science. Second, Atlantic hurricanes are getting bigger and more intense as the planet warms. Hence, Smith Island and much of the rest of eastern Maryland just aren't good insurance risks anymore, Allstate acknowledged. The potential for catastrophe is too great.

Allstate is not a Republican corporation. It's not a Democratic corporation. This is rational private capital talking. ...A major insurance company is abandoning customers just a stone's throw from our nation's capital.


From “Rising Seas, Rising Awareness,” by Mike Tidwell, published 10/22/09 by The Baltimore Sun.

Dave Evans said...

Gil - have you posted this because you find it in any way plausible?