[ExI] climategate again

[BillK]

Also:
<http://www.amazon.com/Doubt-Their-Product-Industrys-Threatens/dp/019530067X>

Book Review:
"In Doubt Is Their Product, David Michaels gives a lively and
convincing history of how clever public relations has blocked one
public health protection after another. The techniques first used to
reassure us about tobacco were adapted to reassure us about asbestos,
lead, vinyl chloride-and risks to nuclear facilities workers, where
Dr. Michaels' experience as the relevant Assistant Secretary of Energy
gave him an inside view. And if you're worried about climate change,
keep worrying, because the same program is underway there."--Donald
Kennedy, Editor-in-Chief, Science
"We live in an age of unprecedented disinformation, misinformation,
and outright lying by those in power. This important book shows who
profits by misleading the public-and who ultimately pays with their
health."--Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation

"Doubt is our product," a cigarette executive once observed, "since it
is the best means of competing with the 'body of fact' that exists in
the minds of the general public. It is also the means of establishing
a controversy."
In this eye-opening expose, David Michaels reveals how the tobacco
industry's duplicitous tactics spawned a multimillion dollar industry
that is dismantling public health safeguards. Product defense
consultants, he argues, have increasingly skewed the scientific
literature, manufactured and magnified scientific uncertainty, and
influenced policy decisions to the advantage of polluters and the
manufacturers of dangerous products. To keep the public confused about
the hazards posed by global warming, second-hand smoke, asbestos,
lead, plastics, and many other toxic materials, industry executives
have hired unscrupulous scientists and lobbyists to dispute scientific
evidence about health risks. In doing so, they have not only delayed
action on specific hazards, but they have constructed barriers to make
it harder for lawmakers, government agencies, and courts to respond to
future threats. The Orwellian strategy of dismissing research
conducted by the scientific community as "junk science" and elevating
science conducted by product defense specialists to "sound science"
status also creates confusion about the very nature of scientific
inquiry and undermines the public's confidence in science's ability to
address public health and environmental concerns Such reckless
practices have long existed, but Michaels argues that the Bush
administration deepened the dysfunction by virtually handing over
regulatory agencies to the very corporate powers whose products and
behavior they are charged with overseeing.
In Doubt Is Their Product Michaels proves, beyond a doubt, that our
regulatory system has been broken. He offers concrete, workable
suggestions for how it can be restored by taking the politics out of
science and ensuring that concern for public safety, rather than
private profits, guides our regulatory policy.
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BillK