[ExI] climategate again

[BillK]

On 12/1/09, Max More wrote:
<snip>
>  I'm feeling pretty lonely on this issue. Just about everyone on all sides
> of the issue seem to be very certain of what's going on. Despite
> considerable reading of clashing sources (or because of it), I remain highly
> unsure.
>
>

That's the point of the PR campaign backed by Exxon, GM, etc.
Make people unsure so that no legislation gets passed to control the
industries despoiling the world.  They don't have to prove anything -
just create a cloud of confusion.  Exactly the same as the tobacco
industry did for years to avoid restrictive legislation.

<http://www.amazon.com/Climate-Cover-Up-Crusade-Global-Warming/dp/1553654854>

<http://blog.cleantechies.com/2009/11/17/book-review-climate-cover-up-crusade-deny-global-warming/>

Book Review:
“This is a story of betrayal, a story of selfishness, greed, and
irresponsibility on an epic scale.” That’s how James Hoggan opens his
newly published book Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global
Warming.

Hoggan initially thought there was a fierce  scientific controversy
about climate change. Sensibly he did a lot of reading, only to find
to his surprise that there was no such controversy. How did the public
confusion arise?  There was nothing accidental about it. As a public
relations specialist, Hoggan observed with gathering horror a campaign
at work.

“To a trained eye the unsavoury public relations tactics and
techniques and the strategic media manipulation became obvious. The
more I thought about it, the more deeply offended I became.”

As far back as 1991 a group of coal-related organisations set out, in
their own words, “to reposition global warming as a theory (not fact)”
and “supply alternative facts to support the suggestion that global
warming will be good.” This was the pattern of the work done in
succeeding years by a variety of corporations and industry
associations who devoted considerable financial resources to influence
the public conversation.

They used slogans and messages they had tested for effectiveness but
not accuracy.  They hired scientists prepared to say in public things
they could not get printed in the peer-reviewed scientific press.

They took advantage of mainstream journalists’ interest in featuring
contrarian and controversial science stories. They planned
“grassroots” groups to give the  impression that they were not an
industry-driven lobby. New Zealand’s Climate “Science” Coalition and
the International Coalition it helped to found fit this purpose
nicely.

He urges his readers not to take him at face value but to do some
checking of his material and satisfy themselves that it is reliable.
Nevertheless the activity he describes is rightly characterised as
betrayal, selfishness, greed and irresponsibility. The people who have
launched the highly successful campaign of denial and delay are not
attending to the work of a body of outstanding scientists although
that work is of utmost import for human life.

They have turned what should have been a public policy dialogue driven
by science into a theatre for a cynical public relations exercise of
the most dishonest kind. Instead of looking at the seriousness of the
warnings they have sensed a threat to their business profitability and
made that their motivating factor. They have spread a false
complacency and the result has been a twenty year delay in addressing
an issue of high urgency.
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BillK