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Cross-posted from Wonk Room.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce — the 97-year-old organization that bills itself as the “voice of business” — wants to put climate science on trial. As the Environmental Protection Agency nears a final ruling that manmade global warming endangers the public health and welfare, “the chamber will tell the EPA in a filing today that a trial-style public hearing” on the science of climate change is needed to “make a fully informed, transparent decision with scientific integrity based on the actual record of the science.” William Kovacs, the chamber’s senior vice president for environment, technology and regulatory affairs, told the Los Angeles Times this hearing would be “the Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century“:
It would be evolution versus creationism. It would be the science of climate change on trial.
In 1925, Tennessee schoolteacher John Scopes was indicted for teaching evolution against state law. His trial, intended as a test of the law, became a national phenomenon when as the World Christian Fundamentals Association and the American Civil Liberties Union brought the famed lawyers William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow into battle. Scopes was found guilty. Even though the state supreme court overturned the verdict of the “bizarre case” on a technicality, the public fallout was intense. The anti-evolution movement lost steam (before being reborn as “intelligent design“) and science textbooks with biblical quotations were phased out.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is taking a similarly bizarre approach here, calling for a show trial of climate science. Perhaps Kovacs and other officials at the U.S. Chamber believe that the rest of the business world shares their extremist views. After all, U.S. corporations continue to fund their multi-million-dollar lobbying against health care and energy reform.
It’s also possible this is an attempt to disrupt the effort to fight global warming with a culture war, tying the science of climate change to fundamentalists’ unease with evolution. Conservative activists have already made the connection. “It’s still a theory,” a town hall protester confronted Rep. Mike Castle (D-DE) after he supported climate legislation in June. “So is Darwin’s theory of evolution! And yet we have the audacity to say global warming is accurate, it’s more than a theory?”
There aren’t many natural parallels between the physics of greenhouse gases emitted by burning fossil fuels and the biology of natural selection, but the American conservative movement depends on the cozy relationship between oil and the Christian right. It seems like a high-risk strategy to convince Americans that God means for us to pollute His creation on behalf of oil and coal tycoons. But when reality is not on your side, there’s not much else left.
Update: At the Swamp, Jim Tankersley explains how the "trial" would work:
Scientists would present evidence for and against the finding. Each side would be allowed to cross-examine the other. An administrative law judge, or an EPA official, would preside and issue the final ruling. The EPA conducts similar hearings routinely, but on much smaller issues, such as issuing permits. Chamber officials say the agency held a large-scale public hearing in the 1970s on the subject of toxic water pollutants. EPA officials say such a hearing would be a waste of time and money - so the Chamber will likely sue in federal court in hopes of forcing one.
Update: At Climate Progress, Joe Romm notes that the science of climate change has already been fought over in court, and asks the board members of the Chamber of Commerce "to declare whether they are evolved members of humanity or dedicated to our self-destruction."
These members claim to “support economy-wide reductions in CO2 emissions and/or federal cap-and-trade legislation”: Alcoa, Caterpillar, Deere & Co., Dow Chemical, Duke Energy, Eastman Kodak, Entergy, Fox Entertainment, IBM, Lockheed, Nike, PepsiCo., PNM Resources, Rolls Royce, Siemens, Toyota, and Xerox.
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I think you're missing the point Brad. After all, isn't there a more fundamental question here?Namely, why must we limit our quest for court-adjucidated truth in science only be limited to a few sexy theories? Is not the greater harm done by those billions of other theories that people act on every day without judicial review? Should we allow oil companies drill holes in places where their theories tell them they might find oil without first putting that theory on the stand? And what about the Chamber of Commerce? Has anyone ever tested their economic theories? It gets worse: I'm told by people in the know that there is - brace yourself - an entire discipline of "Theoretical Physics" that has tens of thousands of theories, not one of which has ever seen the light of a court room (no doubt due to all their fat cat lobbyists). How long can we let this madness continue? We shall... no, strike that. We must overcome!
It's actually rather clever for the delayer/denier camp to try to take advantage of the alienation of the rather large minority of the public who have traditional values and who have a jaundiced view of science. Our failure to communicate respectfully (and effectively) with millions of Americans who happen to have viewpoints we might not embrace is a weakness in the presentation of the environmental and scientific message. It really doesn't help to persuade people to listen if you put them on the defensive by ridiculing their views.If such a trial were ever held, it would be good to turn the question to: Can we afford to ignore the obvious and escalating signs of environmental trouble? A reasonable person examining the evidence would find in favor of action.
There are perhaps 10s of millions of Americans who will simply continue to believe the right-wing rants around climate chaos, health care and other "reforms". The US Chamber, American Petroleum Institute and other powerfully entrenched business as usual voices will do whatever it takes, spend unlimited money to keep the current economic paradigm going as long as they can. Maximization of short term profits for the narrow financial interests of a few, at all costs, is their game. Remember - Exxon made $1 billion in PROFITS every 9 days in 2008, that's one company. Their ilk will lie, cheat and infuse corrupt information into the media and there are enough people who choose to believe this garbage to prevent "real change" from happening. Until the 10s of millions of us who are willing to look at reality, to look at the science and economics from a worldview that seeks to improve the quality of life for our children and all people and life, and build a real movement of new voices of business, new voices of masses of people, and willing to invest serious money and work into such an effort, we may as well kiss it good-bye. The business as usual folks are not going away, they are strategic, willing to invest big money, and they own the public policy making apparatus in America. Yes, they own our Congress and government. Health care for the people, anyone? When will we decide to get real? Elliot Hoffman
We should put religion on trial. That would not stand the light of day.It is ridiculous and harmful to continue to give deniers of the truth a voice. The vast majority of climate scientists agree that 1) global warming (or whatever you want to call it) is happening and 2) that it's caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases, mainly by burning fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas, and by cutting down forests that would absorb those gases. When one side in a disagreement has no credibility, there's no reason to lend credibility to it by giving it a voice in a debate or trial.
As far as I know, our actions are exacerbating a natural cyle of the planet that has ocurred before. An article I read a couple of years ago, can't recall the author, pointed out that there is absolutely no need for us to have ice, snow and polar caps; that the earth has it's cycles(which ignore humans) and each cycle of warming is followed by a return to cooling,i.e glacial age. Don't know if that's totally accurate, but has a certain sense to it. That doesn't mean that we should give up on polluting our atmosphere, since we may be increasing the affects/severity of such a cycle to an extremely dangerous point.
I would like to see the jury selection process for this one. Probably the best jurors money can buy.
Tyler,Your argument -"The vast majority of climate scientists agree that 1) global warming (or whatever you want to call it) is happening and 2) that it's caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases, mainly by burning fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas, and by cutting down forests that would absorb those gases."has absolutely no weight until you can actually list the names and disciplines of these so-called scientists. So far, the only such lists are filled with what you call deniers. You might be right regarding bureaucrats and politicians, but not physical scientists. Until you get some data, your claim is meaningless and thus your argument as well.
OK, how about the United Nations' top scientist? How about top NASA scientist James Hanson? I'll assume you're not a denier with an agenda, so I'll just say this: I have no time to research a list of climate scientists for you on an issue that's well beyond decided and that I don't even consider a top priority. Suffice to say that regardless of what the harmful effects are, you cannot get away from the fact that all actions have equal and opposite reactions, meaning that emitting massive amounts of greenhouse gases will have a major effect on the Earth, even if we didn't know what that effect would be.
A trial to find scientific facts? Since when are courtroom trials the way we conduct science?The term res judicata is the legal term that describes a situation where a suit is thrown out because the courts have already made a final desicion. If you've lost its too bad because its over. Someone needs to tell the delayers and the denialists its over.
The Chamber seems to have several objectives: (1) drag the Christian right into full-scale opposition to climate protection legislation by equating climate science with the biological science that the right already finds abhorrent; (2) create a pretext for derailing the legislative process; (3) give the climate denialist position an infusion of political credibility by creating a show trial in which denialist perspectives are treated on par with mainstream scientific perspectives; (4) give the denialists a prominent, seemingly objective platform for using crackpot interpretations to demand further years of delay in pursuit of ever-more-highly-refined levels of ever-elusive scientific certainty on an ever-expanding list of particulars; and (5) when/if mainstraim climate science "wins" the case, give the denialists a basis for demonstrating that the entire governmental/scientific establishment is unwilling to be objective.
Tyler,Okay - so now you're up to, say. 50 scientists. Sounds like a consensus to me. Over 31,000 American scientists, including over 9,000 PhDs signed a petition stating that restricting CO2 emissions would hurt the environment and human welfare. http://petitionproject.org/Over 700 international scientists disssent over AGW claims. http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=83947f5d-d84a-4a84-ad5d-6e2d71db52d9You should read some of the comments fromt these scientists, many of which participated in the IPCC process. Here are two quotes.Nuclear Physicist and Chemical Engineer Dr. Philip Lloyd, a UN IPCC cocoordinating lead author on the Technical Report on Carbon Capture & Storage, was in charge of South Africa’s Chamber of Mines’ Metallurgy Laboratory and was a former professor at University of Witwatersrand where he established a course in environmental chemical engineering. Lloyd has served as President of the South African Institution of Chemical Engineers, the Federation of Societies of Professional Engineers, and the Associated Scientific and Technical Societies of Southern Africa. Lloyd, who has authored over 150 refereed publications, currently serves as an honorary research fellow with the Energy Research Centre at the University of Cape Town. Lloyd rejects man-made climate fears. “I have grave difficulties in finding any but the most circumstantial evidence for any human impact on the climate,” Lloyd wrote to EPW ...read more
GeorgiaCT: It's always possible to find a few dissenters: that's the nature of scientific inquiry. If you need a more credible reference for the scientific consensus, it's not hard to find. For example, on January 20th of this year, MSNBC carried a report on a survey of earth scientists containing these remarks: · "When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen...?" Ninety percent said yes. · "Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?" Eighty-two percent said yes. Among sub-groups, 97 percent of climatologists active in research agreed that humans play a role. "The debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes," the researchers stated in summarizing their findings in the journal EOS.
Ok, I agree we play some role. I do not agree we are in danger of having Greenland break apart and slip into the sea or other imminent dangers. We have plenty of time to have an adult debate and get past the political yada yada yada and do what needs to be done. The only rush is by those who would like to control more of our lives.