David and I have apparently crossed blog streams (very dangerous; never do this), but I do want to expand a bit on this basic idea: climate change skepticism has little to do with science. Rather, it is an outgrowth of the culture war.
This point seems both totally obvious and strangely unremarked. At the risk of generalizing, environmentalists tend to view climate change denialism as a top-down, money-driven phenomenon. Energy producers, auto manufacturers, oil companies, and other interested parties court politicians, buy friendly scientists, and groom armies of lawyers, lobbyists, and op-ed writers to push their agenda. Or so the theory goes. And, of course, there's a lot of merit to that theory. You don't need a compass to follow the trail of money.
But the theory only goes so far. A shrinking but significant proportion of average American citizens reject the reality of climate change. The reasons for this are surely overdetermined -- scientific confusion, media spin, hopelessness in the face of a big problem, etc. -- but it's impossible to ignore the basic cultural resentment underlying everything from Planet Gore to the regular flow of blog comments and email I get from dedicated dead-enders.
Consider that most of the large companies vested in the status quo don't themselves refute the basic reality of global warming anymore. Here's the president of Shell Oil: "We have to deal with greenhouse gases ... the debate is over. When 98 percent of scientists agree, who [can] say, 'Let's debate the science'[?]"
And here's what Sharon Begley, a science journalist at Newsweek who has written extensively on global warming, had to say when asked about the motivation of denialists:
A huge fount of opposition to the emerging science seems driven by ideology as much as, or more than, money ... After the US won the cold war, environmentalism became the new communism. It would take a better psychologist, or sociologist, than I to explain why.
So why does this matter? Why should we care about the psychology of denialism? A lot of reasons. Here are three:
- The culture war cuts both ways. Certainly some (although not all or even most) environmentalists indulge an unhealthy tendency to view corporations as the cause of all environmental problems, rather than as partners in the solution. Everyone claims that climate change isn't a left-right issue, but the rhetoric can be unintentionally revealing. At least once a week I read that oil companies and utilities "caused global warming," a formulation that neatly absolves you, me, and the rest of the planet of any responsibility for our energy use.
- Responding to cultural anxieties with scientific arguments is a recipe for battling to a draw. There are huge untapped coalitions out there -- evangelical Christians, hunters, farmers, etc. -- who could be active partners in the political battle over global warming. Money does have a very real influence on the Senate floor. The only way to overcome that influence is with an engaged and united citizenship.
- Global warming isn't the last such battle. As many have noted, we're moving from an era in which environmentalism dealt mainly with questions of protecting the natural world from mankind's influence to one in which environmentalism addresses issues of sustainable resource usage in a planet that supports 9 billion people. Global warming might be the big issue, but there are plenty of smaller issues -- water, the oceans, biodiversity, forests, etc. -- that will soon rise to the fore. I'd like to think we'll learn something from this go-round.
Climate science is older and better established than you think [VIDEO]
Senate’s chief climate denier makes Copenhagen cameo
Denialism and the power of fear
Comments
View as Flat
kenlevenson Posted 8:51 am
07 Mar 2008
as I note at http://www.checklisttowardzerocarbon.wordpress.com
with the passing of Frederick Seitz, the link between the tobacco industry and global warming denial is fundamental. it's a recurring nightmare.
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stevenearlsalmony Posted 9:31 am
07 Mar 2008
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/
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Sam Wells Posted 10:17 am
07 Mar 2008
Fact is, some people just don't want to believe in climate change. Free country I guess.
The main argument is not over whether it exists or that man-made emissions contribute to global warming, but how to finance it without ruining the economy - the economy as we know it today and not some vision created by a pot-smoking professor at Stamford (giggles and illegal smiles here). On the subject of economics most environmentalists really suck except for the few like Joe Romm who really know their beans.
And money can be a deal-breaker. If you have something like thermal heat efficiency products that save money, you will win. If you start talking about trillions in new investment you're pretty much dead in the water - Bush spent all the money already. Our economy is one stroke away from being in the morgue. Goodness knows if the economy goes so bad the foreigners might start buying our power infrastructure and doing clean technologies on their own. Who knows? We're broke.
Intellectually, we're broke too. Most all of the new technologies for doing something about clean energy (and not talking about it) come from places like Australia, Europe, and the Far East. Ah, now you're getting a clue. Taken together with byzantine laws passed over a century or so we're basically screwed because we have to undo so much just to make very simple things work. That's why we ended up with a failed ethanol strategy, after all. -sam
Onward through the fog
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randino Posted 10:33 am
07 Mar 2008
Finally it is an ideology because almost any scenario for dealing with climate change is going to involve more government regulation of the economy, and an activist public sector. And that is anathema to the American right. It is the equivalent of communism to them.
Randy Cunningham
Randy Cunningham
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JMG Posted 12:15 pm
07 Mar 2008
Certainly people who use the focus on corporations to avoid dealing with their own stuff (the many so-called environmentalists who enjoy jet travel while bashing oil companies, for example) need to do a serious reality check, but suggesting that corporations should be viewed as "partners in the solution" to our environmental crisis is just the rankest, most content-free PR sludge I've heard in a long time.
Corporations are like the spells in Disney's Sorcerer's Apprentice, far too powerful to be controlled by little Mickey once unleashed.
They can be (and many are) filled with good people who, personally, don't want to destroy the world -- but who, day in and day out, do exactly that.
The corporate form -- private profits with limited liability ... private profits without private accountability in other words ... create a dynamic where people follow orders and the net result is that the forests are felled, the fisheries are denuded of life, the mountaintops are leveled, and the atmosphere is rigged to blow like a TNT-wrapped package in a cartoon.
And, yes, that's because of our "partners" the corporations, whom the Supreme Court has elevated into superhuman status, with far greater constitutional rights than mere flesh and blood mortals; thus your constitutional rights are disappearing daily while corporations are winning limits on all responsibility and even from punitive damages (when not getting themselves exempted from ALL liability entirely, as the medical device lobby just managed). We now live in a country where we still execute people for crimes committed as children but we limit Exxon's punitive damages because an award equal to three weeks of their profits for negligent hiring and supervision of a drunken oil tanker captain piloting one of the largest vessels in the world in shallow waters is a violation of the corporations "due process" rights.
And when some trusting nuns or other pollyannas buy into the propaganda about shareholder influence and "corporate responsibility," and buy some stock and to the stockholder meetings and attempt to raise environmental issues, they are shut down faster than a whorehouse that failed to pay the police chief that month.
Show me a single case where individuals -- people acting as people or as part of non-incorporated partnerships -- have committed a single environmental crime that would even rank in the Top 1000th most serious.
You can't --- because it's in the nature of the beast that people who join corporations (totalitarian hierarchies where they have no rights) must necessarily stop applying their common sense and decency and stop acting out of concern for their home places and for people; rather, all the great environmental crimes are committed by corporations because, get this, it's CHEAPER. For every whistleblower, there are a bunch of good little soldiers who do what they're told and keep their mouths shut -- and thanks again to your corporate partners on the Supreme Court, even government employees in corrupted public agencies have no right to job protections if they warn the public about the problems--thus, only those who are ok with losing their livelihoods dare speak out (see Garcetti v. Bd. of Supervisors). Corporate employees have essentially no rights at all in our "partnerships."
Corporations are like chain-saws -- very efficient tools for special purposes ... but they sure as hell aren't "people" or "partners."
Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.
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Delay And Deny Posted 12:20 pm
07 Mar 2008
The refusal of the AGW establishment to acknowledge the NGW hypothesis shows that Gorbots refuse to argue logic...name calling is their only defense.
The Manhattan Declaration
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sunflower Posted 12:27 pm
07 Mar 2008
Right Randy, same people are also ideologically opposed to renewable energy, and have relatives that walked with dinosaurs. My arms are open. They need a hug.
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LPS Posted 12:35 pm
07 Mar 2008
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JMG Posted 2:49 pm
07 Mar 2008
Watch this great one-hour talk by historian Naomi Oreskes -- not only does it do a terrific job recapping the science of climate change (with its much older roots than most people realize) but she also firmly locates the denialist position in the outcrop of the other great scientific fantasy of our time, the "Star Wars" missile defense boondoggle.
This is a fascinating, sobering talk, showing (among other things) just how the press failed to understand or to detect that even people with PhDs could intentionally attack science for political purposes (rooted in fealty to "free market capitalism" -- corporatism, in other words) and what that failure has cost us.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T4UF_Rmlio
Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.
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stevenearlsalmony Posted 11:02 pm
07 Mar 2008
Is it somehow harmful to ask direct questions regarding good scientific evidence of the potential for either apocalyptic climate change or pernicious impacts from the rapidly growing, colossal presence of the human species on Earth?
Is there some reasonable, sensible or moral foundation upon which faithful scientists can stand upright and say, "I refuse to speak of the evidence I have carefully and skillfully obtained?"
Are willful blindness, hysterical deafness or elective mutism ever acceptable "defenses" for scientists who choose to deny evidence developed from good science?
Are scientists who present good evidence of climate change and human population dynamics, even though their research is plainly unforeseen and surely unwelcome, entitled to have their evidence openly discussed by professional colleagues with established expertise?
If the global challenges looming before humanity are as formidable as the best available scientific evidence indicates, then is the family of humanity not well-advised to begin widely sharing in open discussions in the mass media, not just in blogs like this one, what is to be done in order to avoid whatsoever is unmanageable, while managing and mitigating everything else?
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/
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odograph Posted 12:29 am
08 Mar 2008
That said, the culture war description might be a fair. Even if deniers are anti-intellectual, they aren't the only ones. Environmental opposition to natural gas terminals (while we still burn coal) was not too intellectual.
So I kinda agree, but I think that there is more than a left-right war in the AGW thing. I think it is, very sadly, a culture war against science and knowledge.
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Russ Posted 12:53 am
08 Mar 2008
What I consider nefarious about corporations like ExxonMobil and General Motors is not that they lie to and manipulate the people (although they do that too), but that they play to and encourage and enable the people's worst impulses, their most destructive and wasteful qualities and tendencies. They don't try to make the people better; they try to make them worse.
One other point, on "battling to a draw" the disinformers (which Romm term I think is just right and should be adopted) - a draw is of course all they want and need. Like the con side in a formal debate, those who want the status quo don't have to "win", they only have to prevent their opponent from winning. Each year which passes with no significant mitigation measures taken is an extension of the de facto victory they've been winning since the late 80's.
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StillSkeptical Posted 1:22 am
08 Mar 2008
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amazingdrx Posted 2:17 am
08 Mar 2008
Think back before the 60s. Back to McCarthy. The wing nut talking heads of our day try to paint McCarthy as a hero.
Lest environmentalists consider ourselves picked on, think back to whole towns hung as witches in the dark ages. Mass cat killing, because they were thought to be "familiars' of witches, that caused the rat and flea population to infest the human population with the black plague.
This stuff has always gone on. A battle between those who worship conformity, authority, and fear, and those who embrace nature and individual rights. The blood thirsty mob, proudly ignorant and sadistic, against those who embrace the joy of living.
Don't let the historically naive paint this battle as the hippies versus the limboobs. It is larger than that. The mob is ancient, passed down generation to generation.
4 year olds in klan sheets, 12 year olds with ak-47s in child armies, teenage suicide bombers, preteens playing violent video games hour after hour in the millions, salivating to join the patriotic armies of bushco and the exxonmob. The difference now is that corporate power and technology have given the violent side a new platform.
A global mass media propaganda machine designed to enhance the power and profit behind the modern hate/fear themes. Don't get "Left Behind" kids, killing for jesus is cool.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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davedenali Posted 4:12 am
08 Mar 2008
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davedenali Posted 4:33 am
08 Mar 2008
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StillSkeptical Posted 4:58 am
08 Mar 2008
Convinced about what? That I need to be alarmed?
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odograph Posted 6:04 am
08 Mar 2008
I'm curious as to your reaction to it StillSkeptical.
Ah! I've got this Royal Society page as well.
Oh, and my favorite chat by the President of the US National Academy of Science
Who should I believe, all those or what is increasingly a minority postion only defended on the back pages of web-blogs?
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odograph Posted 6:06 am
08 Mar 2008
But there might be some prudent and moderate steps to take to mitigate future harm.
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human power Posted 6:12 am
08 Mar 2008
Environmentalists, by and large, do just as much damage as Bubba, they just feel guilty about some of it and blame the system for the rest.
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StillSkeptical Posted 6:37 am
08 Mar 2008
"But there might be some prudent and moderate steps to take to mitigate future harm."
Yeah, like be prudent and moderate, and stop saying the debate is over.
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odograph Posted 7:18 am
08 Mar 2008
The thing is, it has retreated from the halls of science, and now finds its way to the back pages of comment threads at web-blogs ;-)
If someone pops up and says 'water vapor!' here, does that mean the debate is not over?
BTW Human Power, I certainly recognize a single plan for "inaction" and a constellation of plans for "action." It's a bit of the old false dichotomy to describe that as a two-sided coin, certainly.
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Erik Hoffner Posted 9:01 am
08 Mar 2008
Erik
The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more
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enki09 Posted 7:25 pm
08 Mar 2008
Terraforming links:
http://www.astrobiology.com/terraforming.html
http://www.howstuffworks.com/terraforming.htm
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/070623_mars_terrafo ...
Finally, this simple description of what it would take to Terraform a world like Mars sounds almost exactly like what we are doing on the Earth today: http://quest.nasa.gov/mars/background/terra2.html
In other words, if we established a colony on Mars that used Chlorofluorocarbon aerosols and burned fossil fuels, the expected effect would be that the composition of the atmosphere there would be altered and the planet would become warm and livable. But the skeptics argue that duplicating the same process on Earth will have absolutely no effect here. It just doesn't make sense either scientifically or logically.
http://www.myspace.com/enki09
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Biodiversivist Posted 11:31 pm
08 Mar 2008
Many years ago, when I began reading in the lay press about an impending ice age I was concerned but optimistically leery that the reports were just more attention grabbing stories from a profit driven media. Turns out that my skepticism was warranted.
When I began reading in the lay press about global warming I was also optimistically leery-- skeptical. Non-critical acceptance of studies presented for our entertainment by the lay press and television entertainment industry is a dumb way to obtain knowledge, but it is how the vast majority of Americans educate themselves (or fail to) after leaving school. Al Gore's presentation was an attempt to educate Americans via the media they sit in front of night after night.
That was a long time ago. Global warming is very real. The potential ramifications are horrendous. The odds that some of those potentials (tipping points) will come to fruition are high. The ice is melting. Can we do anything about it? Won't know till we try. By trying we can accelerate development of renewable energy technology and efficiency which may eventually help mitigate rising energy costs and the costs they will impose on economies. We need to do that anyway because we are finally running out of oil and continue to wipe biodiversity from the face of the planet.
We human beings instinctively form up into warring parties on every topic imaginable. The debate will never end, but at least for now my children are not learning creationism in their science classes. Global warming is scary and lots of people deal with scary subjects by closing their eyes and covering their ears. That will never change.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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bigTom Posted 6:28 am
09 Mar 2008
Another thing that has happened, is that a parties reputation gets tied up with the issues they have supported/opposed in the past. Republicans are acutely aware that a belief in AGW, will tend to push a person to be more favorable to the Democrats, and away from the Republicans. Thus they are heavily invested in the issue, not just by financial arrangements with industry, but also with the way the average voter sees them.
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enki09 Posted 8:58 am
09 Mar 2008
At that point I would ask the two sides to admit that their main differences lie in the question of whether or not observed Climate Change is the result of human activity. Both sides should agree that this is the main difference in their opinions.
I would then suggest that the only way to really prove this is for us to ban the burning of all types of fossil fuels on a worldwide basis for a period of time that is roughly equal to the time that has elapsed since the beginning of the industrial age (perhaps 160 years or so).
If we go through this period and the CO2 levels in the atmosphere stay constant and the world continues to warm then the Climate Change Skeptics will be proven right and we can resume the use of fossil fuels. If the world slowly returns to the climate we are used to and CO2 levels diminish then the Climate Change believers are correct.
In the meantime, so we can set this experiment up, it will be necessary to rapidly develop and implement non-polluting, renewable energy sources throughout the entire planet so that we can totally replace fossil fuels for the duration of the experiment period. Since this is the only way to scientifically settle this argument with 100% accuracy I am sure that both climate skeptics and believers will support my experiment with equal enthusiasm because all of us apparently want the same answers. :)
http://www.myspace.com/enki09
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David Nicholson Posted 2:22 pm
09 Mar 2008
Anyone who disagreed with the Nuclear Winter "consensus" was deemed anti-intellectual. After all, "they" elected Reagan. Only the addled minded could possibly disagree with the likes of Carl Sagan when he asserted that there would be "a year without a Summer" if the Kuwaiti oil fields were to be set ablaze. Likely the ocean's phyto-plankton would die off and throw us into a death sprial.
Why would any sane person listen to any doom scenario proposed by the self identified political left without skepticism? They have been wrong about so much in the past. Wrong and cocksure and arrogant and condescending.
I sit here paying $.38 a kwh for electricity, absolutely certain that if AGW were truly a concern, Al Gore would be insisting that we embark upon the "moral equivalent of war" and race to build nuclear power plants. Eliminate coal and oil from the grid. Provide clean power for plug-in hybrid cars. Zero emissions for more and more miles. Cut my electric bill by 2/3. The rational know that wind and solar and geothermal and hemp oil are not the answer. I would love to give OPEC the finger.
But sadly, AGW is not about climate change at all. It is a political movement. It is embarrassing to see so many intelligent, well meaning folks reduced to "useful idiot" status by Big Climate.
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David Nicholson Posted 2:47 pm
09 Mar 2008
We can have dam busting parties all over the country. Tear down the hawk-killing wind turbine eyesores.
(This will smoke out those who really don't care about the climate, they just hate America and think everyone should live in a perpetual state of Woodstockdom. They think Burning Man should be on the UN Security Council. If Marxism and marijauna are on your top ten solutions to AGW list...you know I am talking about you.)
*requires waste disposal, but AGW is far worse and no one will argue when they get their low electric bill.
Sadly, this isn't about the climate.
It is about money. "Climate Change" is the "Global Islamic Terror" of the left. They deny terrorism is an issue and see it as a cynical money grab by the Military-Inbushtrial complex...using fear to separate the slack-jawed masses from their tax dollars. Yet they are absofreakingly certain that the monster in THEIR closet is REAL!
Despite my sarcastic tone...I am serious. We need nuclear power. Be like France.
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Pangolin Posted 5:44 pm
09 Mar 2008
The first and most important truth about nuclear or fusion power is that it produces heat inside a greenhouse (the atmosphere). Mostly it produces that heat too quickly to be useful. Remember the atmosphere is hot enough already that we are seeing feedback effects leading to more overheating.
So ignoring the ore mining issue and ignoring the nuclear waste issue, and ignoring the proliferation issue, nuclear power, if it were perfectly clean would proliferate and be used to directly overheat the planet. Using ideal, fast-breeder reactor technology I could see humans using nuclear power to steam-heat sidewalks and greenhouses in Toronto in the winter like they do in Greenland. The heat would be almost free, right?
Wrong. The heat would upset the thermal balance of the atmosphere in the same way that Global Warming would upset the thermal balance of the atmosphere. It could take longer to do it but the result would be the same. If you leave the light on 24/7 in the terrarium the turtle dies.
The second, also nasty, effect of nuclear power is that nuclear power promotes fascist governments. After all, if a population gets uppity you can just turn the plant off on a very hot, or very cold day. Then you tell Governor Davis to accede to your demands while your PR people muddy the waters. Or the Ukraine. Whatever, you get the point, concentrated power sources concentrate political power. The laws of physics make it hard to politically dominate a solar powered populace and easy to dominate a nuclear powered one.
A third but not final objection is the "limits to growth" argument. If a species has a relatively rare input, a mineral or food source, that limits species expansion overuse of that resource quickly results in an early stop to population overshoot. If the species finds and alternative resource that is plentiful it's population will grow until it hits the next limiter. The human race is facing multiple resource limiters to the growth of the species population.
An influx of cheap power now could result in a much more lethal resource limiter engaging later. The survivors will not thank us for leaving them with a world where we have destroyed much of our heritage of biological diversity just as we have depleted all the easy sources of energy and minerals.
So you can take your nuclear reactors and shove 'em. They're too expensive in the short run and in the long run they just make things worse. No thanks.
Put the Carbon Back
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David Nicholson Posted 7:27 am
10 Mar 2008
Does changing the albedo of that much land have no consequence?
If this is really about Climate Change as opposed to the furthering of a political ideology, then you would consider the benefits of all possible solutions.
But that isn't what AGW is really about, is it?
You have already established that you don't want cheap power. In other words, you have decided how I should live. You already politically dominate me. I pay $.38 a kwh based upon the progressive rate scheme you support. Who is the fascist? You shut down our local nuclear plant 20 years early based upon a Hollywood movie. Not science.
The number of humans the planet can support is determined by our ability to adapt and solve complex problems. Not by tyrants like yourself. You come from a long line of discredited, misguided genocidal lunatics. Malthus. Sanger. Carlson. Tens of millions dead in their wake.
So, limiting the number of people on the planet is your real goal. Are you going to start with the brown ones?
It doesn't take much to ferret out the real motivation behind your views.
You need to learn how to lie like Al Gore. He never admits that he wants less brown people because they absorb too much sunlight and heat the atmosphere.
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frankbi Posted 2:44 pm
10 Mar 2008
Why yes, a Great Worldwide Satanic Conspiracy of a bunch of leftists headed by somehow managed to con the climate scientists of the entire world -- from China to India, from Brazil to Canada -- into pushing this "Gorebal Warming" crap.
The IPCC, Hansen, Lockwood, Frolich, Peterson, Oreskes, etc. -- they're all henchmen and hirelings of Al "Fat Al Bore the Great Satan who worships Gaia" Gore!
Who woulda thunk?
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Fireshadow Posted 5:03 am
16 Mar 2008
Here's an answer to ALL of their objections and lame uninformed arguments:
The latest consensus of Deniers of Global WArming : (Note that NONE of these "experts" talking in this video are actually Climate Scientists!) "Heartland Institute"
Do you go to a foot doctor for brain surgery? Do you go to a brain surgeon for heart surgery? No, of course not. You go to the experts in their field of expertise.
What these Deniers keep repeating and trying to convince us of, has already been proven false.
Also, don't get hung up on the name "Global Warming." Extreme climate change is more complicated than that, but let the real experts explain it:
The Real Climate Scientists.
The "400" fake climate scientists that deny global climate change, and who they are in detail.
ANy more questions?
Follow my show: Global Climate Update
on www.storytoday.com
... and coming soon to: globalclimateupdate.com
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StillSkeptical Posted 11:53 am
18 Mar 2008
http://climatedebatedaily.com/
http://climatesci.org/
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/
http://www.climateaudit.org/
http://icecap.us/
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