Green Options » global warming deniers

Climate Trends Trump ‘Silly Season’

Shirley Siluk Gregory — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 21:22:29 +0000

I’m really looking forward to summer, and not just because I’m the warm-weather type. This past winter’s snow and cold — and yes, we’ve had some unseasonably cool weather even in Florida, where I live — has filled the global warming deniers with more hot air than you’ll find in Bill O’Reilly’s sauna, and it’s time for the silliness to end.

There’s so much glee and gloating in the deniers’ headlines: “Central Plank of Global Warming Alarmism Discredited” (referring to MIT researcher Kerry Emanuel’s recent finding that climate change might not result in more and stronger hurricanes), “Uncommon Cold is an Antidote to Warming Fears” (it’s been cold this winter, hasn’t it?), “Global Warming Gets the Cold Freeze” (ditto). Yup, a budget crunch for snow-removal in Chicago and cold iguanas falling from trees in Florida sure proves all those hundreds of silly IPCC scientists wrong.

Global Warming? Not This Winter

Max Lindberg — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 18:53:21 +0000

The headlines are out, 1966 was the last time North America and much of Siberia have seen so much snow.

An article in Canada’s National Post summarized weather around the northern hemisphere and concluded that arctic ice is back, heavier than ever in some areas, and China is reeling from its worst winter in a century.

Of course, it doesn’t mean global warming is a non-entity, nor does it mean we’re headed for a mini ice-age. The author, Lorne Gunter, took a swipe at environmentalists this way:

“Ok, so one winter does not a climate make. It would be premature to claim an Ice Age is looming just because we have had one of our most brutal winters in decades.

But if environmentalists and environment reporters can run around shrieking about the manmade destruction of the natural order every time a robin shows up on Geeorgian Bay two weeks early, then it is at least fair game to use this winter’s weather stories to wonder whether the alarmist are being a tad premature.”

Newsweek Takes On Global Warming “Deniers”

Kelli Best-Oliver — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 14:15:27 +0000

Imagine my shock when I opened my mailbox to find the latest issue of Newsweek sporting a fire-glowing orb and the headline "Global Warming is a Hoax.*" It’s hard to believe (particularly for the GO family) that there are still people who deny that climate change is happening and caused by humans. With the influx of pro-green exposure in the media, many greens saw this past year as the tipping point in awareness and activism on global warming. Yet, "deniers" still exist, and Newsweek’s cover story (complete with tongue-in-cheek headline) aims to track the foundations of the denial movement, the major players behind it, and the motivations behind the well-coordinated effort to keep the American public doubting that global warming is real. (That asterisk? It noted "Or so claim well-funded naysayers who still reject the overwhelming evidence of climate change.")

"They patterned what they did after the tobacco industry," says former senator Tim Worth, quoted early in the article. The key tactic? Creating doubt in the minds of both policymakers and the public by disputing the science behind global warming. As soon as then-senator Al Gore brought global warming to Washington’s attention in 1988, groups with benign names such as the Global Climate Coalition and the Information Council on the Environment, which were actually lobbyist groups from the petroleum, steel, auto, and utilities companies, began an all-out war to contradict the overwhelming body of science that supported global warming.

The rhetoric changed as the science supporting global warming grew more and more conclusive. It started with "the science behind global warming is wrong", moved to "global warming is happening, but it is not the fault of humans", and ended with the current denier mantra, "global warming is happening, and we may be causing it, but it’s effects are hardly anything to worry about."

Also impossible to ignore in the article is the amount of money and power changing hands between lobbying groups, policymakers, and scientists. One Exxon-Mobil-backed group has offered $10,000 to scientists willing to speak out against global warming. And that might be what’s so depressing about the "deniers": it seems that from day one, their motives were entirely based on the acquisition or preservation of money and power. As Gore demonstrated in a graphic in An Inconvenient Truth, what’s more important: bars of gold, or the entire planet?

The article is fascinating and puts a face (and clear strategy) on the campaign against the planet. This issue of Newsweek is on newsstands now, and the entire article can be found on Newsweek’s website.