The NYT Friday writes this must read piece of reporting on how the corporate climate change deniers came to ignore their own internal review panel — who wrote:
“The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied,” the experts wrote in an internal report compiled for the coalition in 1995.
Instead of listening to their scientific experts, the industries and industry associations most affected by being associated with the causes of climate change banded together to create a massive PR and disinformation campaign. That campaign spent years and huge amounts of money to do nothing more than to create a sense among the public that the real work of scientists and engineers actually studying this issues was illegitimate. And they did this by creating the “scientists differ” narrative:
“The role of greenhouse gases in climate change is not well understood,” the coalition said in a scientific “backgrounder” provided to lawmakers and journalists through the early 1990s, adding that “scientists differ” on the issue.
And that narrative was supported by a huge machine that provided prepared talking points as well as prepared pundits ready to sit with the media who inexplicably persisted with their so-called “objectivity” on this subject. A stance that has nothing to do with facts and how science is done, and a stance hat these deniers — even as their coalition has fallen apart (even XOM thinks that climate change is real now). That need to pretend to some objectivity has placed some of the best scientists we have in opposition to alchemists.
Friday, Vice President Al Gore testified about climate change in Congress (video coming up), and pointedly compared the climate change deniers (we’re lookin’ at you, Barton) to Bernie Madoff. The deniers are perpetuating a massive sham designed to try to kick the can down the road on even thinking about the effects of climate change, much less effort to mitigate it.