How
the 'science' behind 'skeptical environmentalists' denial of global
warming can be traced to a typo, the rantings of an architect, and the
conspiracy theories of Lyndon Larouche.
I've written before about our propensity and desire to be seduced by false comforts. We really
want to believe what we really want to believe. And, damn it, if the
facts don't fit with our existing frames, beliefs and worldviews, well
then change them, or ignore them, or find some that do.
Nowhere is this all too human tendency more evident than in deniers of
crisis. We would rather bury our heads in the sand than believe a
catastrophe is imminent. Every time a tyrant has plunged his people
into horrific oppression or a megalomaniac has launched a brutal war
against his neighbours in the quest of global dominion, thousands of
normally bright, responsible people have shrugged it off as an
exaggeration, an overstatement, a misrepresentation. "No one could ever
treat their people as badly as some allege Stalin is doing"; "No one
has anything to fear from Joe McCarthy unless they're done something
illegal." "It's just a correction, the market will bounce back by
1930", We were tacitly complicit in the atrocities of Nazi Germany,
Rwanda, and now in Darfur because we just didn't, and don't, want to
know how bad it is. It's upsetting, it's overwhelming, and it doesn't
jibe with our parochial, rosy view of human nature. For every chance to
avert catastrophe with prompt and decisive action, there have been
armies of deniers, "do-nothing" advocates, tellers of Chicken Little
stories, working furiously to thwart action, usually successfully.
One of the latest examples of this phenomenon has been the denial of
global warming and the rise of so-called 'skeptical environmentalists'
(not actually environmentalists at all, but shills for corporatist
mega-polluters, dupes and paid lackeys for others with a vested
interest in sweeping environmental problems under the rug). There is a
huge and organized effort underway to try to play into our desire to be
seduced by false comforts on the environment. It is well bankrolled and
very successful. And the media play along witlessly: Far be it for them
to report on an issue the public apparently doesn't want to hear about.
In a recent article in the Guardian entitled Junk Science, George Monbiot shows exactly how it works. Please read this article in its entirety. Here's the punchline:
It is hard to convey just how
selective you have to be to dismiss the evidence for climate change.
You must climb over a mountain of evidence to pick up a crumb: a crumb
which then disintegrates in your palm. You must ignore an entire canon
of science, the statements of the world’s most eminent scientific
institutions, and thousands of papers published in the foremost
scientific journals. You must, if you are David Bellamy, embrace
instead the claims of an eccentric former architect, which are based on
what appears to be a non-existent data set. And you must do all this
while calling yourself a scientist.
The dupes in this case include UK botanist David Bellamy (influential
president of the Conservation Foundation, the Wildlife Trusts,
Plantlife International and the British Naturalists’ Association), as
well as New Scientist magazine and the Washington Post. The 'sources'
of the data allegedly counter-indicating global warming include a
huckster architect self-promoting a book on a new ice age, and wacko
conspiracy theorist, hate-monger and US wingnut presidential candidate
Lyndon Larouche. Once a few 'respectable' dupes have been set up, the
corporatist spin machine goes into overdrive, citing and reciting them,
until the virus has spread so far that attempts to attack it are
fruitless.
The neocon Bush administration has purged itself of responsible
scientists and replaced them with deniers, an essential prerequisite to
maintaining 'plausible deniability'. A recent survey
by UCS indicates that new corporatist bosses in environment branches of
US government are ordering employees to falsify and suppress reports
and ignore regulations to sustain this deniability. This is nothing
more than cynical exploitation of the public's desire not to know.
And meanwhile, corporatist mega-polluters like the huge Koch Industries
(the second largest private corporation in the US) use puppet
think-tanks, lobbying and huge campaign donations to get their massive
environmental crimes settled
out of court without criminal charges, and to get the environmental
laws they routinely violate overturned, or at least unenforced. These
crimes involve hundreds of cases of poisoning of our water and our air
with tons of carcinogens and toxins, and the subversion of laws and
justice that would put these criminals behind bars where they belong.
Never heard of Koch? That's OK, you don't want to know. And corporatist shills (you don't want to know who's behind them, and they won't tell you who they are) will tell you that it's all right, these chemicals aren't really bad for you, and they have just the junk science to support their claims. Don't you feel better now?
Cartoon by Tom Toles in the Washington Post
|
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
