Bill McKibben who works at Middlebury College and is involved with 350.org has written a fine and detailed article on the why's and how comes of the global warming deniers and their power of persuasion.
He points out that they use the tactic of attacking the process not the evidence, and the evidence is so abundant that within those millions of pages of documents, a single paper can be taken and used by the deniers to amazing effect.
I've quoted liberally from the article and I suspect Mr. McKibben will forgive me.
Alternet: How the Mountain of Climate Change Evidence Is Being Used to Undermine the Cause
...no GOP presidential contender would now dream of acknowledging that human beings are warming the planet.
...you could fill the Superdome with climate-change research data...
Every major scientific body in the world has produced reports confirming the peril. All 15 of the warmest years on record have come in the two decades that have passed since 1989.
...virtually every glacier on the planet is, in fact, busily melting.
The climate deniers come with a few built-in advantages. Thanks to Exxon Mobil and others with a vested interest in debunking climate-change research, their “think tanks” have plenty of money, none of which gets wasted doing actual research to disprove climate change. It’s also useful for a movement to have its own TV network, Fox, though even more crucial to the denial movement are a few rightwing British tabloids which validate each new “scandal” and put it into media play.
Their (climate change deniers) success can be credited significantly to the way they tap into the main currents of our politics of the moment with far more savvy and power than most environmentalists can muster. They’ve understood the popular rage at elites. They’ve grasped the widespread feelings of powerlessness in the U.S., and the widespread suspicion that we’re being ripped off by mysterious forces beyond our control.
Anyone who works seriously on the science soon realizes that we know more than enough to start taking action, but less than we someday will.
By the way, if you think there’s a scam underway, you’re right -- and to figure it out just track the money going in campaign contributions to the politicians doing the bidding of the energy companies. Inhofe, the igloo guy? Over a million dollars from energy and utility companies and executives in the last two election cycles. You think Al Gore is going to make money from green energy? Check out what you get for running an oil company.
2 comments:
The deniers have on their side the desire on the part of most of us to NOT have to change our life styles. Add to it a deep Recession and no $$ to do it and you have part of the reason why they're winning. In the end though Mother nature couldn't care less what these morons say and what we don't do.
Gradually human activity will change, hopefully in time, and as you say nature will run its course regardless.
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