Climate Denial

+++'''There is ''overwhelming'' scientific consensus that greenhouse gases emitted by human activity are causing global average temperatures to rise.'''+++

:+++Conservative think tanks are trying to undermine this conclusion with a disinformation campaign+++ '''employing “reports” designed to look like a counterbalance to peer-reviewed studies, skeptic propaganda masquerading as journalism, and events like the AEI luncheon that Crichton addressed [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Enterprise_Institute#Global_warming].'''

]]] ~~Text from [http://www.sourcewatch.org sourcewatch] and [http://www.motherjones.com motherjones]~~ ]]]

#MAGIC Videx q="denial OR ExxonMobil"

=== [http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2005/05/some_like_it_hot.html Some Like It Hot] : ===

The think tanks provide both intellectual cover for those who reject what the best science currently tells us, and ammunition for conservative policymakers like [Videx:inhofe Senator James Inhofe (R)], the chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, who calls global warming “a hoax.”

This concerted effort reflects the shared convictions of free-market, and thus antiregulatory, conservatives. But there’s another factor at play. In addition to being supported by like-minded individuals and ideologically sympathetic foundations, '''these groups are funded by <no>ExxonMobil,</no> the world’s largest oil company.'''

...

The concept of global warming didn’t enter the public consciousness until the 1980s. During a sweltering summer in '''1988''', pioneering NASA climatologist [Videx:James+Hansen James Hansen] famously told Congress he believed with “99 percent confidence” that a long-term warming trend had begun, probably caused by the greenhouse effect. As environmentalists and some in Congress began to call for reduced emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, industry fought back.

In '''1989''', the petroleum and automotive industries and the National Association of Manufacturers forged the [http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Global_Climate_Coalition Global Climate Coalition] to oppose mandatory actions to address global warming. Exxon—later <no>ExxonMobil</no>—was a leading member, as was the American Petroleum Institute, a trade organization for which Exxon’s CEO Lee Raymond has twice served as chairman. “They were a strong player in the Global Climate Coalition, as were many other sectors of the economy,” says former GCC spokesman Frank Maisano.

Drawing upon a cadre of skeptic scientists, during the early and mid-1990s the GCC sought to emphasize the uncertainties of climate science and attack the mathematical models used to project future climate changes. The group and its proxies challenged the need for action on global warming, called the phenomenon natural rather than man-made, and even flatly denied it was happening.

'''[http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Global_Climate_Coalition GCC]''': Prior to its disbanding in early '''2002''', it collaborated extensively with a network that included industry trade associations, "property rights" groups affiliated with the anti-environmental Wise Use movement, and ''fringe groups such as Sovereignty International, which believes that '''+++global warming is a plot to enslave the world under a United Nations-led "world government.+++"'''''

=== [http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=ExxonMobil#Exxon.27s_funding_of_climate_skeptics Exxon's funding of climate skeptics] : ===

A study by the US Union of Concerned Scientists [http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/ExxonMobil-GlobalWarming-tobacco.html] reports that '''<no>ExxonMobil</no> funded 29 climate change denial groups in 2004 alone.''' Since 1990, the report says, the company has spent more than $19 million funding groups that promote their views through publications and Web sites that are not peer reviewed by the scientific community.

See [http://exxonsecrets.org/html/listorganizations.php exxonsecrets.org] for fact-sheets on funding recipients.

'''During 2002, <no>ExxonMobil</no> donated $5.6 million to public policy organizations which share its agenda, either on climate change denial or general extreme free market advocacy.''' These included:

* Acton Institute, ($30,000)

* American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research ($200,000)

* Atlas Economic Research Foundation ($50,000)

* Cato Institute ($30,000)

* Center for Strategic and International Studies ($145,000)

* Committee for Economic Development ($75,000)

* Competitive Enterprise Institute ($405,000)

* Foundation for American Communications ($175,000)

* '''Frontiers of Freedom ($233,000)'''

* George C. Marshall Foundation (90,000)

* Reason Foundation ($50,000)

In October 2006, two US Senators, Olympia Snowe, (R-Maine), and Jay Rockefeller, (D-W.Va.) wrote to <no>ExxonMobil's</no> chairman and CEO Rex W. Tillerson, asking that it "end any further financial assistance" to groups "whose public advocacy has contributed to the small but unfortunately effective climate change denial myth." The Senators singled out the Competitive Enterprise Institute and <no>TechCentralStation</no> as such groups. They wrote that '''"we are convinced that <no>ExxonMobil's</no> long-standing support of a small cadre of global climate change skeptics, and those skeptics' access to and influence on government policymakers, have made it increasingly difficult for the United States to demonstrate the moral clarity it needs across all facets of its diplomacy".'''

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"'''97–98% of the climate researchers''' most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC (Wikipedia:Anthropogenic_Climate_Change) outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change"--~~''[http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/06/04/1003187107.full.pdf+html Expert credibility in climate change] ^PDF^''~~

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,, Example ===

<ul>

[[[ +++"'''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_climate_change_science There is OVERWHELMING scientific consensus that greenhouse gases emitted by human activity are causing global average temperatures to rise.]''' Conservative think tanks are trying to undermine this conclusion with a disinformation campaign employing “reports” designed to look like a counterbalance to peer-reviewed studies & skeptic propaganda masquerading as journalism."+++--[http://motherjones.com/environment/2005/05/some-it-hot Some Like It Hot] ]]]

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"The debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely __'''nonexistent'''__ among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes."--~~''[http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change] ^PDF^''~~

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;'''++[http://motherjones.com/special-reports/2009/12/dirty-dozen-climate-change-denial The Dirty Dozen of acronym for the International Climate and Environmental Change Denial]++''':A guide to the loudest components of global warming skeptics. The Web site domain name for ICECAP was registered on October 20, 2006 by...another organization that promotes the climate disinformation machine. warming skeptics that is backed by the Frontiers of Freedom.

;'''+++[http://motherjones.com/politics/2005/05/put-tiger-your-think-tank 40 public policy groups]+++''':Seek to undermine the scientific consensus that humans are causing the earth to overheat and they all get money from '''<no>ExxonMobil</no>'''.

;'''[http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Exxon-Funded_Skeptics Exxon-Funded Skeptics]''':The Exxon corporation has long been involved Frontiers of Freedom (FF) was founded in creating confusion regarding global warming and the creation and funding of Global warming skeptics.

;'''[http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/polluterwatch/koch-industries/ Koch Industries: Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine]''':The Koch brothers, their family members, and their employees direct a web of financing that supports conservative special interest groups and think-tanks, with a strong focus on fighting environmental regulation, opposing clean energy legislation, and easing limits on industrial pollution.

;'''[http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/04/inside-kochs-climate-denial-machine Inside Koch's Climate Denial Machine]''':Koch's extensive funding of anti-climate work makes it the financial kingpin Times: "Frontiers of climate science denial and clean energy opposition. budget, received $230,000 from Exxon in 2002, up from $40,000 in 2001, according to Exxon documents”.

<big>

<news feed="exxon"> President of FF told the New York Times: “They've determined that we are effective at what we do”, He said Exxon essentially took the attitude, “We like to make it possible to do more of that”.

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#MAGIC Videx q="denial OR ExxonMobil OR (Inconvenient Truth 2)" from the following five conservative foundations:

<big>,,

'''[http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Earhart_Foundation Earhart Foundation]''':

The Earhart Foundation is a foundation that funds research and scholarship. The foundation, according to Right Web, 'was active in the 1980s supporting burgeoning '''conservative think tanks''' like the American Enterprise Institute, which became a prominent source of ideas and people for the Reagan administration.

'''[http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=John_M._Olin_Foundation John M. Olin Foundation]''':

In 2001, the Foundation expended $20,482,961 to fund '''right-wing think tanks''' including the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the Brookings Institution, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the Heritage Foundation, the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, the Hudson Institute, the Independent Women's Forum, the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University, the Manhattan Institute for Public Policy Research, and the [http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Project_for_the_New_American_Century Project for the New American Century (PNAC)].

'''[http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Lynde_and_Harry_Bradley_Foundation Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation]''':

Bradley supports the organizations and individuals that promote the '''deregulation of business, the rollback of virtually all social welfare programs, and the privitization of government services.''' As a result, the list of Bradley grant recipients reads like a Who's Who of the U.S. Right ... Heritage Foundation ... Madison Center for Educational Affairs ... American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, literary home for such racist authors as Charles Murray (The Bell Curve) and Dinesh D'Souza (The End of Racism), former conservative officeholders Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, Jack Kemp and William J. Bennett, and arch-conservative jurists Robert H. Bork and Antonin Scalia....

"Other Bradley grantees include ... Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace; and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation" ... Potomac Foundation and Encounter Books.

'''[http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Sarah_Scaife_Foundation Sarah Mellon Scaife Foundation/Carthage Foundation]''':

The Scaife Foundations consist of the Sarah Mellon Scaife Foundation, the Carthage Foundation, the Allegheny Foundation and the Scaife Family Foundation. All four have been heavily involved in '''financing conservative causes''' under the direction of reclusive billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, whose wealth was inherited from the Mellon industrial, '''oil,''' uranium and banking fortune.

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"'''Climate change denial''' has been so effective because the [Local:Ingenious_Ways_To_Avoid_Believing_Climate_Change “denial community”] has mischaracterized the necessarily guarded language of serious scientific dialogue as vagueness and uncertainty. Mainstream media outlets, attacked for being biased, help lend credence to skeptics’ views, regardless of their scientific integrity, by giving them relatively equal standing with legitimate scientists. <no>ExxonMobil</no> is responsible for much of this bogus scientific “debate” and the demand for what the deniers cynically refer to as “sound science.”--~~~[http://snowe.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=9acba744-802a-23ad-47be-2683985c724e Senators Demand that the World’s Largest Oil Maker Make Public Its History of Funding Climate Change “Skeptics”]~~~

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=== Fact ===

"The atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO~~^^2^^~~) and methane (CH~~^^4^^~~) have increased by 31% and 149% respectively since the beginning of the industrial revolution in the mid-1700s. These levels are considerably higher than at any time during the last 650,000 years, the period for which reliable data has been extracted from ice cores. From less direct geological evidence it is believed that CO~~^^2^^~~ values this high were last attained 20 million years ago. Fossil fuel burning has produced approximately three-quarters of the increase in CO~~^^2^^~~ from human activity over the past 20 years. Most of the rest is due to land-use change, in particular deforestation."--[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Global_warming&oldid=235298662#Greenhouse_gases_in_the_atmosphere Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere]

"Current annual emissions from fossil fuel burning and cement production are estimated to be around 100 times greater than average annual volcanic emissions of CO~~^^2^^~~. That large Videx:volcanoes cannot significantly perturb the CO~~^^2^^~~ concentration of the atmosphere is apparent from the ice core and atmospheric record of CO~~^^2^^~~ concentrations, which shows a steady rise during the industrial period, with no unusual changes after large eruptions."--[http://www.antarctica.ac.uk//about_bas/news/news_story.php?id=178 BAS Statement about Channel 4 programme on Global Warming]

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=== References ===

*http://www.sourcewatch.org

*http://www.motherjones.com

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"'''<no>ExxonMobil</no> has spent more than $19 million since the late 1990s on a strategy of “information laundering,”''' or enabling a small number of professional skeptics working through scientific-sounding organizations to funnel their viewpoints through non-peer-reviewed websites...The Internet has provided <no>ExxonMobil</no> the means to wreak its havoc on U.S. credibility, while avoiding the rigors of refereed journals. While deniers can easily post something calling into question the scientific consensus on climate change, not a single refereed article in more than a decade has sought to refute it. Indeed, while the group of outliers funded by <no>ExxonMobil</no> has had some success in the court of public opinion, it has failed miserably in confusing, much less convincing, the legitimate scientific community."--~~~[http://snowe.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=9acba744-802a-23ad-47be-2683985c724e Senators Demand that the World’s Largest Oil Maker Make Public Its History of Funding Climate Change “Skeptics”]~~~

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,, Related ===

<news feed="ucsgw">

<news feed="skeptical"> an inclusive term to describe any characteristic that acts as a barrier to cognitive performance.

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,, in everyday language, is a fixed belief that is either false, fanciful, or derived from deception. Psychiatry defines the term more specifically as a belief that is pathological (the result of an illness or illness process). As a pathology, it is distinct from a belief based on false or incomplete information, apperception, illusion, or other effects of perception.

++"'''In light of the adverse impacts still resulting from your corporation’s activities,''' we must request that <no>ExxonMobil</no> end any further financial assistance or other support to groups or individuals whose public advocacy has contributed to the small, but unfortunately effective, '''climate change denial myth.'''"++--~~~[http://snowe.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=9acba744-802a-23ad-47be-2683985c724e Senators Demand that the World’s Largest Oil Maker Make Public Its History of Funding Climate Change “Skeptics”]~~~

,, is a psychiatric diagnosis denoting a psychotic mental disorder that is characterized by holding one or more non-bizarre delusions in the absence of any other significant psychopathology. Non-bizarre delusions are fixed beliefs that are certainly and definitely false, but that could possibly be plausible.

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<news feed="realclimate"> described as an ongoing pattern of disobedient, hostile and defiant behavior toward authority figures which goes beyond the bounds of normal childhood behavior. People who have it may appear very stubborn.

<news feed="ecoshock">

</big>,, is falsification entirely disproportionate to any discernible end in view, may be extensive and very complicated, and may manifest over a period of years or even a lifetime.

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