Twenty eight years ago, on this day, November 16, 1995, a denialist douche-bag testilies…
On November 16, 1995, Patrick J. Michaels, an associate professor in the department of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, testified before the Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment, U.S. House of Representatives, on issues related to human-induced (or anthropogenic) climate change.
Gelbspan, R. (1998) Page 202
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 361ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Michaels and a small band of others had for reasons of their own and (in Michaels case, money and attention), decided to attack and smear climate science and climate scientists. And in 1995 the big effort was to attack the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to anyone who would listen. And they had enough Republican friends, especially in the House of Reps and Senate, to be able to do what the proper scientists were doing, which was create venues for discourse.
What I think we can learn from this is that “ideal speech communities” can get hijacked and perverted by lying liars. The lying liars could never admit that they were wrong. Too demanding, emotionally.
What happened next
The attacks on the IPCC and in this case, especially Ben Santer continued, but they reached such a high vicious pitch that members of the Global Climate Coalition started to worry about their reputations and started to leave. But it didn’t matter. The denialists had won.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.