Category: Denial

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Denial UNFCCC United States of America

May 6, 1997 – The so-called “Cooler Heads” coalition created

On this day, May 6 1997 25 years ago, the “Cooler Heads – see what they did there? – coalition” was announced, with such noted climate scientists, as Danish statistician, Bjorn Lomborg. The leader was… Myron Ebell, of Exxon…

Here’s a great summary on DeSmog Blog

The Cooler Heads Coalition (CHC) was formed on May 6, 1997, under the direction of the National Consumer Coalition—a project of the now-defunct Consumer Alert—“out of concern that the American people were not being informed about the economic impact of proposals to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” The CHC is now backed by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), as noted on CHC‘s “About” page which states that the website is “paid for and maintained by” CEI. [1], [18]

Myron Ebell, director of global warming and international environmental policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), was listed as the “group leader” when the the Cooler Heads Coalition was initially formed, and appears to maintain an important role. [18]

The context was that the Kyoto meeting at which emissions reductions for rich countries would be on the agenda – was coming. And CHC would, with an international membership, would enable opponents of it in the United States to point to some sort of international coalition of actors

By calling themselves the “Cooler Heads”, they are claiming the high intellectual ground and instantly mocking their opponents or framing their opponents as hotheads and alarmist – it’s a nicely chosen title. Some PR flak probably got a promotion for it.

Why this matters

We need to think in terms of a constant flux, push and counter push among actors, the actors who were trying to legitimise their own side and delegitimise their opponents, as we saw with the Unabomber thing the Heartland outfit did. This is a battle for hearts and minds and legitimacy.

What happened next

Lomborg kept publishing and having been members of these sorts of coalitions since. And the carbon dioxide continues to accumulate.

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Denial Uncategorized United States of America

May 4th, 2012 – The Heartland Institute tries the Unabomber smear. It, er, blows up in their face…

On this day, May 4th in 2012, the far-right Heartland Institute displayed an entirely sane and rational billboard with Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber pictured on it…

Classy, eh?

This met with howls of outrage and probably marks the beginning of the end or the middle of the end for the Heartland Institute as a useful-to-the-right player. Big donors to it fled….

Why this matters

What happens time and again is these right wing flak/flank organisations get overconfident, believe their own publicity get captured by the culture warriors and overplay their hand have to be disowned by the less-swivel-eyed but equally (more) ecocidal outfits.

Then the constituent parts of the machine are broken down and reconstituted. You saw it with the Global Climate Coalition by about 1996 (with their attacks on Ben Santer) – they were becoming a reputational risk for some of the more mainstream and cautious members. You see it with the Tasman Institute in Australia, and other outfits. Culture warrior-dom contains the seeds of its own destruction, to get all dialectical?

What happened next?

Kaczynski is still in jail, will die there.

The Heartland Institute is still around, heckling the Pope and spamming science teachers.

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Denial Science

April 28, 1975- Newsweek’s “The Cooling World” story.

On this day, April 28 1975, Newsweek ran a story ”The Cooling World” (pdf here) based on the idea that an ice age was imminent because of the amount of particulates thrown up into the atmosphere.

It wasn’t alone in this – The previous year (June 24, 1974) Time had an article titled “Another Ice Age?” which said “the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades” but noted that “Some scientists… think that the cooling trend may be only temporary.”

These articles have been used ever since, as the part of the myth that, in the 1970s, “all scientists were convinced that an ice age was coming. And therefore, carbon dioxide build-up is just the latest iteration of a scare that we need to pay no attention to.” This idea has faded somewhat in mainstream culture, but it still persists in the nuttier corners of the internet.

What we learn is that journalism around climate is very difficult because the issues are very complex, and that people choose not to accept the journalists and scientists can get it wrong and change their mind because they are looking to have a gotcha moment.

Why this matters. 

Denialists have kept using it.

What happened next?

Denialists kept using it

See also:

The original author, Peter Gwynne, writing in 2014

Scientific American in 2015 – For Its 40th Birthday, Let’s Retire Newsweek’s Global Cooling Story

Wikipedia on Global Cooling.

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Denial International processes Kyoto Protocol United States of America

April 26, 1998 – New York Times front page expose on anti-climate action by industry

On April 26 1998 the New York Times ran a front page story. It began thus.

Industry opponents of a treaty to fight global warming have drafted an ambitious proposal to spend millions of dollars to convince the public that the environmental accord is based on shaky science.

Among their ideas is a campaign to recruit a cadre of scientists who share the industry‘s views of climate science and to train them in public relations so they can help convince journalists, politicians and the public that the risk of global warming is too uncertain to justify controls on greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide that trap the sun’s heat near Earth.

An informal group of people working for big oil companies, trade associations and conservative policy research organizations that oppose the treaty have been meeting recently at the Washington office of the American Petroleum Institute to put the plan together.

Cushman, J. 1998. Industrial Group Plans to Battle Climate Treaty. New York Times, 26 April, p.1

The context is that the US had signed the Kyoto Protocol (this in itself was a meaningless gesture – it only had force if ratified, and the Clinton administration had no intention of trying to get it through the Senate, especially given the previous year’s Byrd-Hagel resolution, which had insisted the US should not sign any treaty that didn’t put emissions constraints on developing countries (looking at you, China). This was of course exactly the opposite of what they’d signed off on in 1992 (Rio) and 1995 (Berlin Mandate) but hey, consistency and hobgoblins, amirite?

On one level, this was hardly “news” – anyone who had been paying any attention at all from 1989 onwards; the George Marshall Foundation got going on climate, and then the Global Climate Coalition and the “Information Clearinghouse on the Environment” (1991) and the attacks on IPCC second assessment report by various well-connected loons, and THEN the attacks on Kyoto in the run up to the meeting in 1997.

See for example Cushman’s report on 7th December 1997, during the Kyoto meeting – “Intense Lobbying Against Global Warming Treaty: U.S. Negotiators Brief Industry Groups and Environmentalists Separately in Kyoto”

Why this matters

A part of the reason (not the most important part necessarily, and not the part we can do that much about) “we” have done so little on climate change is because of staggeringly successful campaigns of predatory delay.

See also – Ben Franta’s work on the American Petroleum Institute.

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Denial United States of America

April 23, 2009 – denialists caught denying their own scientists…

On this day, the 23rd of April 2009 journalist Andy Revkin broke a story in The New York Times about the Global Climate Coalition.

The Global Climate Coalition – cuddly-sounding name aside – was an industry pressure group that had between 1989 and 2002 been a major player in stopping any meaningful international action on climate change.

Revkin’s story – you can read it here – was that the head honchos at the Global Climate Coalition got given the truth about climate change by their own scientists,, and they chose to ignore it because it didn’t fit their in needs for predatory delay and doubt

Why this matters. 

We need to know in the words of Nick Tomalin, the British journalist who died in 1973, that “they lie, they lie, they lie”. If the truth is going to get in the way of their profits, they will lie. And these lies will be repeated by time policy wonks to create a “common sense” that maintains the status quo. Nothing that Gramsci would be surprised that nothing that you or I should be surprised that

What happened next?

People forgot because that’s what people do. 

If you want to know more about the GCC, check out the recently published article in the journal “Environmental Politics” by Robert Brulle.

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Denial International processes IPCC Predatory delay Science Scientists

April 19, 2002 – Exxon got a top #climate scientist sacked.

On the 19th of April 2002, the chair of the IPCC, Bob Watson failed to get a second term as chair, even though he wanted one, and (almost) everyone else wanted him to have it. 

As per the Guardian’s coverage

“At a plenary session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in Geneva, Robert Watson, a British-born US atmospheric scientist who has been its chairman since 1996, was replaced by an Indian railway engineer and environmentalist, R K Pachauri.

Dr Pachauri received 76 votes to Dr Watson’s 49 after a behind-the-scenes diplomatic campaign by the US to persuade developing countries to vote against Dr Watson, according to diplomats. The British delegation argued for Dr Watson and Dr Pachauri to share the chairmanship.

The US campaign came to light after the disclosure of a confidential memorandum from the world’s biggest oil company, Exxon-Mobil, to the White House, proposing a strategy for his removal.”

[see also the Ecologist in 2018]

tt’s an example of how the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change works – the word to look for is governmental. 

Why this matters. 

We’re not getting the politics- free science, which the denialists say they want. We’re getting the science that has been deemed acceptable to the politicians who are often little more than Meat Puppets for vested interests.

And this is a very, very familiar story.

What happened next?

The IPCC has kept going. The message hasn’t changed. Except the time horizons keep shrinking (have shrunk to nowt).

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Denial

April 13, 1992 – Denialist tosh – “The origins of the alleged scientific consensus”

On the 13th of April 1992. Richard Lindzen MIT scientist – still alive so one has to be careful what adjectives one uses – was at an OPEC Seminar on thee Environment ini Vienna, talking about “The Origin of Alleged Scientific Consensus.” You can read more on this in Jeremy Leggett’s, the Carbon War. 

Lindzen’s schtick for a long time was – and may still be – that the climate models can’t cope with water vapour and therefore, we shouldn’t do anything. And this flimflam was useful for a long time as a talking point for those who wanted to protect the power and investments of the fossil fuels gang. 

Why this matters. 

The lost decades. This sort of thing helped prevent/delay action when we still might have done something about the whole unravelling.

What happened next?

The denial machine rumbled on…

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anti-reflexivity Denial Predatory delay Propaganda United States of America

March 4, 2003 – Republicans urged to question the scientific consensus…

On this day in March 4 2003, the Luntz memo was exposed. Frank Luntz was a Republican communications PR guru, and his memo advocated continued casting of doubt.

In the words of the Guardian’s reporter

The memo, by the leading Republican consultant Frank Luntz, concedes the party has “lost the environmental communications battle” and urges its politicians to encourage the public in the view that there is no scientific consensus on the dangers of greenhouse gases. 

“The scientific debate is closing [against us] but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science,” Mr Luntz writes in the memo, obtained by the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based campaigning organisation.”

The broader context is that the Bush administration having already reneged on promises to reduce carbon dioxide and pulled the US out of Kyoto needed to continue its perception management, and that’s what Luntz was proposing, as part of the broader war, to keep people in the dark, ignorant, confused, demoralised and it’s been a very successful effort. So here we are.

Why this matters. 

We need to see how “common sense” (in the Gramscian sense) is endlessly confected and defended…

And here’s the memo, btw

LuntzResearch.Memo.pdf (sourcewatch.org)

What happened next?

Luntz changed his tune, but the damage was done. And the emissions continue to climb. 

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Denial IPCC Netherlands

Feb 10, 2010 – Dutch scientists try to plug denialists’ holes in the dike

On this day, in 2010, 55 leading Dutch scientists wrote an open letter to the Dutch parliament, pointing out that although there were inaccuracies in the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report, that did not in fact invalidate the basic findings. The reason they needed to even do this was the so-called Climategate hack of late 2009. The theft of emails from a University of East Anglia server was, as the American right-wingers like to say, a “nothing” burger, but one that was briefly tasty to climate denialists. 

Why it matters

Toni Morrison’s astute comment about racism, and racist narratives being there to distract and to exhaust and to prevent you from doing the work that you want to do applies here; white progressives could learn a lot from reading people of colour, who have been putting up with character assassination and – checks notes – actual assassination four hundreds of years. 

The quote is this – 

“The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing.”

Listen to Morrison’s 1975 speech, recently digitised, here.]

What happened next, 

The IPCC kept producing assessment reports, possibly with a little more care. The Dutch government got sued by Urgenda [see 2019 judgement] and the emissions kept climbing. And the climate denial people are now mostly doing predatory delay. And hyping the purported costs of transitioning, (not that the costs –  both financial and cognitive – are anything other than enormous).