Category: Denial

Categories
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.

Categories
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).

Categories
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…

Categories
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. 

Categories
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).