Dismal science

Do Big Oil and Big Tobacco share a similar smokescreen?

Posted by Miles Grant (Guest Contributor) at 4:57 PM on 04 Mar 2008

Read more about: energy | climate | climate change skepticism | climate science | Big Oil

Stepping into the Heartland Institute's "2008 International Conference on Climate Change" was like walking into an alternate reality. To the rest of us, climate science is settled, the solutions are sensible, and the time for action is now. But in the Marriott Grand Marquis Times Square, the only science comes from industry-funded think tanks; climate action will destroy humanity; and the underdog in this fight is ExxonMobil.

Photo: Justin Shearer

Perhaps more accurate than alternative reality, the event was about denying reality. Global warming isn't an abstract possibility. It's already raised temperatures, stressing species from salmon to moose, triggering more intense storms, and raising sea levels. Congress isn't debating climate; it's moved on to finding solutions.

Talking to speakers here as I've blogged the event for the National Wildlife Federation, I've found they're loosely sorted into three categories, based on their views:

Those who say global warming is not happening at all
Those who say global warming is happening, but it's not due to human activity
Those who say global warming is happening and it is due to human activity, but climate action will surely destroy our economy

The one thing everyone here agrees on is that we must not do anything to reduce our carbon-dioxide emissions. Quite convenient for the oil industry, which has provided major funding to the conference's sponsors.

Where does all the money come from? While the Heartland Institute no longer discloses its funders, ExxonSecrets.org reports data linking $7.5 million in Exxon funding from 1998-2006 to the Heartland Institute and many of the event's cosponsors. Sourcewatch also reports Heartland receives major funding from the tobacco industry, receiving $240,000 from Philip Morris (a.k.a. Altria) from 1993-1998 alone.

DeSmogBlog reports the global warming denier-tobacco connections don't stop there. Click through their exhaustive research on the conference's speakers and you'll find plenty of tobacco ties. Tobacco campaigns paid off doctors and scientists, successfully confusing the public for decades. Now the energy industry is following in the tobacco industry's footsteps, trying to muddy the waters on global warming.

But the more I've listened to these speakers, the more I've realized that for most of them, it's not about the science. Panels don't go five minutes without attacking Al Gore or comparing climate activists to socialists who want to destroy capitalism. Deniers are part of a political culture that frames the world in terms of left and right, so they've absorbed global warming into that broader paradigm of partisan politics.

As National Wildlife Federation President Larry Schweiger says, "Confronting global warming is not an issue of left and right. It's a matter of right and wrong." We have a moral responsibility to confront climate change now to protect our children's future. And many of the same solutions that will ease our planet's fever -- renewable energy, more efficient vehicles, green homes and offices -- will create millions of green collar jobs, make America more energy independent, and clean our air and water.

Fortunately, while muddying the waters may play well on Rush Limbaugh, it's falling flat in the halls of Congress. Senators like John Warner, Norm Coleman, and Elizabeth Dole recognize that climate action is not a partisan issue. They're joining a bipartisan coalition supporting the Climate Security Act, a bill that would establish a cap-and-trade system to cut our carbon emissions. It's a strong bill that the National Wildlife Federation is fighting to strengthen and pass. And while President Bush has stonewalled on climate action, every one of the leading presidential contenders has expressed support for mandatory cuts in carbon emissions.

So maybe the deniers should keep playing to Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. Pretty soon, those may be the only allies they'll have left.

For story: Dismal science
26 Comments | Post a Comment

A Question ...

Do you enjoy performing symbolic fellatio on Al Gore?

by John Edwards at 6:51 PM on 04 Mar 2008

Add the Discovery Institute

Big oil, big tobacco and big religion are all united by their hatred of science.

Big oil is using the same tactics to undermine support of climate science that the Discovery Institute created to undermine biology and medicine. Its falsely creating doubt to advance political goals.

From Framing Science:
At the Heartland and Discovery Institutes, a Shared Rhetoric
http://scienceblogs.com/framing-science/2008/03/at_the_he ...

by josullivan58 at 7:16 PM on 04 Mar 2008

Understanding denial/contrarianism

I find that attacking the denial game is a game in and of itself. What might be more productive is understanding what it is about human nature that causes some people to get into this kind of mindset while others are more open to changing their minds once the evidence is in. I've suggested, on Dot Earth, that the psychology of belief is where the real story is.

One of the most fondly held beliefs by modern humans is that profit is always a good thing. Even those who want to combat global warming are appealing to the profit motive and market mechanisms to save the day. It won't work.

I question the conventional wisdom at Question Everything because conventional thinking isn't going to work now.

George Mobus

George Mobus, Associate Professor, Institute of Technology, University of Washington Tacoma, and Professional Student for Life

by gmobus at 8:56 PM on 04 Mar 2008

Labelling Your Opponents

Wow. And yet Grist has failed to deliver a single coherent argument against any Naturogenic Warming hypothesis.

Simply calling these New York scientists names won't make the shabby polemic of IPCC stand up to the light of truth.

Texeme.Construct(function(x)=Participation(x))

by jabailo at 1:42 AM on 05 Mar 2008

So?

What does it matter if climate change is a natural phenomenon? Does that make energy cheaper or more affordable or the supply of fossil fuels larger? No, it doesn't.

Isn't it somehow more comforting for climate change to be human induced? After all, if we created it then we can probably reverse the process. If on the other hand it is a natural process then we may be powerless to stop it or even predict it's extent or severity.

http://www.myspace.com/enki09

by enki09 at 4:37 AM on 05 Mar 2008

What frustrates me

"while others are more open to changing their minds once the evidence is in"

Evidence is in - thats the trouble with the AGW camp. How on earth can you say that the evidence is in...which is fairly commonly stated? Climate science is immature. We have one earth, an open system, so controlled trials cannot be used to test the AGW hypothesis. And therefore to prove one way or the other is bl**dy tough...it requires hard work and alot of time on the part of scientists generating data ...and it requires a certain amount of guess work on the part of those that interpret the broad data set (because of the limited data so far and being an open system).

So unless you believe the panacea that is the 'climate model' then the evidence is far from 'in'.

So whatever the view (skeptic, alarmist etc etc), this is what frustrates me so much. We aren't in the position to predict AGW and we aren't in the position to predict an ice age so why not just accept that. One day we might understand better but until then why not keep the vast uncertainties in the picture.

Stockypig

by stockypig at 6:09 AM on 05 Mar 2008

Trolls notwithstanding, you're right Miles

There is an unfortunately long history in American politics of elevating the controversy after the science is settled. Josullivan is right about the Discovery Institute, and the whole creationist movement which basically follows the same approach ("Teach the controversy" was a rallying call of the evolution deniers for a long time, essentially elevating the controversy to make it appear that the science was unsettled.)

It's hardly new though. Ross Gelbspan wrote about this for the Boston Globe in the 1990s, and ultimately in his book The Heat Is On, which was published in 1995. He traced the controversy pretty exhaustively, finding (no surprise now, but rather news-y at the time) that there were thousands saying "yes, we have a problem and it is man made" and a tiny group on the other side, virtually all of which had less-than-perfectly-unbiased funding sources. And yet both had managed to get comparably sized podiums, creating the appearance of a reasonable debate. Sadly, that basic calculus hasn't fundamentally changed in the subsequent 13 years.

And it's basically the same approach that was used for Tobacco, and Creationism. Which if nothing else, proves that the however distasteful that political approach is, it works. Yuck.

by Sean Casten at 6:39 AM on 05 Mar 2008

Open your mind

There is an unfortunately long history in American politics of elevating the controversy after the science is settled.

This is such bullsh*t. Actually its a wonderful thing about the US and the Western world that people question and continue to question issues...since if we always accepted the science as settled then look where we would be on any number of issues.

In the pharmaceutical industry drugs are approved based on a certain amount of controlled data. This is only the start of the process of monitoring the data. Pharmacovigilance groups then monitor the data for years on end and if you know anything about this subject you would realise that a number of drugs have later been withdrawn because the fuller data set have presented a different story.

So first quit with the science is settled cr*p and then why not open your mind a chink and understand that is it healthy to question science. If the AGW hypothesis is strong it will stand the test of time if it is weak then it will fall by the wayside.

Stockypig

by stockypig at 6:51 AM on 05 Mar 2008
[ Parent ]

Questions for one and all...................

Is the (mis)perceived,`absolute necessity' for endless economic growth at least one of the root causes of humanity's current global environmental challenges?

Does the "Tower of Babel" scale and rampant growth of the leviathan-like global political economy appear to be approaching the point of its unsustainability on a planet with the relatively small size and make-up of Earth?

Are people in overdeveloped countries dissipating Earth's limited resources faster than the planet can restore them for human benefit?

Are large-scale industrial enterprises primary polluters of the air and water, and largely responsible for laying waste to the land upon which coming generations will rely for their survival?

Are the consumption, production and propagation activities of the human species threatening to irreversibly degrade the ecology of our planetary home?

Are these potentially catastrophic occurrences happening synergistically and, also, primarily outcomes of colossal, unbridled economic globalization?

As ever,

Steve

PS: If any of the above questions are `answered' affirmatively, is there not the likelihood of a complex, distinctly human-induced predicament in the offing that the family of humanity will need to acknowledge, address and overcome very soon?

Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/

by stevenearlsalmony at 7:47 AM on 05 Mar 2008

Oh Steve Steve Steve

Steve Steve Steve ..thanks for your lovely questions.

When your wife is talking about the washing up and specifically trying work out how to use a thimble full of water to wash eight full eco meals do you then suddenly start talking about cricket?
When your son mentions his ecowarrior school project do you then start talking about the wonderful exploits of lassie the dog?

Probably no, so why do you insist on constantly peddling your views when they have absolutely zero all to do with any thread on any website that you visit?

Its tedious (almost as tedios as my post here and most of my other posts). Just stop it please you big gherkin.

Stockypig

by stockypig at 8:11 AM on 05 Mar 2008
[ Parent ]

Proof in the comments

Judging from the swarm of trolls attacking this post, Miles's point is well-made. How many of these, er, individuals work for Burston Marsteller, or Webber Shandwick, or one of the "spin-tanks" like the Cato Institute or the Heartland Institute set up by the fossil fuel industry to cast doubt on 30+ years of scientific research?

The tactic here is simple: cast doubt in order to engender inaction. When medical science had clearly established a link between cancer and emphysema, the tobacco industry dug ethically-challenged medical researchers out of the woodwork to confuse the public and create a false "controversy." It worked for a time, and the industry was able to rake several decades of profits out of the public at the cost of thousands of lives.

The facts are clear. We have data from ice and ocean sediment cores that clearly show a link between CO2 and global warming. We can calculate how much global warming gases we've dumped into our atmosphere. We can observe the effects on the planet already in species migration, and glacial melting. And the overwhelming majority of legitimate scientists are in agreement. Yet a few dozen "scientists" who get six-figure unrestricted "research grants" from the fossil fuel industry to trade their credentials for cash are still able to get media attention. Why? Because when these trolls are not trolling on this board and others, they are busy pitching media tours for their so-called experts. To the "skeptics": I'd ask if you have no shame, but I already know the answer.

Fortunately for all of us, the trolls are finally loosing the battle. Let's hope its not too late.

by Robco1 at 9:08 AM on 05 Mar 2008

Dear Stockypig............

Surely, you jest.

It pleases me that you think certain of your rhetorical devices are worth sharing with me.

Why not be forthright? Tell us how you really feel and what is on your mind.

Steve.

by stevenearlsalmony at 10:27 AM on 05 Mar 2008

what we should do

Stockypig,

Nobody is saying we have enough information and knowledge about greenhouse gases and climate change to stop studying it.

What is being said we have enough information and knowledge about it to start making reductions in releasing greenhouse gases.

If at sometime in the future, something weird happens and all these theories are found to be untrue, that's it's the devil or non-terrestrial aliens that is warming the planet, we can react to that by praying to the devil or feeding the aliens our old people. But until that time, we should act on what is the best available information and knowledge and that is that greenhouse gases are effecting our atmosphere and climate and we should limit there release.

by trock at 10:35 AM on 05 Mar 2008

Facts

OK, let's say the science is not settled. Let's say that we just don't have enough data - the models are imperfect, we have no negative control, etc., etc.

Fact: Fossil fuels are dirty. Burning oil, gasoline and coal for energy releases a lot more than just CO2 into the air; most air pollution can be attributed to fossil fuel use.

Fact: Mountaintop removal is changing the face of the Southern Appalachian Mountains and impacting biodiversity and human health.

Fact: Much of our oil is imported from the Middle East, a politically unstable, and often unfriendly, region.

Fact: Fossil fuels, as the name implies, take a very long time to accumulate. We are using them at a rate that far exceeds their natural production, hence, we will one day run out.

So, to borrow a line from John McCain - "Maybe global warming is real, maybe it isn't; but what's wrong with increased energy security, increased number of jobs, and cleaner air & water?"

There's just no logical downside to the renewable energy equation - unless you happen to be ExxonMobil or Massey.

by kmp at 11:01 AM on 05 Mar 2008

Extraordinary claims & The burden of proof

Could you "natural causes", "unsettled science", etc. trolls please give us some hint what you are talking about?
E.g.:
What natural causes?
What science gaps?
Why is melting permafrost no evidence?
What's wrong with climate models?
etc. etc.

by 314159265 at 11:05 AM on 05 Mar 2008

We just need to keep moving forward

While I believe that global warming is happening, arguing about it endlessly is a waste of time. It's happening and there will ALWAYS be people who doubt. The most important thing is to teach correct principles for why sustainable living is critical today. Global warming is one of them, but using fear, as a motivator for change is an ineffective one. I wrote a post about this last week. Stewardship and our connectedness with the earth are the best motivators for sustainability and a bright future.

by green mormon architect at 11:21 AM on 05 Mar 2008

Trolls

As Joe Romm has pointed out so helpfully in a recent post, science is not really about consensus. Even as a lay person trying to understand the science at a lay level, it's obvious that certain scientists, such as James Hansen, speak with authority and that posts by stockypig and jabailo are not worth reading as sources of scientific information.

Sean Casten makes an interesting and crucial point about consensus, though. Our societal response to scientific information is political and politics is fundamentally about consensus. When the range of political solutions to an issue requiring scientific understanding, such as anthropogenic climate destabilization, may threaten entrenched interests, posters such as stockypig and jabailo are simply part of a political strategy that uses constitutionally protected speech to defend the threatened interests. The themes and course of the protected speech are as predictable as the tactics (nothing is happening, if something is happening, it's not our industry or we don't understand the causes, something might be happening, but we can't change course because it would devastate the economy, etc.).

Presently, it seems the science is running ahead of the politics. Our political structures and process currently seem to lack the ability to address the magnitude of the problems we face as a result of anthropogenic climate destabilization. This political failure seems to allow the defenders of threatened interests to keep their arguments in the public sphere longer than the science says they should. I suppose another way of putting a more focused question to it is this: given the state of scientific knowledge with respect to anthropogenic climate destabilization, at what point do the delayers, deniers and extreme corporatists cease to be legitimate political players and, instead, become enemies of the human race?

by Hal 9000 at 11:49 AM on 05 Mar 2008

Miles is miles out.

Miles asks us to consider how much money Exxon has spent on bankrolling the 'deniers'.

"The one thing everyone here agrees on is that we must not do anything to reduce our carbon-dioxide emissions. Quite convenient for the oil industry, which has provided major funding to the conference's sponsors."

We follow the link, and we discover that the "major funding" is half a million dollars:

"ExxonSecrets lists Heartland as having received $561,500 (unadjusted for inflation) from ExxonMobil between 1998 and 2005."

If we want to be fair, we should have a look at how much has been spent on advancing the other side of the propaganda war. http://www.climate-resistance.org/2008/01/well-funded-wel ...

It turns out that in the period 1994-2005, Greenpeace (perhaps the highest profile campaigning organisation) took roughly $2,190,752,550. That's nearly 4,500 times more than Exxon gave to Heartland.

Miles lacks a sense of proportion.

by benp at 5:59 AM on 06 Mar 2008

Smoke and mirrors.

"Click through their exhaustive research on the conference's speakers and you'll find plenty of tobacco ties. Tobacco campaigns paid off doctors and scientists, successfully confusing the public for decades. Now the energy industry is following in the tobacco industry's footsteps, trying to muddy the waters on global warming."

Most of the "ties" turn out to be "similarities" in the shapes of argument between the arguments of the tobacco and climate "deniers". But the search for geometric congruence between these "strategies" is bogus. Orekses has made the alleged links between tobacco and climate denial the subject of her research, but the argument is weaker than the argument that smoking doesn't increase the risk of cancer. http://www.climate-resistance.org/2008/03/pesky-oreskes.h ...

It is a sign of the poverty of the environmentalist's argument that it has to resort to standard guilt-by-association and who-is-paying-who innuendos, rather than careful argument and analysis.

by benp at 6:11 AM on 06 Mar 2008

Logic

The point is not who is paying money to who. I know plenty of science projects funded by big industry that are of high quality. The point is why somebody is funded by who.

In this case exxon is not providing funds to carry out a research project but to conduct a campaign of misinformation. They have every right to voice their opinions. What they are doing however is claiming this is science. Which it obviously is not.

Which brings me to the hilarious stance of the deniers here. For some reason they usually jump up and down about how all the scientists are only in it for the money, yet for this conference they are happy that the participants are being paid to show up. Go figure.

The other thing I find amusing is the group 3 skeptics. Those who claim that any action will destroy the economy. These are the same people who claim that we don't know anything really about the climate as it is all so very complex.

These same people then go on to claim 100% sure that action will destroy the economy. Because we all know how economy is such an exact science...

I am still waiting for some real skeptics to stand up and present some quality research. But I am more and more concluding it is just not going to happen. All we have is this lot. The Discovery Institute's illegimate little brother.

by MarkUK at 6:58 AM on 06 Mar 2008

So called Skeptics

Not the least amusing feature of all this is that without exception, all of the so called 'skeptics' are on the denier side of the debate. 'Skeptics' apparently, can be convinced that that the IPCC modelling is unduly pessimistic about the progress of global warming, but not the reverse -- that it's much worse than has generally been assumed. One might wonder why, if 'the science is not settled' 'climate is too complex to model accurately' that that must mean that there's nothing to worry about.
The use of the term 'skeptic' is intended to wrap mindless naysaying and special pleading for the global polluters club right to chow down on humanity's future in the clothes of scientific caution and responsibility.

One might add that taking action to mitigate anthropogenic carbon emissions -- such as reducing per capita energy usage, improving energy efficiency, moving to low carbon footprint energy sources, reversing deafforestation, putting the brakes on population growth and so forth are inherently conducive to better outcomes for humans and don't need to be justified by the desire to foreclose serious climate related damage to the biosphere. What's not to like about cleaner water, cleaner air, better designed cities, more biodiversity, less poverty, security from spiralling fossil crude oil prices and so forth? They'd be worth doing even if we weren't confident that global warming-driven catatastrophe was in prospect. Humanity is headed no place good and it seems to me that someone yelling 'hey, you can't be sure that there's a 500 foot drop around the next bend so stop worrying and keep the foot on the gas' is simply criminally reckless.

Fran

by franb at 11:54 AM on 06 Mar 2008

consensus

One source I've liked is Naomi Oreske's article "Beyond the Ivory Tower: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change" in a 2004 issue of Science http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686 And it is actually dated -- if anything there is far more consensus now.

by davedenali at 12:51 PM on 06 Mar 2008

big oil

i kind of doubt that any of these companies run their businesses on the basis of insisting that every possible explanation of every problem be completely ruled out except the leading contender, that it be rigorously proved that it would not be less costly to just let the problem be rather than fix it, that it be rigorously proved that ignoring the problem would not actually lead to a new golden age of enhanced productivity, etc. etc. So why the hell would we take their suggestion that that's a good way to run a planet? the only one we happen to have?

by gzuckier at 12:43 PM on 10 Mar 2008

So called Skeptics are just deniers.

"Not the least amusing feature of all this is that without exception, all of the so called 'skeptics' are on the denier side of the debate. 'Skeptics' apparently, can be convinced that that the IPCC modelling is unduly pessimistic about the progress of global warming, but not the reverse -- that it's much worse than has generally been assumed. One might wonder why, if 'the science is not settled' 'climate is too complex to model accurately' that that must mean that there's nothing to worry about."

Indeed. There are now two sources of support for the AGW hypothesis: current observations, and climate models based on past observations; the models suggest a worrisome scenario, but the recent and current observations suggest that in fact things are worse than that; not surprising, since the models are conservatively biased in their predictions, that being what responsible scientists are trained to do rather than make a lot of hoohaw out of nothing, as the armchair climatologists seem to believe is their tendency.

by gzuckier at 12:50 PM on 10 Mar 2008
[ Parent ]

trolls and tobacco

First of all, I get the Weekly Spin from the Center for Media and Democracy, a PR Watch group, and they've had a couple of posts about this; the professional deniers indeed work with the same PR firms that extended Big Tobacco's free run. A lot of the same individuals are involved, too.
I used to really appreciate the comments on Grist, so full of interesting, thoughtful, well-educated argument--but lately the weight of the trolls landing on the branches is threatening to break them.
The one that gets me is, "Why are you so sure humans are causing the warming we admit is happening? Couldn't it be natural?" Thing is, the first ten years that the likes of James Hansen were worrying that their models showed that the rising levels of CO2 and other GHG in the atmosphere would cause global warming, they had no proof--because the effects hadn't shown up yet, partly because the eruption of Mt Pinatubo masked the warming for a couple of years in the 90's. But now that the effects are obvious, they want to look for another cause?

by mwildfire at 5:50 PM on 11 Mar 2008

trolls are like insect pests

And the thing is, they can't win the argument on the merits, but winning the argument is not the objective. They've got us arguing with them instead of advancing the discussion about the most critical problem of our time. We need to stop falling for this. I'm not in favor of banning people or posts, but will take to scrolling quickly past jabailo's posts without wasting my time reading them, likewise with his aliases as I discover them.

by mwildfire at 5:58 PM on 11 Mar 2008

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