| I admit it. My head hurts from mulling over Craig Sprout's post on the state's Climate Change Advisory Council.
Is he really saying he doesn't believe in climate change...because Democrats do?
I think I get what Craig is hinting at: that climate change worry and policy is a liberal bugbear intended to...well...no one ever explains exactly why the left "invented" climate change. What possible reason do we have to go around intimidating and bribing the scientific community to manufacture evidence of humankind's contribution to the recent spike in global temperatures? (For the same reasons we staged the Apollo moon landings in a Hollywood studio, and scattered fossils around the globe?)
Oddly, in the same post, Craig defends Bozeman's PERC from calls to discount their work because of their funding from major corporations, including (drum roll) Exxon. And, yet, while lefty groups appear to have no other motivation than...well...halting or reversing climate change and reducing pollution...Exxon and Big Energy has a clear and present motivation in halting or slowing down legislation that would make burning fossil fuels anachronistic.
If presenting motivation isn't enough for you, then take a gander at this 1998 internal memo from Exxon, explaining just how they were planning on making "average citizens" and "media" "'understand'...uncertainties in climate science," and how to make those uncertainties "part of the 'conventional wisdom.'"
The plan included generating media coverage by:
-- "recruiting" and "training" scientists to "participate in media outreach"
--creating media kits; conducting "briefings by media-trained scientists"
--create a "steady stream" of op-ed pieces to newspapers
--"convince one of the major news national TV journalists (e.g., John Stossel) to produce a report..."
--organize "grassroots organizations" to conduct debates
Here's the money quote from the report:
Because the science underpinning the global climate change theory has not been challenged effectively in the media or through other vehicles reaching the American public, there is widespread ignorance, which works in favor of the Kyoto treaty and against the best interests of the United States.
Get it? Science needs to be fought with popular opinion. Thus, the media campaign. (And interesting that Exxon equates its profits with "the best interests of the United States.")
So not only does Exxon et al. have the motive to sow doubt, it had a plan.
So you see why we discount any groups taking money from Exxon or other big corporations with a vested interest in denying climate change? It's completely reasonable to do so.
But to Craig's credit, he has - perhaps unwittingly - demonstrated a policy failure in his post. Yes, it's mostly Democrats on the climate change panel and Republicans doffing tin foil hats. The shame here is that the Republican party has abandoned the issue, and made the existence of global warming - not policy solutions to combat it - a partisan issue.
I say "shame" because I truly believe that we need all of our brightest and best working on the problem, which should include a diversity of viewpoints to find the best solutions, whether it's through government policy or the free market, or a combination of the two.
Politically, of course, having the right take a hard-line climate change denier stance only benefits the Democratic party. Because when temperatures continue to increase, wildfires spin out of control and burn through taxpayer money, when the drought continues and crops wither even as prices climb, the public will naturally turn to those who have a plan to find alternative energy sources and a vision for the future.
And right now, that's not the Republican party. |
