Re: [A-List] Climate change: hot air and smokescreens

[Bill Totten <shimogamo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Michael, these two articles really illustrate how perverted our society has
become. While much ink is spilled on our aggressions against weak nations, our
murder and torture of innocent bystanders, our support of tyrants, and our
government by deceit, such really is nothing new; just another chapter in the
people's history of the United States. The fact that our most respected
corporations, with the support of our government, are willing to risk the
destruction of our habitat and extinction of our race for short-term gain does
seem new to me. But, I guess, not to folks like Jared Diamond or Joseph Tainter.
Bill


On Thu, 27 Jan 2005 11:21:40 +0200
"Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx> wrote:

> Oil firms fund campaign to deny climate change
>
> David Adam, science correspondent
> Thursday January 27, 2005
> The Guardian
>
> Lobby groups funded by the US oil industry are targeting Britain in a bid to
> play down the threat of climate change and derail action to cut greenhouse
> gas emissions, leading scientists have warned.
>
> Bob May, president of the Royal Society, says a "a lobby of professional
> sceptics who opposed action to tackle climate change" is turning its
> attention to Britain because of its high profile in the debate.
>
> Writing in the Life section of today's Guardian, Prof May says the
> government's decision to make global warming a focus of its G8 presidency
> has made it a target. So has the high profile of its chief scientific
> adviser, David King, who described climate change as a bigger threat than
> terrorism.
>
> Prof May's warning coincides with a meeting of climate change sceptics today
> at the Royal Institution in London organised by a British group, the
> Scientific Alliance, which has links to US oil company ExxonMobil through a
> collaboration with a US institute.
>
> Last month the Scientific Alliance published a joint report with the George
> C Marshall Institute in Washington that claimed to "undermine" climate
> change claims. The Marshall institute received 」51,000 from ExxonMobil for
> its "global climate change programme" in 2003, and an undisclosed sum this
> month.
>
> Prof May's warning comes as British scientists publish new research in the
> journal Nature showing that emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide
> could have a more dramatic effect on climate than thought. They say average
> temperature could rise 11C, even if carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is
> limited to the levels expected to be reached in 2050.
>
> David Frame, who coordinated the climate prediction experiment, said: "If
> the real world response were anywhere near the upper end of our range, even
> today's levels of greenhouse gases could already be dangerously high."
>
> Emission limits such as those in the Kyoto protocol would hit oil firms
> because the bulk of greenhouse gases come from burning fossil fuel products.
>
> Prof May writes that during the 1990s, parts of the US oil industry funded
> (through the so-called Global Climate Coalition) sceptics who opposed action
> to tackle climate change. The GCC was "deactivated" in 2001 once Mr Bush
> made clear he intended to reject the Kyoto protocol."But the denial lobby is
> still active and today it arrives in London."
>
> The Scientific Alliance was set up in 2001 and is run by Mark Adams, a
> former private secretary for parliamentary affairs at No 10 and a private
> secretary to Tony Blair for six months after the 1997 election.
>
> An alliance spokesman said today's meeting was sponsored but its policy was
> not to reveal its funders. ExxonMobil said it is not involved. The alliance
> spokesman said funders do not influence policies.
>
> One adviser is Sallie Baliunas, an astrophysicist at the Harvard Smithsonian
> Centre, a noted global warming sceptic and senior scientist with the
> Marshall Institute. In 1998 Dr Baliunas co-wrote an article that argued for
> the release of more carbon dioxide. It looked like a paper of the US
> National Academy of Sciences and was mass-mailed to US scientists with a
> petition asking them to reject Kyoto.
>
> Prof King said several speakers at today's event have been to briefings he
> attended, including a summit meeting he organised in Moscow last July.
> "Astonishingly, when I arrived the programme had been dramatically altered.
> This was in the run up to the ratification of Kyoto by Putin and clearly the
> same group of people had decided to target our attempt to explain the
> current science."
>
> Larry Elliott in Davos adds:
>
> Tony Blair yesterday softened his stance on climate change to persuade
> President Bush to sign a global accord. Giving the keynote address at the
> World Economic Forum, Mr Blair said climate change was not universally
> accepted. With chief executives of many US firms in the audience, he said:
> "The evidence is still disputed."
>
> Evidence of climate change dangers had been "clearly and persuasively
> advocated" by a very large number of "entirely independent voices ... they
> are the majority, the majority is not always right but they deserve to be
> listened to".
>
> ------
>
> Under-informed, over here
>
> The climate change denial lobby - funded by the US oil industry - has now
> moved to the UK, warns Bob May
>
> Thursday January 27, 2005
> The Guardian
>
> During the 1990s, parts of the US oil industry funded - through the
> so-called Global Climate Coalition (GCC) - a lobby of professional sceptics
> who opposed action to tackle climate change by cutting greenhouse gas
> emissions. The GCC was "deactivated" in 2001, once President Bush made it
> clear he intended to reject the Kyoto protocol. But the denial lobby is
> still active, and today it arrives in London.
>
> The UK has become a target because the government has made climate change a
> focus of its G8 presidency this year. A key player in this decision is chief
> scientific adviser Sir David King, who became public enemy number one for
> the denial lobby when he described climate change as a bigger threat than
> terrorism.
>
> In December, a UK-based group, the Scientific Alliance, teamed up with the
> George C Marshall Institute, a body headed by the chairman emeritus of the
> GCC, William O'Keefe, to publish a document with the innocuous title Climate
> Issues & Questions. It plays up the uncertainties surrounding climate change
> science, playing down the likely impact that it will have.
>
> It contrasts starkly with the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on
> Climate Change (IPCC), the world's most reliable source of information on
> the effects of greenhouse gas emissions. In its last major report in 2001,
> the IPCC adopted an evidence-based approach to climate change and considered
> uncertainties on impact. It concluded that "overall, climate change is
> projected to increase threats to human health, particularly in lower income
> populations, predominantly within tropical/subtropical countries", and that
> "the projected rate and magnitude of warming and sea-level rise can be
> lessened by reducing greenhouse gas emissions". More than 2,000 of the
> world's leading climate experts were involved in compiling the report - the
> most authoritative scientific assessment to date.
>
> But today, the Scientific Alliance is holding a forum for members of the US
> and UK denial lobby to challenge the case for acting on the findings of the
> IPCC. The intention appears to be to get its retaliation in first before a
> meeting of climate change experts next week at the Hadley Centre, at which
> Sir David King will take part.
>
> Possibly more worrying is how much prominence their views are receiving in
> the UK media. The Daily Telegraph bizarrely used an anonymous leader on the
> tsunami in Asia to question the value of cutting emissions: "Whether or not
> this would have the effects claimed by ecologists - and the science is
> inconclusive - any gain would be insignificant next to the changes in
> temperature caused by forces outside our control."
>
> But the Daily Mail seems keenest to board the well-oiled bandwagon. Fresh
> from its now discredited campaign against MMR, it has run six opinion pieces
> over the last year questioning the science of climate change. David Bellamy
> and columnist Melanie Phillips have perhaps predictably joined in, but more
> surprising has been the conversion of Michael Hanlon, the paper's science
> editor.
>
> Last week, Hanlon cited Michael Crichton's research for his new novel as a
> further indication that climate change science is a con. The theme of
> Crichton's story is that environmentalists exaggerate the threat from
> climate change and eventually trigger its extreme effects themselves.
>
> It demonstrates the flakiness of the Hanlon case that he should need to rely
> on a sci-fi writer who has previously warned of the dangers of bringing
> dinosaurs back to life and of nano-robots turning the world into grey goo.
> All entertaining scare stories, all complete nonsense.
>
> So there we have it. On one hand we have the IPCC, the rest of the world's
> major scientific organisations, and the government's chief scientific
> adviser, all pointing to the need to cut emissions. On the other we have a
> small band of sceptics, including lobbyists funded by the US oil industry, a
> sci-fi writer, and the Daily Mail, who deny the scientists are right. It is
> reminiscent of the tobacco lobby's attempts to persuade us that smoking does
> not cause lung cancer. There is no danger this lobby will influence the
> scientists. But they don't need to. It is the influence on the media that is
> so poisonous.
>
> In a lecture at the Royal Society last week, Jared Diamond drew attention to
> populations, such as those on Easter Island, who denied they were having a
> catastrophic impact on the environment and were eventually wiped out, a
> phenomenon he called "ecocide". It's time for those living in denial of the
> evidence about the impacts of climate change to take note.
>
> キ Lord May of Oxford is president of the Royal Society and was chief
> scientific adviser to the government 1995-2000
>


Bill Totten     http://billtotten.blogspot.com/