Tim Lambert (deltoidblog AT gmail.com) is a computer scientist at the University of New South Wales.
Matt Nisbet reports:
A new study by a team of political scientists and sociologists at the journal Environmental Politics concludes that 9 out of 10 books published since 1972 that have disputed the seriousness of environmental problems and mainstream science can be linked to a conservative think tank (CTT). Following on earlier work by co-author Riley Dunlap and colleagues, the study examines the ability of conservative think tanks to use the media and other communication strategies to successfully challenge mainstream expert agreement on environmental problems.
(Clarification: A couple of readers thought Nisbet was saying that one particular CTT was linked to 90% of the books. Nisbet means that 90% of books can be linked to CTTs.)
Some extracts:
A key to the success of CTTs has been their ability to establish themselves as a true 'counter-intelligentsia' that has achieved equal legitimacy with mainstream science and academia -- both of which have been effectively labelled as 'leftist' in order to legitimise CTT's as providing 'balance' (Austin 2002). Beder (2001, p. 129) highlights this, noting that even though 'think tanks have more in common with interest groups or pressure groups than academic institutions', their representatives 'are treated by the media as independent experts and ... are often preferred to representatives from universities and interest groups as a source of expert opinion'. This has been a particularly notable accomplishment in the realm of scientific and environmental issues because CTTs are populated primarily by economists, policy analysts and legal scholars rather than natural scientists (Fischer 1991); the George C. Marshall Institute is an exception (Lahsen 2005).
The lack of in-house scientific expertise helps explain why CTTs have been quick to form relationships with the small number of academic scientists who support their views, as in the case of 'climate sceptics' (Lahsen 2005; McCright and Dunlap 2003). Doing so helps shield the fact that the sceptical position is strongly aligned with conservatism and the economic interests it represents (Austin 2002; Mooney 2005b), thus hiding from the public the underlying source of what appears on the surface to be another 'policy debate' among equally qualified experts (Ehrlich and Ehrlich 1996; Lahsen 2005). ...
As a result of their ready access to media (Dolny 2003), CTTs were able to create a situation in which major media outlets portrayed climate science as an evenly divided debate between sceptics and non-sceptics (Boykoff and Boykoff 2004) employing what McCright and Dunlap (2003, p. 366) term the 'duelling scientists' version of the balancing norm. The result is that US media have given disproportionate attention to the views of a small number of global warming sceptics (Antilla 2005; Boykoff 2007), and as a consequence have been significantly more likely than media in other industrial nations to portray global warming as a controversial issue characterised by scientific uncertainty (Dispensa and Brulle 2003; Gelbspan 2004; Grundmann 2007). ...
The timing of sceptical books follows a noticeable trend, as illustrated in Table 2. There is a consistent increase in sceptical literature over time, starting with only six books in the 1970s and 14 in the 1980s. All save two of these 20 are by US authors. The 1990s saw a five-fold increase in sceptical literature over the preceding decade. Further, judging by the number of books published in its first six years, the current decade is on track to surpass the 1990s (see Table 2). ...
Our analyses of the sceptical literature and CTTs indicate an unambiguous linkage between the two. Over 92 per cent of environmentally sceptical books are linked to conservative think tanks, and 90 per cent of conservative think tanks interested in environmental issues espouse scepticism. Environmental scepticism began in the US, is strongest in the US, and exploded after the end of the Cold War and the emergence of global environmental concern stimulated by the 1992 Earth Summit.
Environmental scepticism is an elite-driven reaction to global environmentalism, organised by core actors within the conservative movement. Promoting scepticism is a key tactic of the anti-environmental counter-movement coordinated by CTTs, designed specifically to undermine the environmental movement's efforts to legitimise its claims via science. Thus, the notion that environmental sceptics are unbiased analysts exposing the myths and scare tactics employed by those they label as practitioners of 'junk science' lacks credibility. Similarly, the self-portrayal of sceptics as marginalised 'Davids' battling the powerful 'Goliath' of environmentalists and environmental scientists is a charade, as sceptics are supported by politically powerful CTTs funded by wealthy foundations and corporations.
Politics
Environment
Comments
Ugh... I can't read the paper. Which is sad, because I do want to know more about the network of think-tanks...
Posted by: bi -- IJI | June 5, 2008 3:20 PM
This is the most insane commentary I think I have read yet. I dont even know where to begin.
Honestly, you do yourself a disservice by putting your opinions on paper.
'Sceptics', as they are called, use science to prove the point that AGW is not only categoricaly false, but more importantly, WRONG.
Tim, there are 2 foundations that support the AGW house of cards; 1. That atmospheric CO2 drives temperatures. 2. That human emmissions of CO2 drives atmospheric CO2.
Point 1- As clearly illustrated using the Vostic Ice Core Samples, CO2 levels FOLLOW Global temps. Al Gore was kind enough to provide that information to everyone in his 'film'.
Point 2- Proven fact #2 is that human emmissions contribute at an almost untraceable level to Atmospheric CO2 levels. The Oceans and decaying carbonic rock inside the earth generate almost all of the CO2 thats makes it into the atmosphere.
These facts come to us from individuals that are brave enough to stand up and speak the truth.
The vast majority of climate scientists rely on 'Governmental grants' and not private funding from businesses. And by the way, look up the head of the IPCC and look at all the boards he sits on.
One last thing that you may want to do is look at the trends of atmospheric CO2 up till the late 1920's and see what happens to that trend when the Great Depression hit and human emmissions of CO2 dropped by 30% over a 4 year period. Guess what happened? Nothing. Atm CO2 levels continued at the exact same rate. How is that possible????
Posted by: Monsoonevans | June 5, 2008 3:20 PM
Yet another person who totally ignores the post to spew his own talking points.
In return, I'll just ignore him.
Posted by: bi -- IJI | June 5, 2008 3:27 PM
"Point 2- Proven fact #2 is that human emmissions contribute at an almost untraceable level to Atmospheric CO2 levels. The Oceans and decaying carbonic rock inside the earth generate almost all of the CO2 thats makes it into the atmosphere."
Drink deep from the Kool-Aid, or not at all. :)
Posted by: t_p_hamilton | June 5, 2008 3:30 PM
Can we get back on topic please? Monsoonevans obviously has nothing to contribute except the same old tired tripe.
Posted by: bi -- IJI | June 5, 2008 3:34 PM
Um, how true is this? My impression was that think-tankers work through the commentary page, and it's more like some sort of "right of reply" thing.
Posted by: bi -- IJI | June 5, 2008 3:53 PM
bi--IJI, I didnt ignore the post. The whole reason I wrote a reply was because of the post. I may have incorrectly implicated Tim when it should have been directed to Mr. Nisbett. My comments were to do 2 things. First to present the facts to the author regarding the issue that the so called 'deniers' are denying. Its important to understand what the scope of the discussion is all about. Secondly, one can go down the list of proponents of AGW and clearly see that they ALL receive funding/grants from some type of organization or another. Some even get their funds from both private and governmental agencies(Rajendra Pachauri for starters). My point is that the conflict of interest is much greater for the AGW proponents. Their jobs/existence depends on it. Think about it, if your a climate scientist and you go for your interview or ask for funds, what side do you want to be on? Not to hard to figure that out.
You can choose to bury your head in the sand and decide to ignore the evidence, or we can actually debate the merits of the issue at hand. It is disingenuous to suggest that those who back 'deniers' are anywhere close to the 'support' behind the alarmists.
Posted by: Monsoonevans | June 5, 2008 4:01 PM
Bi - All this bluster when 2008 is a cold year, no temperture following CO2 here chappie. How do you keep a straight face? I suppose Gistemp will show a record May, only to be down graded later in the month, just like April. Using GisTemp the world has not warmed in 5 years but CO2 has increased 2-3%, I see divergence here.
Regards from a remarkably cool New Zealand Peter Bickle
Posted by: Peter Bickle | June 5, 2008 4:21 PM
Er, if you look at voting records, don't the vast majority of college faculty in the US vote Democrat? Is that because they're smarter than us unwashed conservatives?
Posted by: ben | June 5, 2008 4:27 PM
"Bi - All this bluster when 2008 is a cold year, no temperture following CO2 here chappie. How do you keep a straight face? I suppose Gistemp will show a record May, only to be down graded later in the month, just like April. Using GisTemp the world has not warmed in 5 years but CO2 has increased 2-3%, I see divergence here."
Peter,
You do realise that you are trying to interpret noise don't you? It's funny, you look at the temperature records fail to see the consistent noisy nature of that data and see trends, but I see consistently noisy data.
We've seen "divergence" approximately 10 times since 1970 according to HADCRUT. I'd say that this "divergence" tends not to be very persistent.
Posted by: Paul H | June 5, 2008 4:59 PM
"Point 2- Proven fact #2" ... really a fact? I don't know where to begin. Ever heard of isotopes? Ever heard of carbon-14?
Sorry, your fact is wrong. Anthropogenic carbon dioxide can be measured.
It is really sad when skeptics trying to deny the work of Charles Keeling and more.
Posted by: Tushara | June 5, 2008 5:47 PM
Btw if human emissions are indeed 'untraceable' and this is a fact, your point
"One last thing that you may want to do is look at the trends of atmospheric CO2 up till the late 1920's and see what happens to that trend when the Great Depression hit and human emmissions of CO2 dropped by 30% over a 4 year period. Guess what happened? Nothing. Atm CO2 levels continued at the exact same rate. How is that possible????"
Makes no sense, how do you prove this then?
Posted by: Tushara | June 5, 2008 5:50 PM
"Proven fact #2 is that human emmissions contribute at an almost untraceable level to Atmospheric CO2 levels."
Err, no. We can detect human contribution by measuring isotope ratios.
Isn't it sweet to be lectured on the mad science skillz of AGW deniers by someone who hasn't the foggiest notion of what the underlying science of the AGW theory is?
Posted by: Sock Puppet of the Great Satan | June 5, 2008 7:18 PM
So Peter (8) the president of Kiribati has asked NZ (and Australia) to accept his entire population as refugees as ocean rising is making his islands uninhabitable. Why don't you (and the rest of the NZ sound climate lobby or whatever they call themselves) invest in Kiribati real estate? Since global warming is a myth and the Kiribatians have been hoodwinked, they'll sell for peanuts and you could make a killing in the resorts and tax haven business when the ocean doesn't rise.
Posted by: James Haughton | June 5, 2008 7:23 PM
Could I suggest not feeding the trolls. As the post shows, they are not merely deluded on this issue, but wrapped in an entire parallel universe of delusion. Debating them is a waste of time. The important thing is to publicise the facts about how their bogus worldview has been construct, so that media organisations stop treating conservative thinktankers as legitimate participants in scientific debate and start treating them as the hacks they are.
Posted by: John Quiggin | June 5, 2008 7:36 PM
"The Oceans and decaying carbonic rock inside the earth generate almost all of the CO2 thats makes it into the atmosphere. "
I'll bite; is this a property of all water, or only sodium chloride solutions?
Posted by: z | June 5, 2008 9:10 PM
Quick! Someone get on the phone, ring up Benny Peiser, and get him on this list of 141 books!
Benben, the world needs you!
Best,
D
Posted by: Dano | June 5, 2008 9:14 PM
"Debating them is a waste of time."
Very much so. Ditto creationists, moon-landing deniers, and "9-11 was an inside job" nuts.
Why are these people so often Americans, do you think? Something to do with your founding myths: the moral goodness of america, the endless frontier, the unlimited natural wealth of the fruiting purple plains. Some people just cant let these myths go.
Posted by: Paul Murray | June 5, 2008 10:58 PM
PB:
Yes and CO2 has abolished natural variation. How do you keep a straight face?
Regards from a warm and very dry southern Australia.
Posted by: Chris O'Neill | June 5, 2008 11:08 PM
Frank, your
Um, how true is this? My impression was that think-tankers work through the commentary page, and it's more like some sort of "right of reply" thing.
isn't quite correct. NPR's Morning Edition has been fond of using Ken Green lately, and their use of CEI-AEI folks has increased since the Repubs got into their corporate office.
And the Sunday morning politics shows? Watch them. Rife.
Best,
D
Posted by: Dano | June 5, 2008 11:18 PM
Dano: aww crap...
Posted by: bi -- IJI | June 5, 2008 11:25 PM
"These facts come to us from individuals that are brave enough to stand up and speak the truth"...
while many are coincidentally and conveniently getting paid huge sums of money by industries with a vested interest in denial...
Just thought I'd add in what Monsoonevans didn't.
Posted by: Jeff Harvey | June 6, 2008 4:00 AM
drongo:
Arrogant Ignoramus.
Posted by: Chris O'Neill | June 6, 2008 4:35 AM
Interesting thing about the denialists is that they have this (Huxley?) view of the way science works, that 'a beautiful theory can be killed by a single nasty fact'. But of course if science worked that way, we would have given up Newtonian physics in the early nineteenth century, when it couldn't account for the motion of Uranus.
Posted by: Joe | June 6, 2008 4:48 AM
Why bother with yet another post exhibiting the logical fallacy of "poisoning the well"? This blog has so many of them its make another superfluous. Are you going for some kind of award as the most illogical blog on the web?
What is important is whether the arguments used by sceptics are true and valid, not whom those who make them are linked with. That cannot logically have any bearing on the truth or validity of the arguments.
The green movement has to answer for the effects of its campaigns whether it is malaria killing poor people because of the anti-DDT campaign, or food shortages caused by anti-GM and pro-Biofuel lobbies. It cannot get off the hook by attacking the morals, politics, or business-links of anyone who points this out.
Posted by: Bernard Blyth | June 6, 2008 5:07 AM
Bernard Blyth:
Your own post shows that these are not the only things that matter to you.
Posted by: Chris O'Neill | June 6, 2008 5:29 AM
This would normally be a fair point, except that if their arguments were valid, we'd see a lot more independent studies confirmed them. Instead, what we see is that the only people repeating them are people who are paid specifically to repeat them.
Posted by: Cairnarvon | June 6, 2008 5:29 AM
Wow, a new level of silliness has been reached. WE know pretty well how much CO2 humans are producing, because we know how much fossil fuels are being burnt. This should be obvious. The changing isotope ratio allows us to prove that it is man made CO2 hanging around in the atmosphere.
Posted by: guthrie | June 6, 2008 5:35 AM
When Bernard Blyth writes, "food shortages caused by anti-GM" he is creating the perfect straw-man argument. There's tons of evidence that the push for GM crops from the developed countries has absolutely nothing to do with alleviating hunger. The spectre of hunger and the starvation card is just another absolute good example of corporate greenwash in promoting a technology that is aimed at increasing profits for companies investing in the technology.
Posted by: Jeff Harvey | June 6, 2008 6:03 AM
Cairnarvon:
Indeed... which must be why the inactivists here have avoided claiming that the "Do Nothing Now!" results don't come from a bunch of non-scientific think-tanks. Instead they just keep repeating the same old talking points they heard from the very same think-tanks
Jeff Harvey:
I argued in blog comments that the inactivists aren't motivated by good old things like power, money, or sex; instead they're motivated by plain old hatred for all things environmentalist. And the oil and coal industries, well, simply found in them a quick way to prop up their business models, and next we know they're in a sort of symbiotic relationship.
Posted by: bi -- IJI | June 6, 2008 6:13 AM
Pity I can't access the whole paper, would be interesting to see the whole thing. One point that might be worth considering is who, if anyone, published and funded whatever books there were in the same period that supported the "environmental" view of the world. Who is publishing what attempts to disprove such a view is interesting, but isn't it also interesting to see who publishes the original views? How much did the WorldWatch Institute publish over those years? And are we really supposed to take them as impartial promulgators of "science"? There's also a bit of a mixn'match there between "climate sceptics" and the more general "environmental sceptics". If, for example, I were to publish something stating that curbside recycling programmes are more expensive than simpler landfill based methods of domestic waste disposal (as I have in an article or two, pointing out that none of the cost benefit analyses, even when they do include pollution externalities, include the cost of the time spent on the sorting by households) then I might be counted as an environmental sceptic but that doesn't then follow that I'm a climate change sceptic. Or as Jerry Taylor at Cato has pointed out that some regulations on contaminants cost $ billions per life saved...this might be scepticism about certain plans of some environmentalists, but it's, again, not climate scepticism.
Posted by: Tim Worstall | June 6, 2008 6:16 AM
Bi, I don't totaslly agree with your statement, "I argued in blog comments that the inactivists aren't motivated by good old things like power, money, or sex; instead they're motivated by plain old hatred for all things environmentalist".
To me, this is too simple. At the root of it all is money because money is power and money is control. Andy Rowell's excellent book, 'Green Backlash", although written in 1996, is still very relevant today. It details how the 'brownlash' see any kinds of environmental regulation as a denial of liberty and as a threat to maximizing profit. In my view this has always been their primary aim: eviscertaing the role of government in the economy in pursuit of private profit. The denial lobby has invested billions of dollars in attacking the science they hate and to promote a pre-determined worldview and political agenda. They see the environmental movement as a threat to the way they do business, hence their vilification of it.
Posted by: Jeff Harvey | June 6, 2008 6:43 AM
Moonsoonevans writes:
In a natural deglaciation, CO2 follows temperature and amplifies the slight increase into a large one. That is NOT what is happening now. For the past 200 years, CO2 has led temperature.
There are two different sources involved. In a natural deglaciation, temperature rises, CO2 becomes less soluble in water, and it is emitted from the ocean. In the present situation, the CO2 is coming largely from the combustion of fossil fuels. We can tell from its radioisotope signature.
Not the whole truth. The vast natural sources of CO2 are balanced by vast natural SINKS for CO2. That's why ambient carbon dioxide was steady at around 280 parts per million by volume for thousands of years. Since the industrial revolution began, the small additional output from human technology has raised the input above the output, and the background amount has increased from 280 to 385 ppmv. Thus 27% of the CO2 in the air around us is from human technological sources.
Right -- climatologists.
And your point here is...?
Because, as you yourself noted, the human addition is very small compared to the natural background. For more on why this argument is bogus, try here:
http://members.aol.com/bpl1960/Cockburn.html
Posted by: Barton Paul Levenson | June 6, 2008 8:03 AM
One point that might be worth considering is who, if anyone, published and funded whatever books there were in the same period that supported the "environmental" view of the world. Who is publishing what attempts to disprove such a view is interesting, but isn't it also interesting to see who publishes the original views?
What we can count on is not a well-controlled study to find this out, but rather a slapdash petition or Mike Morano press release or ululating op-ed picked up by the National Post
Fact is, this industry has published very few credible pieces of work.
Best,
D
Posted by: Dano | June 6, 2008 8:07 AM
Bernard Blyth blythely posts:
A myth. It has been widely discussed in this very blog. How long have you been reading it? The key fact of interest is that, contrary to right-wing propaganda, DDT was never banned for antimalarial use in the third world.
The amount of GM food being produced is small compared to non-GM, and most of it is consumed. No shortage there. Biofuel hasn't been a big problem either, though it will become one if countries go into it carelessly. The rising food prices of the present are caused largely by drought in Europe, Australia, the southeastern USA and Africa. BTW, global warming results in more droughts in continental interiors.
Posted by: Barton Paul Levenson | June 6, 2008 8:08 AM
But that's definitely not the whole story. For instance, why did Nierenberg, as director of the SIO, decide to deny global warming instead of making a good name for himself by doing some cool stuff at the SIO? Can't he continue to get power, influence, and money by this route?
The oil and coal industries obviously have a motive to get folks to shill for them -- this is what I said. But what was in it for Jastrow and Nierenberg, for example? The standard account by Oreskes et al. simply goes that after the Cold War they suddenly decided to attack AGW, for no (stated) reason whatsoever. I do think there's an element of hate in there (though admittedly, that's not exactly a very good theory either).
Posted by: bi -- IJI | June 6, 2008 8:09 AM
Tim W:
Going through books just to hand: Andrew Dessler, Texas A&M; Chris Mooney, freelance journalist; James Lovelock, Oxford; Ian Enting, Melbourne; Tim Flannery, Macquarie; Al Gore;
No think tanks or equivalents unless you want to count Al Gore.
Posted by: Tim Lambert | June 6, 2008 8:28 AM
Tim L, the books you list are mostly responses to the attacks on science. I'd suggest the correct answer to Tim W is found by looking for the funders of Nature, Science, Scientific American and so on, where the science attacked by the likes of Steve Milloy and PlanetGore is typically first published.
You could also look at the US NAS, CSIRO and so on, funded by governments that have, for the last decade or so been violently hostile to climate science and the environment.
Posted by: John Quiggin | June 6, 2008 8:43 AM
Q is correct - you want to look at Island Press and other such imprinters. How many has Soros funded vs Scaife? How many green books go on the discount shelves 2 weeks after release like Scaife's do?
In fact, some of you well-funded enviro-*zis+ should preempt the piece of crp Mike Morano-PR poll that will come out in two weeks and do your own list of green books.
Best,
D
Posted by: Dano | June 6, 2008 8:51 AM
OK, is Worldwatch a think tank or equivalent? Certainly arguable, don't you think? Their (incomplete) publication list is here: http://www.worldwatch.org/taxonomy/term/45 I don't think any of us would argue that they're impartial promulgators of straight science, would we? That's why I mentioned them above: what is the comparison between rightie tankers and their books on the environment and greenie tankers and theirs?
Off topic, this is good from their press release for the first book on the list:
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5300
"The increase in world agriculture prices caused by the global boom in biofuels could benefit many of the world's rural poor, according to the Worldwatch Institute."
Posted by: Tim Worstall | June 6, 2008 9:22 AM
Bi, I think in her online lecture (linked by Tim a few months back but Google will get it for you quickly enough) Oreskes said Jastrow and the other Marshall Institute founders were motivated by ideology: to them, any government regulation was backdoor communism. So 'environmentalism' was bad because its supporters agitated for regulation.
I tend to share Jeff Harvey's view when considered at a collective level: given that there are a number of scientists around with sufficient ideological biases to override their scientific objectivity, the ones who float (sink?) to prominence will be those whose biases can get financial support.
Posted by: Vagueofgodalming | June 6, 2008 9:29 AM
Bi, we agree on most points. As you said, I do think there's an element of hate in there against the environmental lobby, but my five cent's worth is that certainly some of this hate is projected for financial/profit related reasons, because many corporate elites see public opinion as a threat. If there are too many people promoting regulation to protect the environment, as influenced by a strong environmental lobby, then this will have profound fiscal repercussions. This might help to explain why there's so much money sloshing around in the anti-environmental coffers.
Posted by: Jeff Harvey | June 6, 2008 10:00 AM
Worstall tries in vain:
I don't think any of us would argue that they're impartial promulgators of straight science, would we?
Those of us who can identify science don't say WW conducts hypothesis tests on a regular basis. Or an occasional basis. But we say their sources and refs - FAO, scientific journals, usually no polemic books from people with no training in the sciences - are generally solid, not cherry-picked, quote-mined or mischaracterized.
Those of us who don't know a T-test from hemorrhoid cream look at their Board and their mission statement and find that their goal is to promote sustainability, there are no big energy companies on the board looking to greenwash their reputations, nor does their mission statement have phrases like "balanced view" or "sound science", and the alarm bells go off and we wonder about their agenda. Horrors! Oh, the humanity! They want to send us back to the Stone Age!
Best,
D
Posted by: Dano | June 6, 2008 10:07 AM
Barton Levenson writes:
"In a natural deglaciation, CO2 follows temperature and amplifies the slight increase into a large one. That is NOT what is happening now. For the past 200 years, CO2 has led temperature."
Were are you getting that information? In your 1st sentance you state the CO2 FOLLOWS temperature. In your second sentance you say CO2 leads temps?!?! According to any reliable source I have seen, CO2 has always followed temps. Please point me to the research and samples that say I'm wrong.
I would also like to correct myself when I said human emmissions were almost untraceable. It would be more accurate to say; 'relative to naturally occuring events (ie., oceans, carbonic rock).
You can do all the name calling you want and claim we are using the same tired arguments, but at the end of the day, nature rules. This shouldnt be a political or economical debate but rather one based purely on science and common sense. Once you involve self interested parties (business, scientists, governments, capitalists), you lose objectivity.
The science as we know it says that were we are NOW is historically inline with were we should be. Milankovich clearly demonstates that. Common sense clearly shows that atmospheric CO2 comes after temperature. The carbon 'sink' theory is just that. An attempt to rationalize a position with something that is just not accurate. Last bit of common sense is why there can be No REAL answer to why temperatures keep going up and down if rising CO2 is directly causing the earth to warm. How does that make any sense?? Bottom line is that the proper people arent sitting down and hamming this thing out. It is being settled by disengenous people. When the IPCC refuses to allow dissenting views prior to final reports, then we have a problem with taking anything they say as fair or impartial.
I wish you didnt resort to name calling and using excuses as to not answering questions directly and addressing major problems with the AGW theory. It would go a long way in settling this debate if we debated the 'facts'. Just need to make sure we are using ALL the CORRECT facts.
I should have said, 'relative' to naturally occuring Atmospheric CO2. My mistake.
Posted by: Monsoonevans | June 6, 2008 10:35 AM
BPL sets up a straw man in response to my post. I did not say that DDT has ever been banned anywhere. That point - despite being the subject of dozens of threads on this blog - is totally irrelevant. Many countries and aid/health agencies chose quite freely not to use DDT against malaria because of the widespread and successful campaigns of the green lobby; following Rachel Carson's false belief that even the smallest contact with DDT can cause cancer and other serious diseases.
But in any case my main point is unanswerable. Attacking the people making the arguments against you does not logically help your case one little bit, but instead diminishes your own case in the eyes of the neutral observer.
Posted by: Bernard Blyth | June 6, 2008 10:51 AM
sorry, i ll bite:
Last bit of common sense is why there can be No REAL answer to why temperatures keep going up and down if rising CO2 is directly causing the earth to warm. How does that make any sense??
funny, CO2 is constantly increasing, but temperature rises every morning and sinks every evening. obviously you just gave us the proof, that CO2 is not related to tempearture in any way.
please give this man a medal!
====
on topic, nobody who has been following the denislaist sphere for more than a couple of months can ignore the fact that they are intervoven with a handfull of institutes and thinktanks.
Posted by: sod | June 6, 2008 10:52 AM
What is frustrating about this is that the media treats these conservative think tanks as if they were actual reliable sources. The intellectual dishonesty it takes to remain a free market libertarian in the face of reality is quite impressive.
Posted by: Boris | June 6, 2008 11:13 AM
How may pro-global warming books can be linked to funded pro-global warming sources, I wonder?
Bit of logical fallacy to assume that because a book is "linked" to a conservative think tank, the book must be propaganda. Don't you have to argue each book on its merits? I would argue that the same logic, applied to pro-environmental books, would probably yield similar results. Does that mean we should dismiss such works also?
Posted by: WaitaSecond | June 6, 2008 11:16 AM
Many countries and aid/health agencies chose quite freely not to use DDT against malaria because of the widespread and successful campaigns of the green lobby;
You "forgot" to mention:
The green lobby found that the application techniques led to increasing resistance and decreasing effectiveness.
The overapplication because of decreasing effectiveness (the hallmark of most insecticides, BTW, which is why licensed applicators must take entomology classes to understand this) was a causative factor in the dirty green lobby's pointing out the increased cancer rates and environmental damage caused by the mindless application of DDT.
But odds are if you are promulgating these talking points you don't want to hear this, so I merely post this whack-a-mole for the record and wonder why I wasted this time, which I'll never get back.
Best,
D
Posted by: Dano | June 6, 2008 11:16 AM
DDT:
Still, you can't really make the argument that cancer deaths from potential DDT overexposure would be greater than lives saved from Malaria.
The math is pretty simple on that.
Posted by: WaitaSecond | June 6, 2008 11:20 AM
50: Read 49 again.
Posted by: Boris | June 6, 2008 11:31 AM
The math is pretty simple on that.
Speaking of simple: [killfile]
Best,
D
Posted by: Dano | June 6, 2008 11:56 AM
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5703
DDT isn't a silver bullet for malaria control. Never was. Never will be. Broadcast spraying is pretty much useless. All DDT is good for is as a relatively inferior indoor repellent, which is just a band-aid approach.
It's all the greenies' fault that effective local vector controls haven't been established in Equatorial Africa. Sure.
Posted by: luminous beauty | June 6, 2008 12:28 PM
Bernard Blyth:
i.e.:
I'd like to live in an ideal world where I knew the truth all the time too. But given that I don't, I need other ways of finding out what the truth is likely to be and then if I find some people are not telling the truth it's interesting to know why they they are not telling the truth. I know enough about the science to know that the sceptic arguments are garbage and that they have been garbage for a long time. It's interesting for other reasons to know what motivates sceptic arguments.
Posted by: Chris O'Neill | June 6, 2008 12:28 PM
WaitaSecond:
Well, if 90% of books touting the benefits supposed magical elixirs are linked to the vendors of such elixirs, of course one should give the benefit of the doubt and assume first that the books aren't propaganda. Of course!
===
Jeff Harvey:
Oh well, I guess the 'disagreement' is on how much of the hate is genuine, and how much of it is merely faked by the Big Smog industries. I'm currently thinking more towards the former, but I may be way wrong...
===
Vagueofgodalming:
I suppose what I'm looking at is how environmentalism (in general) came to be viewed as covert Bolshevism -- Jastrow and friends didn't exactly invent the "greenies are commies" meme. I'm still wondering where that come from, but at this point it still seems that it's merely an extension of an older hatred. Bleh.
===
sod:
Clinton did it too, Clinton did it too, Clinton did it too, ...
Posted by: bi -- IJI | June 6, 2008 1:40 PM
Worldwatch predicted the increase in grain prices, and oil prices, and the decrease in freshwater availability many years ago, while the Usual Denial Clowns were insisting it couldn't happen because it would all be corrected by free markets, and anyway be of no concern to the world's rich. Of course this is now one of the arguments by the global warming deniers. As for the observation that "higher food prices should benefit the world's rural poor," that is a standard, one-equation classroom syllogism in economics -- since of course it should raise farmers' incomes. Indeed, one of Worldwatch's real failings is its occasional reversion to clownish economics arguments, ceteris paribus and without regard for complex systems. It is a sad reminder of the fact that, contemporaneous with the "Denial Industrial Complex," since the early 1970's there has been a concerted effort to flood the media with market fundamentalisms, and in the U.S. it was so successful that the man in the street is still spouting the gibberish. An investigation will perhaps show that those freemarket thinktanks are some of the same ones as the science deniers, and are funded by many of the same people -- all in service to the business and financial sectors, and their bought-and-paid-for politicians. These people learned by the early 20th century that in a democracy, public relations is everything: because votes are everything. By comparison, economics is really a small subdivision of control theory. Its manipulation, however, can be highly profitable.
Posted by: Lee A. Arnold | June 6, 2008 1:54 PM
Could I suggest not feeding the trolls. As the post shows, they are not merely deluded on this issue, but wrapped in an entire parallel universe of delusion. Debating them is a waste of time. The important thing is to publicise the facts about how their bogus worldview has been construct, so that media organisations stop treating conservative thinktankers as legitimate participants in scientific debate and start treating them as the hacks they are.
John's definition of "troll":
"Anyone who does not march in lock-step with my agenda."
John's definition of "hack":
"Anyone who does not march in lock-step with my agenda."
Posted by: me | June 6, 2008 1:59 PM
me: You're just screaing and saying nothing substantial. Good day.
Posted by: bi -- IJI | June 6, 2008 2:11 PM
Going through books just to hand: Andrew Dessler, Texas A&M; Chris Mooney, freelance journalist; James Lovelock, Oxford; Ian Enting, Melbourne; Tim Flannery, Macquarie; Al Gore;
The question was who published and funded them, not who wrote the books. There's a difference.
This announcement brought to you by the Department of Duh!
Posted by: Global Warming Is A Scam | June 6, 2008 6:07 PM
me: You're just screaing and saying nothing substantial. Good day.
How does one screa?
Posted by: Global Warming Is A Scam | June 6, 2008 6:08 PM
Good news: http://www.penney.org/ggkiller.html Google Groups KillFile GreaseMonkey script
Posted by: Hank Roberts | June 6, 2008 8:44 PM
Still, you can't really make the argument that cancer deaths from potential DDT overexposure would be greater than lives saved from Malaria."
but i can, will, and do make the argument that the ban on agricultural use of DDT saved whatever residual effectiveness remained after years of agricultural use generated enough resistance in insect species to make it useless in most of India, Ceylon, Africa, etc. In other words, every life which has been saved by DDT would not have been saved had the agricultural ban not been put into place, as you seem to think would have been preferable.
Posted by: z | June 6, 2008 10:04 PM