Tim Lambert (deltoidblog AT gmail.com) is a computer scientist at the University of New South Wales.
John Mashey emails me a link to a video a Naomi Oreskes talk about the Western Fuels Association's PR campaign against the global warming science.
Mashey's summary of her talk:
Naomi is an award-winning geoscientist/science historian, a Professor at UCSD and as of July, promoted to Provost of of the Sixth College there. She is also a meticulous researcher, as seen from past books, and from having reviewed a few chapters of the book she mentions in the talk. She unearthed some fascinating memos, although of course, impossible to replicate the exhaustive database of tobacco documents.
If you haven't seen her earlier 58-minute video, The American Denial of Global Warming", you might watch that first. It's first half is a longer version of the development of climate science, and the second half is about the George C. Marshall Institute.
This talk has about 10 minutes of background, and the rest is new material on the Western Fuels Association.]
The video production isn't flashy, but it's good enough. The lecture room was packed, I had to stand. Interesting people attended.
This, of course, is an informal seminar talk - for the thorough documentation, you'll have to await the book.
SUMMARY
00:00 Background [fairly familiar, some overlap with earlier talk]
10:30 1988, Hansen in Congress, IPCC starts
11:05 "Tobacco strategy" to challenge science
I.e., use of similar techniques, sometimes by same people
14:50 Western Fuels Association (Power River coal companies)
Sophisticated marketing campaign in test markets
17:20 1991 - WFA creates ICE - Information Council for Environment
ICE ~ Tobacco Industry Research Council (TIRC) - See Allan M. Brandt, "The Cigarette Century"
21:00 WFA print campaign
23:00 Scientists are more believable than coal people, so use scientists, create memes
25:30 WFA produces video "The Greening of Earth", provides many copies
The Greening Earth Society (astroturf); more CO2 is good for the whole Earth Excerpts from video
30:00- Video shows the Sahara turning completetely green
32:20- "Plants have been eating CO2 and they're starved" Discussion of circumstances under which CO2 does help and illustration of marketing tactics, cherry-picking, etc. I.e., how does one use a few tidbits of real science to create an impression very different form the overview? Are there lessons for scientists?
40:00 end
[Speaking as an old farmboy, plants need sun, water, soil, nutrients, and CO2, and sometimes right climate, i.e., sugar maples need cold. The Sahara will not be a new cornbelt, no matter how high CO2 goes.]
Politics
Environment
Comments
Isn't that [bracketed] section commentary from Michael Tobis? I've seen John post that summary before and I could have sworn it didn't have that note until it showed up on Only In It For The Gold. (That, and I don't recall Mashey ever mentioning working on a farm. Bell Labs, yes, farming, not to my knowledge.)
That said, it's an interesting talk after she gets past the overlap bit (although that part would be more interesting to someone who hasn't seen The American Denial of Global Warming). I'm particularly smitten with her description of traditional science communication as "supply-side science" -- it's an almost perfect sound-bite-sized summary of the issues with disseminating scientific findings to the public, and it's a term I think deserves to be spread around. Even though it's only a tangential tidbit to her talk's topic.
Posted by: Brian D | August 11, 2008 3:53 PM
Update and correction: It seems I misread mt's caveat on his page. Disregard my first paragraph above.
Posted by: Brian D | August 11, 2008 3:57 PM
Well, for the last few decades, server farms and render farms have been more relevant, but I lived (and so, worked) (until off to college) on a small farm North of Pittsburgh, PA that had been in the family ~100 years.
I have sketches of the house & barn and maps from the 1840s, some arrowheads, a few farm implements, and various written records.
The best is a handwritten journal covering 1850-1900, with every item of income and expenditure down to the penny - stereotypically meticulous Swiss, they kept track of each cow the way modern Swiss measure their glaciers, as in the entry:
"The Lady cow took the Bull the 22nd of February 1875", as one of several such entries. [Not bovine p*rn, serious business for farmers then.]
Also, there was a small oil well [Western PA = early oil country]: "January 4, 1900 Sold Oil 56 B at 1.66 per Bl = $94.45."
Of course $1 went a bit further then...
Posted by: John Mashey | August 11, 2008 4:34 PM
Oreskes points out that the denialism industry has been successful in creating the false impression that there is still a lack of agreement between scientists about whether global warming is anthropogenic etc. This despite the vast majority of people accepting that it's true. i.e. a lot of people accept AGW but think there is still significant scientific controversy.
Posted by: Chris O'Neill | August 12, 2008 2:07 AM
Nice of John to circulate this. I note that the reference at 14:50 should refer to the Powder (not Power) River.
Naomi Oreskes' focus on the WFA is important (as well as on the related raidroad and utilities indistries), but what people seem to forget is that our state, provincial and federal governments, here in the US, in Canada and elsewhere, largely own the land from which coal is being extracted and collect very significant royalties as a result.
Political progress is delayed because the federal government doesn't want to cut off an important stream of revenues without a replacement, and because local governments are strongly opposed to losing such revenues and employment (and are effective at blocking change in Congress).
If we want to see progress, the coal states out West and in Appalachia will need to be bought off.
Posted by: TokyoTom | August 12, 2008 4:32 AM
Somewhat ironically, a carbon tax is virtually the same thing as a royalty, although depending on how much carbon gets into the atmosphere, the carbon tax might be so large that it causes coal production to decrease.
Posted by: Chris O'Neill | August 12, 2008 7:51 AM
Hey all.
The idea of me as a farmhand makes me laugh; I am the ultimate city boy, born and raised in Montreal, spent most of my adulthood in Chicago. I just adore a penthouse view... Hopefully the revised introductory paragraph on my blog clarifies that all following text is John's.
John mailed his review out to several people. I asked him for permission to post it and he granted it, but he didn't especially grant exclusive rights. Think of it as a syndicated column.
Mashey really ought to start a blog. Even if it were occasional enough people would subscribe that it would get due notice. Meanwhile, any time Oresekes material becomes available it deserves the widest possible distribution.
So despite the redundancy I think neither Tim nor myself should take John's article down.
best regards mt
Posted by: Michael Tobis | August 12, 2008 11:29 AM
TokyoTom: yes, Powder River for sure. Regarding government and $$, note the parallel with cigarette taxes...
Michael & Brian D: Re the farmer confusion, I think Brian D may have seen your hat on your blog picture and assumed you were some kind of gentleman rancher who did computing and blogs as hobbies.
ANY: if you found Naomi's video useful, you might visit Margot's website where it is and post a comment or two to encourage her. I'd bugged her for months to get the full video up, and promised her I'd spread it around.
Posted by: John Mashey | August 12, 2008 4:09 PM
re Tobis's "Mashey really ought to start a blog" -
For now, I've created a Best of Mashey blog - let's put his "hoisted from comments" ones there. I get awfully tired of having to go googling for his stuff all the time.
Or - having 2nd thoughts - should we* just tag the "hoisted" posts "best of Mashey"? "hoisting Mashey"? Tagging would likely be less labor intensive.
(* that's "we" meaning "y'all", of course.)
Posted by: Anna Haynes | August 13, 2008 1:58 PM
fyi, a retrenchment from previous comment - based on email feedback (someone who thought it was a dumb idea) I'm de-creating the B.o.M blog.
Posted by: Anna Haynes | August 13, 2008 3:35 PM
^^^
It's the snippet spammers!
Posted by: bi -- IJI | August 15, 2008 4:18 AM