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The Bill McKibben Reader
Article
The Attack on Climate-Change Science
Posted Feb 25, 2010 by Bill McKibben
Why It’s the O.J. Moment of the Twenty-First Century
[Excerpt] Twenty-one years ago, in 1989, I wrote what many have called the first book for a general audience on global warming. One of the more interesting reviews came from the Wall Street Journal. It was a mixed and judicious appraisal. “The subject,” the reviewer said, “is important, the notion is arresting, and Mr. McKibben argues convincingly.” And that was not an outlier: around the same time, the first president Bush announced that he planned to “fight the greenhouse effect with the White House effect.”
I doubt that’s what the Journal will say about my next book when it comes out in a few weeks, and I know that no GOP presidential contender would now dream of acknowledging that human beings are warming the planet. Sarah Palin is currently calling climate science “snake oil” and last week, the Utah legislature, in a move straight out of the King Canute playbook, passed a resolution condemning "a well organized and ongoing effort to manipulate global temperature data in order to produce a global warming outcome" on a nearly party-line vote.
And here’s what’s odd. In 1989, I could fit just about every scientific study on climate change on top of my desk. The science was still thin. If my reporting made me think it was nonetheless convincing, many scientists were not yet prepared to agree.
Now, you could fill the Superdome with climate-change research data. (You might not want to, though, since Hurricane Katrina demonstrated just how easy it was to rip holes in its roof.) Every major scientific body in the world has produced reports confirming the peril. All 15 of the warmest years on record have come in the two decades that have passed since 1989. In the meantime, the Earth’s major natural systems have all shown undeniable signs of rapid flux: melting Arctic and glacial ice, rapidly acidifying seawater, and so on.
Somehow, though, the onslaught against the science of climate change has never been stronger, and its effects, at least in the U.S., never more obvious: fewer Americans believe humans are warming the planet. At least partly as a result, Congress feels little need to consider global-warming legislation, no less pass it; and as a result of that failure, progress towards any kind of international agreement on climate change has essentially ground to a halt.
Climate-Change Denial as an O.J. Moment
The campaign against climate science has been enormously clever, and enormously effective. It’s worth trying to understand how they’ve done it. The best analogy, I think, is to the O.J. Simpson trial, an event that’s begun to recede into our collective memory. For those who were conscious in 1995, however, I imagine that just a few names will make it come back to life. Kato Kaelin, anyone? Lance Ito?...
Originally published at February 25th at TomDispatch
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4 comments
Abrupt climate change
From: Brad Arnold, Mar 2, 10 02:23 PM
When a complex system (like our climate) is forced (like by our gigantic carbon emissions), it resists change, but then abruptly changes to a new stable state.
Our political system responds to crisis, whereas climate change from mankind's emissions has been slow. Ironically, the primary warning sign of imminent abrupt climate change is stasis, when the complex system freezes momentarily.
By the way, global warming appears to have slowed momentarily - perhaps because of the lack of sunspot activity, or (maybe) because abrupt climate change is imminent.
I'm done with the debate.
From: Tyler Vincent, Feb 28, 10 02:06 PM
I don't know what to think of both sides of the movement anymore, especially seeing this coming from the post carbon institute. I hope Michael Rupert has it right.
"The climate deniers come with a few built-in advantages. Thanks to Exxon Mobil and others with a vested interest in debunking climate-change research, their “think tanks” have plenty of money, none of which gets wasted doing actual research to disprove climate change."
First of all, I don't deny the climate, or climate change... note: clouds move.
However, I am beginning to doubt catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. Really, I'm one of the many who realize they simply don't know.
One thing I do know is that both sides of the debate have turned into an international gang rape of profiteering and name calling. Ex. "deniers," & "believers."
If you are a "denier" you support Exxon, and the destructive yet temporary wonder that the age of oil has created.
If you are a "believer" you support a carbon tax levied on every man woman and child on the planet. Meanwhile along with all these bankster bailouts you believe a carbon tax would be used for the greatest good for the greatest amount of people.
I think it will keep the rich psychopaths and the most polluting & destructive industries comfy just a little bit longer, while the innovative bubble of humanity is enslaved (aka demand destructed) into oblivion.
One thing is for sure, peak oil will put an end to this whole debate by putting everybody into survival mode, meanwhile putting and end to any possibility of further so called "anthropogenic global warming."
I'm done with the debate.
From: Dave Hymers, Feb 25, 10 08:41 PM
It serves to remember some statistics here also I think.
As more and more data is collected, research is done and more scientists enter the field, the more climate science will enter the day to day lives of people, hence more idiots will have an opinion.
My opinion is that knowledge and intelligent people is spread pretty thinly throughout a population.
With the explosion of the internet over the 1990s information dissemination got lightening fast, and with it the ability to pass even the wrong kind of information to just the right sub-set of people.
We've become saturated in opinions and facts alike, for some it is very hard to distinguish which is which. Identifying a source and its motives is also hard, and beyond the realm of effort for most. And again, in my opinion the effect has only gotten worse as we've added another 58.7 million people to the US since 1989.
9-10 million of which were definitely not around when the first Bush was in office and couldn't give a hoot about what he said, let alone what occurred before him.
The current denialisim is a result of ignorance of the current world and also that of the recent past. We seem to be turning a dangerous corner in our culture where knowledge, science, factual reasoning and in some cases common sense are thrown to the dogs. People only want to hear that everything is fine and nothing can possibly challenge the way they live their lives; especially a field of science they only have the lightest of grips on from a certain movie by a certain vice president. They don't want to read widely or consider there are thousands of men and women closer to the science who don't have political motivations of any kind; they are just doing their jobs.
We're getting dumber, and we're being taught to hate those who are smarter than us.
Gross generalizations aside, I know there are other people out there who ignore this side of the "debate" and will espouse that you can only do what you can do and others can hang themselves.
Well maybe its time we started doing what we can do to change the public face and debate of science and climate science alike; this country needs technicians and scientists theoretical and practical who can stand up for their knowledge and beat politicians at their own dumb game.
the attack on climate change
From: Jason Baumgardner, Feb 25, 10 05:43 PM
We could also fill the super dome with enough scientific evidence to support the young earth theory. Your argument is ridiculous at best and idiotic at worst.
You have no clue how warm the planet was a thousand years ago and no viable evidence to back up your absurd claims.
It is people like you that scare me.