Supposedly, we’re an advanced civilization, but we fail to understand the issues and illustrate the issues clearly (although we often fail to understand the issues willfully). Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and carbon dioxide is a factor in why the Earth doesn’t freeze. Furthermore, it’s ridiculous to believe that there are no consequences of burning fossil fuels, pumping pollution into the atmosphere, or pumping so much additional carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. There are environmental and corresponding health impacts when we pollute aquatic environments, and burning coal is directly connected to (1) mercury deposition, which causes, inter alia, mercury in seafood; (2) nitrogen deposition, which causes, inter alia, eutrophication; and (3) sulfur deposition, which causes, inter alia, acid rain. Consequently, why are global warming and climate change so controversial? More from the Boulder Daily Camera:
Maxwell Boykoff, an assistant professor of environmental studies, was one of four CU researchers who presented their work over the weekend at an annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Diego.
Boykoff — who has tracked climate-change coverage by 50 newspapers in 20 countries since 2004 — cites several concerns in the media coverage, including a tendency to give too much ink to skeptics who have extreme views but little evidence to support their arguments.
Reporters often lump all skeptics together in their coverage, he said, instead of testing the veracity of individual claims and putting those arguments in context.
“This has been detrimental both in terms of dismissing legitimate critiques of climate science or policy, as well as amplifying extreme and tenuous claims,” he said.
Playing up the skeptical viewpoint also creates conflict and drama, attributes that may make news stories more interesting but which ultimately impede public understanding of the science behind climate change, according to Boykoff.
So, is the massive dumping of snow from the Mid-Atlantic to New England proof positive that climate change is untrue, as doubters such as Sen. James Imhofe (R-Okla.) have taken the opportunity to trumpet? (His family built an igloo, declared it Al Gore’s new home and put up signs asking people to honk if they liked global warming).
Not if you read the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report carefully.
First, the cold weather spells in the East have been linked with an “El Nino” year and a shift in the arctic oscillation that sent a jet of cold air down into the Eastern United States and elsewhere, all cyclically occurring events regardless of the overall trend in average planetary temperature, as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration pointed out recently.
Lost in the hype over the East Coast cold snap around the Christmas holidays was the fact that at the same time, parts of Alaska were unseasonably warm. And the record cold that descended as far south as Florida in January? Globally, January 2010 was the warmest January on record, based on satellite data that date to 1979, according to AccuWeather.com.
As for East Coast getting snow in February, the IPCC scientists, citing peer-reviewed studies, concluded that the severity of precipitation events (and snow is one of them) would increase in a warming global climate.
Meanwhile, Rachel Maddow again called out Senator Inhofe for his blatant hypocrisy. Nationally, Senator Inhofe trashed the stimulus while simultaneously praising projects funded in his district. Perhaps, if Senator Jim Inhofe were more concerned with details, he wouldn’t go around making such tremendous gaffes. But, I’m sure he doesn’t care.
Via Facebook, “Senator Jim Inhofe’s Photos – Inhofe Family Pokes Fun at Al Gore, Global Warming During DC Feb Blizzard”:
Nor has the fundamental physics of the greenhouse effect changed: CO2 in the atmosphere continues to trap heat that would otherwise slip into space, as was established by Irish scientist John Tyndall in 1859. “There is a natural greenhouse effect, that’s what keeps the planet livable,” noted climate modeler Gavin Schmidt of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) during a Friday conference call with reporters organized by the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. “Without it, we’d be 33 degrees Celsius colder than we are. That’s been known for hundreds of years.”
. . .
In fact, nothing in the stolen e-mails or computer code undermines in any way the scientific consensus—which exists among scientific publications as well as scientists—that climate change is happening and humans are the cause. “There is a robust consensus that humans are altering the atmosphere and warming the planet,” said meteorologist Michael Mann of The Pennsylvania State University, who also participated in the conference call and was among the scientists whose e-mails have been leaked. “Further increases in greenhouse gases will lead to increasingly greater disruption.”
Some of the kerfuffle rests on a misreading of the e-mails’ wording. For example, the word“trick” in one message, which has been cited as evidence that a conspiracy is afoot, is actually being used to describe a mathematical approach to reconciling observed temperatures with stand-in data inferred from tree ring measurements.
Climate Cover-Up tracks the aggressive global warming denial movement to frustrate climate science and obscure the debate on climate change. From DeSmogBlog:
Starting in the early 1990s, three large American industry groups set to work on strategies to cast doubt on the science of climate change. Even though the oil industry’s own scientists had declared, as early as 1995, that human-induced climate change was undeniable, the American Petroleum Institute, the Western Fuels Association (a coal-fired electrical industry consortium) and a Philip Morris-sponsored anti-science group called TASSC all drafted and promoted campaigns of climate change disinformation.
The success of those plans is self-evident. A Yale/George Mason University poll taken late in 2008 showed that — 20 years after President George H.W. Bush promised to beat the greenhouse effect with the “White House effect” — a clear majority of Americans still say they either doubt the science of climate change or they just don’t know. Climate Cover-Up explains why they don’t know. Tracking the global warming denial movement from its inception, public relations advisor James Hoggan (working with journalist Richard Littlemore), reveals the details of those early plans and then tracks their execution, naming names and exposing tactics in what has become a full-blown attack on the integrity of the public conversation.
The attempt to access private e-mails and spin climate change data goes beyond hacking. From Climate Progress:
It has now been reported that the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Center is not the only victim of such a criminal invasion: burglars and hackers have also attacked the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis at the University of Victoria in British Columbia:
Andrew Weaver, a University of Victoria scientist and key contributor to the Nobel prize-winning work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, says there have been a number of attempted breaches in recent months, including two successful break-ins at his campus office in which a dead computer was stolen and papers were rummaged through.
These attacks go beyond simple burglary. University of Victoria spokeswoman Patty Pitts told the National Post “there have also been attempts to hack into climate scientists’ computers, as well as incidents in which people impersonated network technicians to try to gain access to campus offices and data.”
For thirty years, defenders of a pollution-based economy have intimidated, smeared, and suppressed climate science, using a playbook perfected by the tobacco industry and Karl Rove. Now — as the United States, led by President Barack Obama, finally appears ready to join the world in the fight against global warming — the opponents of reform are resorting to criminal desperation, harkening back to the paranoia-fueled extremes of Richard Nixon.
However, do to exaggeration, the so-called Climategate may turn against climate change deniers. More from mongabay.com:
Even the Washington Post, which has come under fire from climatologists for publishing several op-eds by George Will denying climate change, has stated that “none of [the emails] seriously undercuts the scientific consensus on climate change” and “by our reckoning — and that of most scientists, policymakers and almost every government in the world — the probability that the planet will warm in the long term because of human activity is extremely high, and the probability that allowing it to do so unabated will have disastrous effects is unacceptably large”.
Also in the Washington Post, science historian and author of The Discovery of Global Warming, Spencer Weart, calls the belief in a conspiracy on climate change “extraordinary and, frankly, weird”. He explains that “in blogs, talk radio and other new media, we are told that the warnings about future global warming issued by the national science academies, scientific societies, and governments of all the leading nations are not only mistaken, but based on a hoax, indeed a conspiracy that must involve thousands of respected researchers”.
Video: Climate change denialists, whether amateurs or professionals like FOX NEWS or Rush Limbaugh, should do their due diligence before jumping on the conspiracy bandwagon (e.g., completely read, research, and fact check the claims:
Apparently, the Chamber has been misrepresenting its membership numbers. The Chamber has been quoting that 3 million members are part of its organization. However, it appears the Chamber may have merely 300,000 members—perhaps even much less, due to the Chamber’s secrecy on its membership numbers. Of course, misrepresentation is a indication of one’s credibility. Consequently, why should businesses or the American public trust the Chamber? Many high profile businesses and utilities such as Apple, Exelon, PNM Resources, Pacific Gas and Electric, and Levi Strauss & Co have already departed the lobbying firm. Most recently, “political disagreements with the US Chamber of Commerce have prompted the San Francisco Chamber to drop out of a program that automatically enrolled many of its members in the national group.”
The Chamber has been lobbying aggressively against climate change legislation, even calling for a “public hearing on the scientific evidence for man-made climate change. . . . [or] ‘the Scopes monkey trial of the 21st Century.’” The Chamber’s misrepresentations are very relevant, since lobbying on the behalf of and consequently representing 3 million members certainly impacts how businesses and the public perceives efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. The Chamber should be a leader in tackling climate change and energy issues—not advocating corporate interests. Certainly, the Chamber is nothing more but a wolf in sheep’s clothing. From Greenwire (emphasis added):
In an e-mail to E&E this morning, [Brad Peck, senior director for communication publishing at the U.S. Chamber] acknowledged, “This does often get reported in the press as 3 million members without the qualification. That is hardly our fault.”
Peck also argued that Mother Jones‘ reporting on the issue has crossed into advocacy and should be treated as such.
“Mother Jones believes that we should use the smaller number of 300,000 to indicate our direct membership. We are comfortable using the larger number for many concrete reasons,” Peck wrote.
Peck declined to provide a membership list for the chamber, saying it was policy not to disclose its associations with specific businesses unless they did it first.
. . .
But in the eyes of some environmentalists, the fight over the chamber’s membership strikes at the heart of the point that they have been trying to make in their attacks on the organization — that it does not represent the overwhelming majority of American mainstream businesses, but only a small number of powerful interests.
“They use the 3 million figure all the time, and if it’s false — and it certainly appears at best to be a misrepresentation — it raises another significant question about their credibility,” said Peter Altman, climate campaign director at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Historically, the U.S. Chamber has been perhaps the single most powerful lobbying source in Washington, and over the past decade, it has spent more on lobbying than any other organization, according to lobbying records. Indeed, many environmentalists and others have described it as the most influential force opposing the cap-and-trade legislation moving through Congress.
But Peck’s statement appears to be contradicted by a recent quote from the Chamber’s spokesman. “We have over 3 million members, and we don’t comment on the comings and goings of our membership,” spokesman Eric Wholschlegel told the New York Times last month in a story about the utility PG&E’s departure from the Chamber over its climate policy. The Chamber also does not cite the smaller membership number on its website or many (if not all) of its press releases. And its written materials typically do not explain the meaning of the “3 million” number, failing to use the term “federation members,” let alone clarify what it means.
In the E&E piece, the Chamber also lashed out at my reporting of the issue, saying that it “has crossed into advocacy and should be treated as such.” E&E published its piece a day after I sent an open letter to one of its reporters questioning his continued citation of the Chamber’s “3 million members.” If advocacy is the same thing as requesting that other media outlets report the facts, then I am guilty as charged. Or maybe Peck considers the choice of which number to use an ideological issue. If that’s the case, then E&E and the Associated Press are to the right of the Wall Street Journal, which reports the Chamber’s membership as 300,000.
Also, the Chamber is currently advocating failed ideas to solve America’s most pressing problems. From Politics Daily:
The Chamber will spend tens of millions of dollars and buy advertising nationwide to persuade the American public that its agenda — low taxes, open markets, and loose regulation — are crucial elements of a job recovery. The new television spots, previewed for staff and press at the launch event Wednesday, celebrate small American entrepreneurs and argue that government intervention will not spur permanent job growth.
Basically, the Chamber’s policy positions are not only anti-environmentalism but they’re anti-business too. For example, according to Wikipedia, the Chamber, in addition to being a supporter of nuclear power, globalization, and free trade, supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and supports drilling offshore for energy. These policy positions are shortsighted and dangerous. For example, nuclear power requires massive amounts of water and produces radioactive waste that seems impossible to dispose. Globalization and free trade agreements lack meaningful environmental and social mandates and drilling for oil offshore or in ANWR isn’t meaningful energy policy. Furthermore, drilling domestically for oil doesn’t necessarily lead to domestic consumption, since oil is sold on the international market.
Due to its anti-environmentalism position, the Chamber is waging a losing battle. As energy availability and natural resources continue to decrease as populations continue to increase in countries around the globe, environmental regulation—and not just market-based mechanisms—will be necessary to protect and adequately distribute energy and resources to businesses and communities. Consequently, over-population, unchecked development, depletion of non-renewable resources, and depletion of other natural resources are real issues that businesses must reconcile and help remedy if they’re to survive into the future. Unlimited development is impossible, and unsustainable development exacerbates the unavailability of energy or entropy. Consequently, the sooner the Chamber can grasp these concepts, the sooner they’ll truly be pro-business.
Recently, the Chamber suffered an embarrassing prank over its hostility towards meaningful greenhouse-gas regulation:
In a dramatic announcement at the National Press Club today, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce reversed its position on climate change policy, and promised to immediately cease lobbying against the Kerry-Boxer bill.
Not.
Within minutes of the Chamber’s dramatic announcement, it was revealed that the “Chamber spokesperson” was an impostor, and the press conference an elaborate hoax designed by activists to draw attention to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s “troglodytic” fight against climate change legislation. At the close of the news conference, a visibly rattled Chamber of Commerce spokesperson (Eric Wohlschlegel) barged into the room and declared the event a fraud. (Videohere.)
The stunt was pulled off by the Yes Men, the activists best known for posing as corporate executives in order to reveal how corporate greed negatively influences public policy. Recently, the Yes Men have focused their attention on the urgent need for action on climate change. Today they sought to highlight relentless corporate lobbying of elected officials aimed at derailing domestic climate legislation and a much-needed global climate accord.
The group of reporters at the Press Club listened closely as U.S. Chamber “representative” “Hingo Sembra” (Andy Bichlbaum of The Yes Men) asserted that the Chamber would put its full weight behind supporting the Kerry-Boxer bill, while working with Senators Kerry and Boxer to strengthen the bill.
“We believe that climate legislation currently being considered by the U.S. Senate is a great start towards a bill that will spur American innovation, create jobs, and give us all a good chance of survival,” he said. To the visible delight of reporters in the audience, he added, “We at the Chamber have tried to keep climate science from interfering with business. But without a stable climate, there will be no business.”
The Chamber has recently come under fire for launching multi-million dollar advertising campaigns designed to derail climate negotiations. Their position has been so controversial that Apple, Exelon, PNM Resources, PG&E, PSEG, Levi Strauss & Co, and the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce have all left the U.S. Chamber, and Nike very publicly stepped down from the board.
“The Chamber’s position against climate legislation is completely troglodytic,” said Bichlbaum. “The rest of the world sees the need for urgent action on the climate. The rest of the world’s rich countries have pledged large emissions reductions. With scientists saying if we don’t reduce carbon emissions, then sooner or later we’re doomed, the Chamber represents corporate America at its most backwards.”
“An entity claiming to represent the public good, but that opposes action on the climate, is obviously illegitimate,” Bichlbaum added.
“Public relations hoaxes undermine the genuine effort to find solutions on the challenge of climate change.
“These irresponsible tactics are a foolish distraction from the serious effort by our nation to reduce greenhouse gases. The U.S. Chamber believes that strong climate legislation is compatible with the goals of improving our economy and creating jobs. We continuously seek opportunities to engage in a constructive dialogue to achieve these goals.
“We will be asking law enforcement authorities to investigate this event. Beyond that, the Chamber will simply continue to focus on a positive vision for getting people back to work and growing our economy.”
The U.S. Chamber is the world’s largest business federation representing more than 3 million businesses and organizations of every size, sector, and region.
I believe in the concepts of democracy, free speech, and the free exchange of ideas, but although I believe that everyone is entitled to his own opinion, I don’t believe folks are entitled to their own facts. Nonetheless, the media propagates confusion in the debate of climate change by giving too much credibility to the claims of climate change skeptics.
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As climate change disbelievers cynically spin and take advantage of the so-called Climategate controversy, the Earth’s climate, landscapes, and oceans continue to change due to anthropogenic influences. These data and observations point to a warming earth: (1) the earth continues to warm as CO2 rises, resulting in a 
