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Big bucks back climate deniers
By Jeffrey D. Sachs |
February 25, 2010, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
IN the weeks before and after the Copenhagen climate change conference last December, the science of climate change came under harsh attack by critics who contend that climate scientists have deliberately suppressed evidence - and that the science itself is severely flawed.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the global group of experts charged with assessing the state of climate science, has been accused of bias. The fact is that the critics - who are few in number but aggressive in their attacks - are deploying tactics that they have honed for more than 25 years.
During their long campaign, they have greatly exaggerated scientific disagreements in order to stop action on climate change, with special interests like Exxon Mobil footing the bill. Many books have recently documented the games played by the climate-change deniers. "Merchants of Doubt," a new book by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway set for release in mid-2010, will be an authoritative account of their misbehavior.
The authors show that the same group of mischief-makers, given a platform by the free-market ideologues of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page, has consistently tried to confuse the public and discredit the scientists whose insights are helping to save the world from unintended environmental harm.
Old tricks
Today's campaigners against action on climate change are in many cases backed by the same lobbies, individuals, and organizations that sided with the tobacco industry to discredit the science linking smoking and lung cancer.
The truth is that there is big money backing the climate-change deniers, whether it is companies that don't want to pay the extra costs of regulation, or free-market ideologues opposed to any government controls.
The latest round of attacks involves two episodes. The first was the hacking of a climate-change research center in England.
The latest round of attacks involves two episodes. The first was the hacking of a climate-change research center in England.
The e-mails that were stolen suggested a lack of forthrightness in the presentation of some climate data. Whatever the details of this specific case, the studies in question represent a tiny fraction of the overwhelming scientific evidence that points to the reality and urgency of man-made climate change.
The second issue was a blatant error concerning glaciers that appeared in a major IPCC report.
Here it should be understood that the IPCC issues thousands of pages of text. There are, no doubt, errors in those pages. But errors in the midst of a vast and complex report by the IPCC point to the inevitability of human shortcomings, not to any fundamental flaws in climate science.
When the e-mails and the IPCC error were brought to light, editorial writers at The Wall Street Journal launched a vicious campaign describing climate science as a hoax and a conspiracy.
Then I recalled that this line of attack - charging a scientific conspiracy to drum up "business" for science - was almost identical to that used by The Wall Street Journal and others in the past, when they fought controls on tobacco, acid rain, ozone depletion, second-hand smoke, and other dangerous pollutants.
(The author is professor of economics and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2010. www.project-syndicate.org.)
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the global group of experts charged with assessing the state of climate science, has been accused of bias. The fact is that the critics - who are few in number but aggressive in their attacks - are deploying tactics that they have honed for more than 25 years.
During their long campaign, they have greatly exaggerated scientific disagreements in order to stop action on climate change, with special interests like Exxon Mobil footing the bill. Many books have recently documented the games played by the climate-change deniers. "Merchants of Doubt," a new book by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway set for release in mid-2010, will be an authoritative account of their misbehavior.
The authors show that the same group of mischief-makers, given a platform by the free-market ideologues of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page, has consistently tried to confuse the public and discredit the scientists whose insights are helping to save the world from unintended environmental harm.
Old tricks
Today's campaigners against action on climate change are in many cases backed by the same lobbies, individuals, and organizations that sided with the tobacco industry to discredit the science linking smoking and lung cancer.
The truth is that there is big money backing the climate-change deniers, whether it is companies that don't want to pay the extra costs of regulation, or free-market ideologues opposed to any government controls.
The latest round of attacks involves two episodes. The first was the hacking of a climate-change research center in England.
The latest round of attacks involves two episodes. The first was the hacking of a climate-change research center in England.
The e-mails that were stolen suggested a lack of forthrightness in the presentation of some climate data. Whatever the details of this specific case, the studies in question represent a tiny fraction of the overwhelming scientific evidence that points to the reality and urgency of man-made climate change.
The second issue was a blatant error concerning glaciers that appeared in a major IPCC report.
Here it should be understood that the IPCC issues thousands of pages of text. There are, no doubt, errors in those pages. But errors in the midst of a vast and complex report by the IPCC point to the inevitability of human shortcomings, not to any fundamental flaws in climate science.
When the e-mails and the IPCC error were brought to light, editorial writers at The Wall Street Journal launched a vicious campaign describing climate science as a hoax and a conspiracy.
Then I recalled that this line of attack - charging a scientific conspiracy to drum up "business" for science - was almost identical to that used by The Wall Street Journal and others in the past, when they fought controls on tobacco, acid rain, ozone depletion, second-hand smoke, and other dangerous pollutants.
(The author is professor of economics and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2010. www.project-syndicate.org.)
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