Meet The Climate Denial Machine

[marmar]

from Media Matters:


Meet The Climate Denial Machine
Blog ››› November 28, 2012 3:16 PM EST


Despite the overwhelming consensus among climate experts that human activity is contributing to rising global temperatures, 66 percent of Americans incorrectly believe there is "a lot of disagreement among scientists about whether or not global warming is happening." The conservative media has fueled this confusion by distorting scientific research, hyping faux-scandals, and giving voice to groups funded by industries that have a financial interest in blocking action on climate change. Meanwhile, mainstream media outlets have shied away from the "controversy" over climate change and have failed to press U.S. policymakers on how they will address this global threat. When climate change is discussed, mainstream outlets sometimes strive for a false balance that elevates marginal voices and enables them to sow doubt about the science even in the face of mounting evidence.

Here, Media Matters looks at how conservative media outlets give industry-funded "experts" a platform, creating a polarized misunderstanding of climate science.

* Heartland Institute And James Taylor
* Competitive Enterprise Institute
* Chris Horner And The American Tradition Institute
* Manhattan Institute And Robert Bryce
* Heritage Foundation
* Cato Institute And Patrick Michaels
* American Enterprise Institute
* Marc Morano
* Anthony Watts
* Steve Milloy
* Joe Bastardi
* Matt Ridley
* Larry Bell

Heartland Institute And James Taylor

The Economist has called the libertarian Heartland Institute "the world's most prominent think tank promoting skepticism about man-made climate change." Every year, Heartland hosts an "International Conference on Climate Change," bringing together a small group of contrarians (mostly non-scientists) who deny that manmade climate change is a serious problem. To promote its most recent conference, Heartland launched a short-lived billboard campaign associating acceptance of climate science with "murderers, tyrants, and madmen" including Ted Kaczynski, Charles Manson and Fidel Castro. Facing backlash from corporate donors and even some of its own staff, Heartland removed the billboard, but refused to apologize for the "experiment."

Heartland does not disclose its donors, but internal documents obtained in February reveal that Heartland received $25,000 from the Charles Koch Foundation in 2011 and anticipated $200,000 in additional funding in 2012. Charles Koch is CEO and co-owner of Koch Industries, a corporation with major oil interests. Along with his brother David Koch, he has donated millions to groups that spread climate misinformation. Heartland also receives funding from some corporations with a financial interest in confusing the public on climate science. ExxonMobil contributed over $600,000 to Heartland between 1998 and 2006, but has since pledged to stop funding groups that cast doubt on climate change. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/11/28/meet-the-climate-denial-machine/191545

[limpyhobbler]

1. I wonder if I could get away with posting some Heartland Institute literature on DU?

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. A note on Matt Ridley: he was chairman of Northern Rock, one of the 1st banks to fail, back in 2007

in the worldwide recession, and thus he was partly responsible for the whole thing. He is an extreme believer in free markets:

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a column for the Guardian exploring the contrast between Matt Ridley's assertions in his new book The Rational Optimist and his own experience. In the book, Ridley attacks the "parasitic bureaucracy", which stifles free enterprise and excoriates governments for, among other sins, bailing out big corporations. If only the market is left to its own devices, he insists, and not stymied by regulations, the outcome will be wonderful for everybody.

What Ridley glosses over is that before he wrote this book he had an opportunity to put his theories into practice. As chairman of Northern Rock, he was responsible, according to parliament's Treasury select committee, for a "high-risk, reckless business strategy". Northern Rock was able to pursue this strategy as a result of a "substantial failure of regulation" by the state. The wonderful outcome of this experiment was the first run on a British bank since 1878, and a £27bn government bail-out.

But it's not just Ridley who doesn't mention the inconvenient disjunction between theory and practice: hardly anyone does. His book has now been reviewed dozens of times, and almost all the reviewers have either been unaware of his demonstration of what happens when his philosophy is applied or too polite to mention it. The reason, as far as I can see, is that Ridley is telling people – especially rich, powerful people – what they want to hear.

He tells them that they needn't worry about social or environmental issues, because these will sort themselves out if the market is liberated from government control. He tells them that they are right to assert that government should get off their backs and stop interfering with its pettifogging rules and regulations: they should be left alone to make as much money as they like, however they like. He tells them that poorly regulated greed of the kind that he oversaw at Northern Rock is, in fact, a great moral quest, which makes the world a better place. I expect the executives of BP have each ordered several copies.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2010/jun/18/matt-ridley-rational-optimist-errors

Then he became chairman of Northern Rock, where he was able to put his free market principles into practice. Under his chairmanship, the bank pursued what the Treasury select committee later described as a "high-risk, reckless business strategy". It was able to do so because the government agency that oversees the banks "systematically failed in its regulatory duty".

On 16 August 2007, Ridley rang an agent of the detested state to explore the possibility of a bailout. The self-seeking fleas agreed to his request, and in September the government opened a support facility for the floundering bank. The taxpayer eventually bailed out Northern Rock to the tune of £27bn.

When news of the crisis leaked, it caused the first run on a bank in this country since 1878. The parasitic state had to intervene a second time: the run was halted only when the government guaranteed the depositors' money. Eventually, the government was obliged to nationalise the bank. Investors, knowing that their money would now be safe, as it was protected by the state, began to return.

While the crisis was made possible by a "substantial failure of regulation", MPs identified the directors of Northern Rock as "the principal authors of the difficulties that the company has faced". They singled Ridley out for having failed "to provide against the risks that (Northern Rock) was taking and to act as an effective restraining force on the strategy of the executive members".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/31/state-market-nothern-rock-ridley

What was a science journalist doing in charge of a bank, you ask? He inherited the post from his father, Viscount Ridley:

Tall, fiercely intellectual and sometimes stand-offish, Ridley is a DPhil in zoology and wrote his Oxford University doctorate on the mating habits of pheasants. His father, the fourth Viscount Ridley, was also chairman of Northern from 1987 to 1992, and sat on the board for 30 years.

The chairman's job now pays £300,000 a year and it is safe to say that the present incumbent has never needed one of its home loans. He lives in Blagdon Hall, the Grade I listed family seat near Newcastle which dates back to 1735.

Ridley was educated at Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford, and became science editor and later American editor at the Economist before writing a science column for the Daily Telegraph. He joined the board at Northern Rock in 1994 and was appointed chairman in 2004.
...
One of his ancestors was the city's mayor four times in the 18th century and his uncle was the late Nicholas Ridley, the former Conservative cabinet minister under Margaret Thatcher.

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-1614129/Northern-Rock-bosses-A-board-profile.html

[Odin2005]

3. No wonder he promotes the Evolutionary Psychology garbage.

[ananda]

4. Texas' drought is back.

Sometimes I think that the phrase "human caused global warming" are the words no media outlet is allowed to say. But warming and climate change are getting pretty hard to deny, even for the freepers.

http://www.statesman.com/news/news/local/a-dry-november-as-drought-obstinately-persists/nTKWJ/

In the year of Austin’s last rain-less November — 1897 —the Civil War was a recent enough memory that the University of Texas was forced to defend itself over claims that “northern professors” were “teaching heresies.”

Following an investigation, the regents announced “there has not been taught in the University anything objectionable to southern people” and, other things being equal, they confirmed that they opted for teachers who were “Texas men first and southern men next.”

One hundred and fifteen years later, in the latest sign of a seemingly unshakable drought, not one drop of rain was recorded at Camp Mabry during the November just ended.

Only three times — in 1871, 1894, and 1897 — has zero rain been recorded during November at the Austin site since record-keeping began in 1856.

[marmar]

5. Even here in the water-abundant Great Lakes region.....

...... specifically SE Michigan, we've seen precious little rain for a month, and one dusting (and calling it a dusting is charitable) of snow.

[byeya]

6. Unless my memory has failed me, Patrick Michaels was the State of VA Climatologist and the

Democrats who then controlled the legislature voted to defund his office.
He was a public embarrassment to the state 25 years ago.
I think the Uni of VA picked up his salary.