We need to know who funds these thinktank lobbyists

[CHIMO]

Shocking, fascinating, entirely unsurprising: the leaked documents, if authentic, confirm what we suspected but could not prove. The Heartland Institute, which has helped lead the war against climate science in the United States, is funded among others by tobacco firms, fossil fuel companies and one of the billionaire Koch brothers.

It appears to have followed the script written by a consultant to the Republican party, Frank Luntz, in 2002. "Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate."

Luntz's technique was pioneered by the tobacco companies and the creationists: teach the controversy. In other words, insist that the question of whether cigarettes cause lung cancer, natural selection drives evolution, or burning fossil fuels causes climate change, is still wide open, and that both sides of the "controversy" should be taught in schools and thrashed out in the media.

The leaked documents appear to show that, courtesy of its multimillionaire donors, the institute has commissioned a global warming curriculum for schools which teaches that "whether humans are changing the climate is a major scientific controversy" and "whether CO2 is a pollutant is controversial".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/20/who-funds-thinktank-lobbyists



Consultant Frank Luntz's technique was pioneered by tobacco firms: teach the ‘controversy' in schools. Photograph: Jeffrey Blackler / Alamy/Alamy

[Cartaphelius]

1. Chimo....

Kind sir..

I recommend picking up a copy of "Winner-Take-All Politics" by Jacob S. Hacker & Paul Pierson.

This book clearly establishes the actual beginning of the most current charge from the CONservatives of Class Warfare.
According to their research it all started in mid 70's and was launched by big business... And they name names.

Good luck!

[kristopher]

2. Here is some good work tracking the messaging

The observations about climate denial and skepticism led to a theory about where they originate.

Rearguard of Modernity

in the journal Global Environmental Politics

Environmental skepticism denies the reality and importance of mainstream global environmental problems. However, its most important challenges are in its civic claims which receive much less attention. These civic claims defend the basis of ethical authority of the dominant social paradigm. The article explains how political values determine what skeptics count as a problem. One such value described is “deep anthropocentrism,” or the attempt to split human society from non-human nature and reject ecology as a legitimate field of ethical concern. This bias frames what skeptics consider legitimate knowledge. The paper then argues that the contemporary conservative countermovement has marshaled environmental skepticism to function as a rearguard for a maladaptive set of core values that resist public efforts to address global environmental sustainability. As such, the paper normatively argues that environmental skepticism is a significant threat to efforts to achieve sustainability faced by human societies in a globalizing world.

Download here: http://ucf.academia.edu/PeterJacques/Papers/71775/Rearguard-of-Modernity



Study to test theory:

The Organization of Denial: Conservative Think Tanks and Environmental Scepticism

Co-authored with Riley E. Dunlap and Mark Freeman published in the journal Environmental Politics, June 2008

Environmental scepticism denies the seriousness of environmental problems, and self-professed 'sceptics' claim to be unbiased analysts combating 'junk science'. This study quantitatively analyses 141 English-language environmentally sceptical books published between 1972 and 2005. We find that over 92 per cent of these books, most published in the US since 1992, are linked to conservative think tanks (CTTs). Further, we analyse CTTs involved with environmental issues and find that 90 per cent of them espouse environmental scepticism. We conclude that scepticism is a tactic of an elite-driven counter-movement designed to combat environmentalism, and that the successful use of this tactic has contributed to the weakening of US commitment to environmental protection.

download here: http://ucf.academia.edu/PeterJacques/Papers

[bananas]

4. good information, thanks. nt

[Bill USA]

3. thanks for this post. this sort of thing needs all the exposure we can give it on the internet.

recommended.