denial lobby

Ah, the global warming Denial Lobby. They are tenacious, if nothing else. Despite the fact that every single global warming scientist, every single peer reviewed article on the subject and every single respectable conference on climate pretty much agree that the evidence is rock solid that human-caused global warming is happening, is affecting us, and, at best, we have a 10 year window of opportunity to do something about it, I still get whining emails from Denial Lobby hacks that question my ability to understand science, but cite no scientific evidence of their own.

I recently highlighted the debunking of one global warming Denial Lobby effort, the British docudrama, one might call it (propaganda piece would be an accurate term) called “The Global Warming Swindle” which was soundly repudiated by the very scientist they were trying to use to support their claims that global warming is a myth.

Well, one response I got via email in regards to this was from someone who refused to even discuss the actual scientific literature, and who immediately called into question my understanding of science (then objected when I questioned the scientific basis of his statements). His fairly long series of insulting and insulted emails boiled down to two questions, poorly presented, which probably represent the latest in right wing talking points on the global warming issue. Here are his two questions (gleaned from a great deal of creationist style posturing):

I have discussed the craziness and duplicity of the denial lobby before (e.g. here). And I have been just beginning to discuss the need to move on, to evolve the discussion, from a supposed "debate" over whether global warming is happening (it is!) to a discussion of solutions. Personally, I do hope to help evolve the discussion. But sadly, the denial lobby continues its supid, suicidal crusade against science.

The latest salvo of the denial lobby was in England, though I am starting to hear eager references to it here in the US from our own denial lobbyists. On Thursday the 8th, the London TV Channel 4 aired a program titled "The Great Global Warming Swindle". This program turns out to be largely devoid of integrity and intelligence and, to quote two climatologists commenting on Real Climate, "it just repeated the usual specious claims we hear all the time." This program is just one more pack of denial lobby lies.

Real Climate has a detailed refutation and discussion of the Great Channel 4 Swindle. But what is even more interesting, is that one of the scientists used by Channel 4 in their program to supposedly counter global warming claims, Carl Wunsch, has written into Real Climate expressing his feeling of being swindled by Channel 4. He feels completely misrepresented by Channel 4. Here are excerpts from his response:

As a scientist, one of the things that has horrified me the most about the current practices of the Republican Party is their anti-sceince, almost "Dark Ages" thinking. I have previously written about the right wing Intelligent Deception campaign against the teaching of Evolution, and the right wing Denial Lobby that falsely claims that global warming science is "junk science" and that scientists don't agree about whether global warming is real.

Peter Roskam (a personal injury lawyer running against Iraq vet and Democrat Major Tammy Duckworth in the IL-6 CD) is the latest Republican to publicly make these claims.

For the record, according to people I talk to at GISS, a joint NASA/Columbia U program, about 90+% of scientists agree that global warming is happening and the debate now among climatologists really comes down to just how fucked we are and how short our window of opportunity is to mitigate the effects,

But what horrifies me the most is the outright censorship of science that the Republicans are engaging in. The head of GISS, Jim Hansen, went public on 60 Minutes&lt describing the censorship he faces in his scientific reports and lectures from the Bush Administration. Republican Joe Barton (TX-6) threatens global warming scientists with loss of funding and Congressional investigations if they don't toe the Republican denial line on global warming. Hell, the Bush Administration has even quietly removed study of "the Home Planet" from the NASA mission statement, thus potentially hampering more research into climate change.