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Climate cover-up: Crusade to deny global warming |
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Written by Dan Johnson
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Friday, January 22 2010, 9:16 PM |
Scientists are often so focused on measuring the evidence required to determine how things work that they either forget or do not have time for the needs of public education, and the directions the nation will take in applying the knowledge gained by science.
“Democracy is utterly dependent upon an electorate that is accurately informed,” is a prominent statement at Desmogblog, the Internet presence of James Hoggan and Co. James Hoggan and Richard Littlemore have recently produced a book entitled “Climate Cover-Up,” in which they examine the powerful public relations forces brought to bear against mainstream climate science, physics and chemistry, in order to blunt the message that we need to take steps to avoid future harm.
A special new breed of “skeptic” has appeared, aided for years by the policy of the media to “show both sides.” The new “skeptics” consist mainly of people who practise the opposite of scepticism and uncritically accept “alternative” views of the physical world, without examination of the actual data, and without the hard work of learning the details.
As a PR professional himself, Hoggan felt a strong need to keep the work of PR honest, and he recognized the methods that were used in the attacks on the science findings. He says “it is infuriating — as a public relations professional — to watch my colleagues use their skills, their training and their considerable intellect to poison the international debate on climate change.” Some of the arguments of the self-appointed skeptics are so lacking in both common sense and modern science as to be laughable, but other tactics and campaigns are skilfully designed to appear to show debate among informed physical scientists regarding whether there is an effect caused by atmospheric change at all.
Hoggan and Littlemore track the funds and describe the motives behind the campaigns, noting that “few PR offences have been so obvious, so successful and so despicable as the attack on the scientific certainty of climate change.” Hoggan is right about the consequences. If a thousand science labs show evidence of risks and even develop cures, it all ends up being for nothing if a PR campaign successfully convinces the public and the lawmakers that “smoking isn't necessarily bad for you” or “it’s not certain that asbestos will cause cancer” by noting that 100 per cent of the proof is not all in, and by paying someone in a lab coat to say all the other scientists (the real ones, with real science training, conducting real research) are wrong.
It is fascinating that some of the same consultants who were outspoken deniers in earlier campaigns (say, regarding atmospheric ozone, health risks of smoking, or protection of endangered species) popped up in the climate change debate, loudly claiming that their main concern is for the quality of science. First they claimed there has been no increase in global temperature at all, and then that maybe climate change exists but it is natural (as if rapid trends like these have ever been natural), and even that warming is good for us.
Hoggan and Littlemore call the unprecedented PR attack “a triumph of disinformation — one of the boldest and most extensive PR campaigns in history.” They would like to see it stop, and this book is a way to bring the story to light. Richard Littlemore will speak at the University of Lethbridge on Feb. 4 to present the findings of their investigations.
Dan Johnson is a professor of environmental science and Canada Research Chair, at the University of Lethbridge.
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