How ExxonMobil Funded Global Warming Skeptics

Erik Moeller writes "According to a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, oil company ExxonMobil 'has funneled nearly $16 million between 1998 and 2005 to a network of 43 advocacy organizations that seek to confuse the public on global warming science.' The report compares the tactics employed by the oil giant to those used by the tobacco industry in previous decades, and identifies key individuals who have worked on both campaigns. Would a 'global warming controversy' exist without the millions of dollars spent by fossil fuel companies to discredit scientific conclusions?"

Comments

News at 10

[AliasTheRoot]

Big business lobbies to protect its interests!

Re:News at 10

[n00854180t]

Your comment should have read, "Big buiness spreads fraudulent propaganda to protect its interests." Acting like they should be able to do whatever they want simply because of their industry or size as a corporation is absurd. Any way you cut it, this is fraud.

UCS - definitely unbiased

[Registered Coward v2]

The UCS, which has it's own agenda and pushes it at every opportunity, is upset because someone on the opposite side wants their view heard as well? To bad.

The UCS no more wants open debate over issues than any other special interest - they want to frame all discussion so their viewpoint prevails; since only +they+ have the right answer.

Re:UCS - definitely unbiased

[Ingolfke]

I agree that UCS is heavily biased and is just a political front group that has abandoned scientific reporting and married itself to marketing. Read their FAQ about global warming. They certainty about topics that are still heavily debated by legit scientists.

That said... Exxon has every right to honestly defend itself, but if they have indeed created front groups or are knowingly spreading misinformation they should be properly scorned.

Re:UCS - definitely unbiased

[mpa000]

I could not agree more.

The UCS *depends* on climate fears for it's existence.

It is as much a political player in this and has as much to gain or lose as any Corporation.

Re:UCS - definitely unbiased

[nomadic]

The UCS no more wants open debate over issues than any other special interest - they want to frame all discussion so their viewpoint prevails; since only +they+ have the right answer.

Alright, so ExxonMobil does this because they think they will gain financially from it. What exactly do you contend the UCS gains from adopting the opposite viewpoint?

Re:UCS - definitely unbiased

[Illserve]

Just because they're being funded by the oil companies doesn't mean they're not scientists.

Recently it has become difficult for scientists who don't support the AGW theory to get funding, and they've had to go elsewhere.

(see http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008220 for one article to this effect).

People think of federal grant agencies as being unbiased but that's absolutely untrue. Even outside of political hot-button issues (e.g. my field, psychology) one has to write grants that toe the popular line a little bit. WITHIN such issues, such as global warming, the pressure to explore certain viewpoints at the expense of others must be immense.

So as far as I'm concerned, fair's fair. If the top down pressure from the grant agencies (which are not strongly under Bush's control, there are many intervening layers of bureacracy) is pushing one side, it's better to have the oil companies funding research which explores alternatives.

The climate is incredibly complicated and there is no way that scientists should have reached consensus on something as complicated as the anthropogenic cause of Global Warming. The fact that there is consensus is a glaring indication that the scientific process is not functioning properly on this issue. That is how science works best, by challenging ideas, not by agreeing with them.

Another interesting link
http://epw.senate.gov/hearing_statements.cfm?id=24 6768

Re:UCS - definitely unbiased

[argStyopa]

Because the title 'scientist' is somehow magical? Do you genuinely believe that someone whose job title is 'scientist' is actually *smarter* than an investment banker, a computer tech, a stay-at-home-mom, or a greengrocer?

I'll credit a scientist expertise in his/her field. But when you have the UCS made up of "scientists" commenting on (for example) the uselessness of nuclear weapons, that's just stupid.

Example: how would these scientists respond if Henry Kissenger was somehow able to grab media credibility in a criticism of their "analysis of glucose transfer through cell membranes" (or WTF their speciality is)? Well of course, nobody in their right mind would believe Kissenger knew more than people who'd dedicated their education and lives to the subject of study?

Yet, somehow, Robert Oppenheimer's opinion on the utility of nuclear weapons in geopolitics is taken as credible? Why? I might not agree with him, but I'd suspect that Kissenger has more understanding of the nuances of geopolitics than some physics genius who's only occasionally left the rarified air of academia. Don't even get me started on the media asking Jeanine Garafalo's opinion. Sheesh.

Face it: the "Union of Concerned Scientists" is simply banking on the gullible believing that "oh, them are SCIENTISTS, so them are smart!" Joe Biochemist has no more intrinsic understanding of the nuances of climatology than you, me, or Joe Steelworker, he just ASSumes he does.

Yeah...

[Anonymous Coward]

because the "Union of Concerned Scientists" sounds really non-biased.

Biased for protecting our only environment?

[FatSean]

I'm willing to accept that bias. Until we find Earth v2.0, we should be much more careful with Earth v1.0.

Re:Biased for protecting our only environment?

[ajs]

The problem is that that's not their bias. Their bias is rooted deep in the changes that have come to pass in the sciences that touch climate, energy, and a number of other fields over the last 20-30 years. They seek to de-politicize the sciences in theory, but in reality, they have sought to de-corporatize them. This has two problems: 1) it's impossible and 2) it ignores the fact that some of the most important and ground-breaking science is done in a corporate environment.

I think it's important to fact-check any body of theory and the research that has sought to assail it (unassailed theory is useless, which global-warming folks tend to forget). You do this periodically, and as thuroughly as possible, but that's all you do. You don't yank people's funding for disagreeing with you, and you don't subsequently brand them as propagandists for being forced to seek alternate funding. You judge the science on the merits of the science.

UCS doesn't actually work this way. They are seeking a world where anyone that's privately funded is barred from consensus-making, and that seems to be a very, very slippery slope to me (just as much a slippery slope as allowing corporations to have too much influence over science-related policy making in government).

In perspective

[RichPowers]

$16 million over a 7 year period is nothing, especially for a company that regularly posts profits in the $30 billion dollar range. And none of this matters unless someone actually reports on the "findings" and "analysis" of ExxonMobile's "specialists." If anything, the media is responsible for creating the image of some debate about global warming (even though a huge scientific consensus exists).

Re:How can a global warming conclusion be scientif

[NeutronCowboy]

They have. Slowdown of the North Atlantic Current, increases in global average temperatures, melting of glaciers, raising of ocean levels (and no, they were not expected to be in the multiple yard levels) have all been inline with the median models.

Clueless (or humorless) mods strike again

[WidescreenFreak]

It's too bad that you got a mod or two as "troll" instead of "funny", but that itself should have been expected because you're absolutely correct with respect to what's about to happen. The inflammatory (no pun intended) nature of the article summary itself just begs for the whole damned thing to be marked as "troll" or "flamebait".

Look, the whole idea that any company or organization would attempt to skew any studies to their own viewpoint is universal. Enviornmentalists are always looking to make surveys/studies support their viewpoint. Corporations are always looking to make surveys/studies support their viewpoint. Skeptics are always looking to make surveys/studies support their viewpoint. Conspiracy theorists are always looking to make surveys/studies support their viewpoint. Anyone with any kind of agenda is always looking to make surveys/studies support his viewpoint. But in this case it's "big oil" { insert doom-and-gloom music here }, so therefore their attempts to skew results are somehow more evil than other groups doing it? What a complete and utter crock.

The question of "Would a 'global warming controversy' exist without the millions of dollars spent by fossil fuel companies to discredit scientific conclusions?" is infuriating by itself. Hell, yes there would be a controversy for numerous reasons that have been stated time and time and time again, not the least of which is that without indisputable proof, which I still don't believe we have, there will always be room for skepticism. Honestly, the whole notion that skepticism is unhealthy, as that last line suggests, is an abhorrent idea in itself.

Yeah, yeah, mod me down for actually contesting a Slashdot article and for being somewhat of a global warming skeptic. I have karma to burn, but that doesn't make what I've said any less valid.

Re:Clueless (or humorless) mods strike again

[spun]

Everyone has a viewpoint to push, but in objective reality, only one of those views will be correct. There is almost no dissent in the scientific community as to whether global warming is man made, and even less that it exists. This is even counting the million spent by big oil to fuel the debate. Would there be any debate if not for that money? Of course their would. Would it be miniscule, even in comparison to the miniscule amount of debate that exists to day? Of course it would.

Face it, there is very little to be gained by believing in global warming. No money, no fame, no honors, no women. In fact, there is much to be lost. There are billions to be gained by opposing belief in it. Even if one cannot make money off of opposing belief in global warming, at the very least, one doesn't actually have to do anything. Those who really believes in global warming will feel compelled to alter their behavior.

Skepticism is the lazy person's default position. I think for most global warming skeptics, the desire not to do anything different came first, and the skepticism was reached through a chain leading from "I don't want to have to do anything" back to "this is why I don't have to do anything."

Nothing any moderators could do to you could possibly make what you have to say any less valid.

Re:Clueless (or humorless) mods strike again

[NoOneInParticular]

The reason why (oil) companies are being treated more sceptically than non-profit organisations is simply because people are assuming that the companies don't have a particular point of view on the issue at hand per se, but rather that the opposing view point will hurt their (short term) bottom line. In other words: where if you don't agree with the environmentalists, you think they are misguided, with the company, you think they're purposefully lying. In this particular case it's even more damning, as they're lying through their teeth to protect their profits while potentially destroying the world . People tend to get upset about that last part, given that we live there.

As for the 'controversy' on global warming. That's a US thing. It has been understood in the rest of the world for quite some time that (a) global warming is real, and that (b) we're contributing majorly to it. Discussions on the Exxon points has been non-existent here in Europe. Guess where Exxon has spent his 'educational' dollars? Yes, to the gullable.

Re:Clueless (or humorless) mods strike again

[saforrest]

There is debate in the scientific community, one side is funded by the gov't, hippies and "green" business, which gain by having "global warming" and the scientists that profit from getting more grants.

If you think that almost all the scientists from an entire branch of science everywhere across the world can be made to intentionally lie in order to get grants, what reason do you have to think that science is right about anything at all? Sounds like you're less of a climate-change skeptic than a science skeptic.

Don't need to hire "experts" to confuse people

[TheWoozle]

The average American is confused enough as it is.
Look, it's simple: all of the authorities and powers-that-be could have been in total agreement for the last 2 decades, warning people about global warming in every available media outlet and it wouldn't have mattered because Joe Sixpack doesn't give a shit. And politicians won't force people to do the right thing, because that doesn't get you elected.
Unless it unavoidably and directly impacts the price of beer or his ability to watch his favorite TV show, Joe wouldn't care if his SUV ran on mulched babies. "Scrubs" has it right: people are bastard-coated bastards with bastard filling. And global warming is Somebody Else's Problem.

Re:Don't need to hire "experts" to confuse people

[MindSlap]

Look, it's simple: all of the authorities and powers-that-be could have been in total agreement for the last 2 decades, warning people about global warming in every available media outlet and it wouldn't have mattered because Joe Sixpack doesn't give a shit. Really?
'Cept 20 years ago the 'experts' were warning about global COOLING.
But hey! Whats a lil 'minor' error between 'concerned scientists' right?
Global Warming!! Yeah! Now THATS where the MONEY is at!
Hurry up! The bandwagon is leaving for its next stop!

Re:Don't need to hire "experts" to confuse people

[sl3xd]

Actually, there is a shift among the public.
* The outlook on Nuclear (fission) power is far less negative. The fear of possible nuclear meltdown is far less than of guaranteed climate change.
* More people are becoming concerned with energy efficiency: Compact Flourescent light bulbs being pushed at Wall-Mart and on TV, Hybrid Vehicles, etc. People are looking to cut financial burdens by reducing their energy costs. Some (like CF bulbs) can have a significant impact with little extra cost. Same thing with insulating homes for cheaper heating and air conditioning. More energy efficiency=less carbon in this economy.
* The people who are more educated (managers, engineers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc.) are becoming more convinced and concerned with global warming, and aren't "joe sixpack." In other words: Joe sixpack may not care, but his boss does. You don't need Joe Sixpack to care nearly as much as you need his boss to care.

So his boss does things that force Joe Sixpack to change his behavior, both on the worksite and as a consumer. (More efficient/environmentally friendly policies & practices at work, and produces more environmentally friendly products)

Huge vehicles aren't without cost. Eventually, Joe then gets burned by high gas prices, and low mileage, and sells his SUV because he can't afford it. I've seen it happen a lot in the past two years. I see people I never expected to do the environmental thing change their behavior and opinions.

Re:Don't need to hire "experts" to confuse people

[demachina]

Somewhat beyond the public apathy what you are seeing at work here are forces that are inherent flaws in Capitalism, flaws that are deeply ingrained and very difficult to change.

The mechanisms that drive Capitalism never choose "the right thing", they always favor "the profitable thing". Sometimes "the right thing" and "the profitable thing" are "the same thing" but that is often not the case. The fact is the exploitation of fossil fuels did in fact drive some enormous advances in standard of living, technological progress, economic well being, and the entire structure of modern society is completely dependent on them at the moment. A few forward thinking people figured out the dangers of releasing all that sequestered CO2 back in to the atmosphere a long time ago, in particular Joseph Fourier(also the genius behind the Fourier Transform) and Svante Arrhenius, but most people didn't worry about it until now because the earth was so big and the profits so good. When we started we weren't burning a billion tons of coal a year.

Energy is essential to industrialized and information age living, its not easy to produce cheaply and on large scale, so you can't exactly fault the people who created our massive dependence on fossil fuels for doing what they did, and most of them saw enormous potential for benefit, and profit so they reaped it. That is just the way Capitalism works. We decimated most whale species because they were also a great and profitable source of energy in their day in the form of whale oil. The right thing was probably not to wipe out the oceans whales, but the profitable thing for a while said go for it.

To rant against whalers, big Tobacco or Big Oil is kind of howling at the moon. You are really just ranting at the unfortunate down side of Capitalism, and for better or worst it is the economic system almost our entire world is using now. Unless you opt for some kind of Socialism where government planners benevolently pick "the right thing" over "the profitable thing" you are going to have profit obsessed people do some really horrible things to each other and the earth as a whole. That is the way the system is designed. So far precedent indicates Socialist government planners are equally bad when it comes to doing "the right thing".

It is an interesting mental exercise to think about the pros and cons of global warming. The fact is our planet has had much warmer periods than the current one and it survived, and there were periods when much of that CO2 sequestered in fossil fuels was in fact in our atmosphere. Its not entirely bad that much of the Northern Hemisphere doesn't have the bitterly cold winters that were so common not very many years ago, and that vast new regions at the poles are now going to finally come out of the last ice age and become habitable.

The obvious problem is that, thanks to human ingenuity and excessive population growth, we are probably going to precipitate these changes much faster than either humans, or most animal and plant species can cope, and the consequences to all species will probably be dire. There is a little problem that we've built so much of our society at sea level. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and thanks to our short sightedness due to our short life spans and brief recorded history, we didn't realize that sea level has always fluctuated through the earth's history. If you are building cities to last, the current sea level and islands like Manhattan are actually not a good choice. Perhaps the native Americans who sold Manhattan island to the Europeans had a longer view of things and realized it really wasn't worth much, and sure wasn't a good place to build a town, much less a city.

This raises another interesting puzzle in economics. If global warming does happen and sea levels rise the economic consequences will be devastating because vast quantities of capital will go underwater. At some point burning fossil fuels will cease to be the profitable thing, at least for everything at sea level,

Global Warming Doesn't Even Enter Into It

[Zero_DgZ]

Global warming shouldn't even enter into it. The whole "global warming debate" is a smokescreen blown from both sides to avoid asking the really tricky, really pertinent questions, namely: "Global warming aside, is spewing fossil fuel byproducts into the atmosphere bad for the environment in general?" (Yes.) "Is a complete and total reliance on nonrenewable fossil fuels and pigheadedly refusing to look into alternative energy sources because they aren't where the money is a bad plan?" (Yes.) "What are our next steps?" (We don't know.) So people bitch and moan about global warming because it's a nice, round cornered, warm and fuzzy topic that any idiot can get his head around, as opposed to the intricate economic and political machinations behind the energy (read: fossil fuel) trade as a whole. It's just like hippies whining about recycling saving trees when the real issue is so much more complex than that. They just ignore the rest of it because it doesn't make a good tagline and it's harder for the average public-school-educated-Joe to understand. And things that the average public-school-educated-Joe has a hard time understanding make him change the channel, which is bad for support and bad for business.

News at 2am

[Martin Blank]

Environmentalist groups lobby to protect their interests!

Re:News at 2am

[FrenchSilk]

Except that environmentalists interests are for the general welfare of the planet and its inhabitants, not for the increased wealth of acorporation and its stockholders. A rather significant difference, wouldn't you agree?

Re:News at 2am

[cptgrudge]

Sure, for the environmentalist movement proper. But as you go up the hierarchy in any activist or political organization, the further removed people become from logic and open-mindedness, and instead become more involved in power and influence.

And I don't think you have to be an actual environmentalist to have an interest in the general welfare of a planet and its species. Despite what people think, corporate and political policy is not always at odds with the environment.

Re:News at 2am

[5KVGhost]

Except that environmentalists interests are for the general welfare of the planet and its inhabitants, not for the increased wealth of acorporation and its stockholders. A rather significant difference, wouldn't you agree?

I would not agree.

That is a very charitable evaluation, but your conclusion doesn't make much sense. The Spanish Inquisition (bet you didn't expect that) would have claimed, quite sincerely, that their goal was the general welfare and spiritual well being of the planet and its inhabitants. All they required was absolute obedience and license to do pretty much anything they wanted. By your logic they would rank as one of the most trustworthy and wonderful organizations in history. Most of their victims would not agree. Good intentions do not automatically bring about good results.

So sre environmentalists the Spanish Inquisition, blessed with absolute knowledge of right and wrong and empowered to change the world and crush all dissent? No, of course not. But some of them sure seem to wish they were.

Is science done by people with alleged good intentions always right, and science paid for by people with a profit motive always suspect? No, obviously not. I don't care who pays for what. All that matters is whether the science is sound enough to stand up to scrutiny. A lot of climate science is really, really slipshod stuff rigged up to support foregone ideological conclusion. Regardless of whether you agree with the conclusions or not, that's not science.

Re:News at 2am

[FrenchSilk]

The reason that people go up the hierarchy in an activist organization is because they are good at gaining and using influence. And it is the job of the higher ups to gain and use their influence. But the question is for what? In general, they are still working in the interest of their original ideals, the betterment of the planet and its inhabitants, and not for money, not for profit, not for any bottom line or increase in stock price. I am sure that an exception can be found here and there, but in my experience as a volunteer for many environmental organizations over the years, this is the case. So, there is no contradiction between being powerful and influential and being an environmentalist. It is how you become an effective environmentalist.

I would say that the definition of an "actual environmentalist" is one whose interest is in the general welfare of the planet and its inhabitants. So, yes, you do have to be an actual environmentalist to "have an interest in the general welfare of a planet and its species." Or more accurately, you become one by having that interest.

Corporate and political policy is not always at odds with the environment, that is true. But it depends largely on the industry and the company. The oil industry has a very difficult time not being at odds with the environment because their product is responsible for so much of the damage that we do to the environment. Just like the tobacco industry has a very difficult time not being at odds with public health. The nature of their industry makes it virtually impossible. In both cases, if the company wants to increase or protect their bottom line, they must work at odds with that which will bring it down. Decreasing oil consumption brings down the bottom line of the oil companies. Decreasing smoking brings down the bottom line of the tobacco companies. And, as we all know, the boards of directors of corporations represent the financial interest of the stockholders. So their job is to protect and increase the bottom line of the corporation. Boards of large corporations take this duty much more seriously than do boards of very small corporations, but that is the primary responsibility of the board. And the board directs the actions of the company. Hence, the abdication of responsibility to do anything altruistic unless it positively affects the bottom line. Hence the responsibility to direct the corporation to do whatever nefarious deeds necessary, including deception of the public if necessary, if those deeds stand a better chance of increasing the bottom line rather than decreasing it.

This is the primary flaw in our economic system. There is no line on the balance sheet that does not have a dollar sign on it.

Re:News at 2am

[Skjellifetti]

A lot of climate science is really, really slipshod stuff rigged up to support foregone ideological conclusion.

And you are qualified enough to make that judgement, how, exactly? Could you please cite some specific examples of peer reviewed literature that demonstrate your point and explain why you think they are slipshod stuff? Otherwise, you are just engaging in a logical fallacy known as wishful thinking.

No there would not be a controversy

[SengirV]

Because the scientific communty would still shun any scientist that questions the present assumptions. Now take away funding from those voices that dare to question and we would has even less understanding than we have today.

Re:No there would not be a controversy

[Anonymous Coward]

The "scientific community" does not discourage dissent. However, scientists do two things that may look like discouraging dissent to the conspiracy-minded.

One, scientists rely on logic and evidence. If dissent is not based on good scientific principles, it will be disparaged (as it should).

Two, scientists look at the totality of evidence. If there is a well-established theory with lots of data supporting it, and somebody comes along with a couple of anomalous findings, scientists are not going to automatically reject the theory -- they'll consider the possibility (as they should) that there is a reasonable explanation that leaves the core principles of the theory intact.

Since "dissenters" often have flawed evidence and/or cherrypick the literature, they tend to think the scientific community is suppressing them. See "intelligent design" for the exact same phenomenon.

Re:How can a global warming conclusion be scientif

[A beautiful mind]

Prediction and observation.

Currently, we're observing that the planet is warming up. That is a simple fact. No scientific dispute.

To this observation, you can match models, to explain why the warming occurs. That is the theory. No scientific dispute exist about the theory either, that the warming is caused by human activities, specifically because of the burning of fossil fuels.

No reasonable human being can argue about the observation and if you want to argue about the theory, to explain the reason of the warming, you need to satisfy the scientific scrutiny.

Re:I'm a global warming skeptic...

[seriesrover]

Exactly.

I think this is a report that is trying to link some sort of monies to conspiracies and agendas. $15M spread across 42 (to remove the one high example they use) organizations over 8 years = $45K a year on average. Its a lot to an individual but hardly enough to fund "access to the Bush administration to block federal policies and shape government communications on global warming".

Further, I see froth but no substance - no irrefutible proof saying that Exxon doesnt mind global warning or that it doesnt exist, or even that they dont care. The best I can see is that a group that recieved money "touted a book". Incidently, they use this as "an example" because the group recieved $600K - far above the average amount given, so its hardly a typical example.

This is clearly a biased report hoping to use allegations and bend them into truth. I am a sceptic but in the sense that I dont think anyone has a grasp on whats really going on, whats normal, and how much us humans have played a part in any change that has happened. I'm a skeptic when anyone tells me they have all the answers.

WOW!

[SnarfQuest]

So much money! That $16 million, over 7 years, divided by 43 groups, comes to the amazingly huge sum of $53,000 per year per group. Why, with that king of money, they could probably pay the salary of 1 person!

My God! They could take over the world with an army like that!

Re:and the enviromentalist

[jotok]

Doesn't take a rocket scientist

But apparently it takes a bored IT guy on slashdot to correct an international consortium of climatologists.
Maybe you ought to take a course in the statistical analysis of experimental data, and when you have a grasp of how scientists analyze data to construct theories that explain observations, they often take many things into account, you can rejoin the discussion.

Or, the short version: THE FACT THAT THE SOLAR RADIATION HAS INCREASED HAS BEEN ACCOUNTED FOR.

Good day!

How's this "news for nerds"?

[sobiloff]

I've been a /. participant for ages, and really enjoyed the news and commentary about technology issues. But, in the last year or so this site has taken to posting a lot of political stories which have generally taken a large step to the left. This story is another example of such. There's no techno-centric value to this story, merely polemics. I enjoy political discourse, but I go to political blogs to do so. Please, kdawson et al., we don't need /. to become another Daily Kos or FreeRepublic.

evil?

[dlt074]

"That'll kill two very evil birds with one stone"

you may be kidding around when you say that but what really scares me is there are people around here that believe "BIG OIL" is evil.

oil is what allows all of our current technology. ask a chemist what we'd have(or not have) without oil and the companies that provide it at a reasonable price. i for one really do welcome our big oil overlords with open loving arms.

GW is just a distraction...

[gillbates]

From the other, more pressing issues that we should be dealing with. For example:

• The loss of democracy in the First World via electronic voting machines with secret, undisclosed code.
• The problem of establishing peace in Iraq.
• The attempted legitimization of torture by First World governments.

I could go on...

Anyway, Global Warming fanatics always bring up the negative aspects that it could produce, but not necessarily that it will. Indeed, anyone who is going to make 100 or 1000 year predictions on a few decades of data is foolish. We simply don't know. Regardless, does anyone ever bring up the possible benefits of global warming?

• The arctic melts. This is good, because we will need the increase in arable land to feed the burgeoning population. How else would you feed 10 billion people? - more pesticides and genetically modified crops? Make the farmer the patent slave of the corporations?
• Warmer climates require less energy for heating. It is more difficult to live without heat than air conditioning, so this will be a net positive for those living in the Northern and Southern areas of the globe, as they won't need to spend as much money on heating their homes. Even in Illinois, the cost of heating can get prohibitively expensive during the winter months.
• Cross arctic passage from Russia to Canada - the reduced distance could open up an entirely untapped market. Furthermore, the reduced distance would reduce the amount of fuel required, and the cost of shipping. Russia could finally enter the global economy on the same footing as China.

And these are just a few. The real question shouldn't be "is GW happening?", but, "Is it a bad thing?". It could be that preventing global warming would leave us with a worldwide shortage of food a few centuries from now. How are you going to feed 10 billion people?

Re:GW is just a distraction...

[radtea]

Regardless, does anyone ever bring up the possible benefits of global warming?

Yes, very frequently, as you would know if you followed the issue at all.

The problem is that fast-paced environmental change is always a short-to-medium-term massive economic negative. That is, if we woke up tomorrow and the world was 5 C warmer with no rising sea levels or any other long-term negative consequences, the immediate result would be a world-wide recession the like of which has never been seen.

This is because human economies are highly optimized for things just as they are now. We are extremely adaptable creatures and we have adapted to our current circumstances. Our adpative strategies are almost always incredibly short-sighted and amazingly inflexible, because that is how we squeeze the last drop of cash out of the economy. We build major cities on top of known faults because there hasn't been an earthquake in a while. We build major cities on flood plains or below sea level and then claim "no one could have predicted this" when they wind up under water. We build huge amounts of infrastructure on the basis that nothing is ever going to change, and then pretend to be shocked and outraged when it does.

So the thing about global climate change is not that "the weather is going to get worse everywhere", as I once heard it put. It is that we are inflexibly adapted to the climate as it is now, and therefore change as such will cost money. Depending the scope and scale of the change, it could cost lots and lots of money--enough to drive economic growth to zero or below world-wide.

People who make a big deal about climate change because they are worried about the polar bears are idiots. The polar bears survived the Younger Dryas, amongst other things. They have a good chance of surviving this. What does has a less good chance of surviving is the global economy, and the global civilization that depends on it.

Re:and the enviromentalist

[PeolesDru]

Golly, I hadn't realised that an "International Consortium of Climatologists" (ICC) had made their verdict. How dare he doubt such an august group! I never took a course in the "statistical analysis of experimental data", but if I agree with the ICC, I imagine no coursework is required. We should only hold the skeptics of global warming to impractically high academic standards. Also, that's quite an achievement by the ICC (accounting for the increase in solar radiation in such a complex system as the earth's atmosphere) - what I can't grasp is how they can model that so definitively but can't go ahead and give me the weather forcast more than a week out. Or maybe they're not sharing their supercomputer with the meteorologists, the selfish prigs.

Or, the short, all-caps version: WHAT HAS MORE IMPACT ON CLIMATE, OUR ACTIVITIES THAT PALE IN COMPARISON TO A SINGLE VOLCANIC ERUPTION, OR THAT MONSTROUS HYDROGEN BOMB WE CALL THE SUN THAT SUPPLIES ALL THE ENERGY THAT THE EARTH RECIEVES?

Ok, that wasn't all that short, but surely I get credit for the all-caps, right? I mean, it's a good strategy in a discussion, because after all, who can disagree with ALL CAPS?

Problem of Society

[Tom]

This is one of the problems of society we face. Our forefathers faced slavery, absolutism, war and others, we are facing litigation and the question of which status corporations should have.

A corporation is in many ways worse than an insane king. For one, you can't wait for it to die of old age. Two, it the king at least could only be in one place at the same time. He had limited resources. Once he started distributing responsibilities, you could hope to change the bureaucracy instead.

However, we face the same problem those French Revolution peasants did: First, we have to realize that we are the people, that corporations live and die by our decree. That if we are united, there's nothing they can do except maybe cause some casualties.
We've got to realize that before they've taken all the power away from us. As long as elections are bought and manipulated and full of fraud and bullshit, but at least it's still we who vote and the manipulations can't bend a clear majority.
And we've got to realize that "we" means all the lazy, stupid, couch-potato, daily-soap-watching, beer-drinking idiots, too.

The last is why I don't have much hope.

Greens funding fanatics

[harl]

Where's the article about the tree huggers funding pro global warming research? Since it's functionaly identical everyone should be up in arms about that too.

Re:and the enviromentalist

[Mathonwy]

Woah, hold on there a minute.

"both sides have lied", so the truth must be "somewhere in the middle?"

That's the logical fallacy that Fox News uses all the time.

A quick example should illustrate the fallacy:

Billy: There's a cake here!
Bobby: I want it!
Billy: Why don't we split it 50/50?
Bobby: No! mine!
Their Mom: I've heard both of your extreme viewpoints, so we'll need to compromise. Bobby gets 75%, Billy gets 25%.

Saying that both sides "have lied" and so "the truth is somewhere in between" somehow puts paid industry propagandists on the same credibility level as professional climate research scientists. (And does a great disservice to science, I think.) There is a fair amount of difference in the professional opinion of a corporate shill who is paid to spout the company line, and someone who has spent the majority of their life studying something.

Re:and the enviromentalist

[Ucklak]

Should read:

The fact that the solar radiation has increased has been accounted for and blamed on Americans driving SUVs and George Bush.

And blame the Chinese pollution problem on America too because they should all be in cold, damp, and dark huts with no jobs and no food to feed themselves. That is until they find that fish that grants wishes then we can all have rainbows and Skittles.

Re:Official Reply By XOM

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see...

McDonalds makes food that makes people fat if they eat a lot of it. Who then is responsible if you're fat?

Ford makes cars that can go 100mph. Who then is respnosible if a death occurs while a ford car is moving that fast?

Stanley makes screwdrivers that are sharp. Who then is responsible if that screwdriver punctures a lung resulting in a death?

Johnson & Johnson makes chemicals that can eat through steel. Who's fault is it then if someone who can't read or write drinks the yummy-looking red kool-aid in a bottle?

Exxon makes gas, lubricants, plastics, oil, etc, etc,.. who's fault is it if the ice melts?

Most people here in America are soo freaking lazy that they drive (burning the fossil fuels) anywhere if its more than 50 feet away. It's not exxon killing the earth, it's the "convenience of not having to walk more than 50 feet at a time if I don't have to" attitude that's killiing the earth. These "Concerned scientists" should be pointing their fingers at illiteracy rates and lazy a-holes as the contributer rather than at mcdonalds, ford, stanley, j&j, or exxon.

Oh wait, that's not convenient.

Re:I've got an idea

[AuMatar]

No, *they* are to blame for that, and due to their actions people died. There is no excuse for that, especially not fucking profits.

Who else is going to fund it though?

[Erioll]

If there were skeptics, on ANY topic, who is going to FUND them except if you have a stake in it? For any viewpoint in any issue, ONLY the people that stand to lose if the issue goes the other way will fund research supporting them. Thus saying that big oil is funding most of the research that contradicts "prevailing opinion" makes 100% sense. Do you actually expect the Sierra Club to fund a study who's goal is skepticism?

This comes from confusing cause & effect. The studies don't come out a certain way because the group funding them dictates that it should, but only because the only ones LOOKING for an opposite outcome are those with something to lose. A very slight difference, but it's still critical to understanding it. The first is straight-out lying. The 2nd can happen with the most honest of intentions. I'm not saying that's the case here, but to dismiss it automatically as the 1st just means your mind is made up without even looking at what evidence may exist.

Will the USC go after Subway?

[The_Crowder]

Subway sponsors the American Heart Association and in return, Subway's food is now endorsed by the AHA as heart healthy. I hope to see the USC bring Jared and his cronies down!

Re:and the enviromentalist

[ajs]

This is not true. Nothing has been accounted for, as there is very little real science being done. If you work in this field, you know that you have two choices: do work that supports the "consensus" or leave the field for lack of funding. When the CIA does this, we call it "group think" and we call for resignations and hearings. When funding for scientific reach gets cut in this way, we first call it consensus, and then label everyone who seeks alternate funding a lobbiest for big-oil and discredit their research as non-scientific propaganda.

Fact of the matter is that throughout the late 70s and 80s this process grew ugly, and now it's damn-near impossible to extract meaningful data from this field, which is DANGEROUS... far more dangerous than rising sea-levels. Even hurricane study is starting to get politicized as a by-product. We need to get the politics out of climate research and meteorology. We need to fully fund the skeptics because that's how we assail theory and determine its merits (scientific method, remember?) We need to stop branding researchers as biased just for losing their funding and deciding to keep doing the exact same research, but with corporate sponsorship. Judge the work, not the funding, and if you don't like the funding, fund it from elsewhere.

Now, can we get past the north-vs-south of climate change and let the scientists get back to work, please?

How to be a skeptic

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

The word "skeptic" comes from a Greek work, "skepsis", which refers to looking at something and examining it. Skepticism is that the person from Missouri does when they say "show me".

A skeptic isn't a denier. A denier says the scientests are making it all up to curry favor with government grant issuers, you know, the rabid environmentalist Bush administration. A skeptic asks how big the error bars are on the temperature measurements and finds http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature_record. A skeptic asks how a huge computer model of a system which is incompletely defined can ever be validated (and finds annoyingly little in the popular literature). A skeptic asks whether increased solar output could account for the changes and finds out that nights are getting warmer and the upper atmosphere is getting colder, both of which point to heat getting trapped in the lower atmosphere.

A skeptic refuses to be rushed into policy choices. A skeptic asks the question Bjorn Lomborg has been exploring, whether it's better to mitigate the results of climate change than to uproot the foundations of the world economy trying to prevent it.

Skepticism clarifies issues, astroturf campaigns and phony think tanks obscure issues.

Re:How to be a skeptic

[bill_kress]

This is one of those cases where theory has very little to do with reality.

In theory you are completely right, but in reality people who call themselves skeptics often seem to religiously deny that which can't be proven.

For instance, before it was possible to prove gravity, it was still there. Before it was possible to prove that we could walk on the moon, it was still a possibility.

If we can't currently prove an afterlife or ESP, that has no relation to their existence--yet those who call themselves skeptics will decry them with the veracity of a Christian preacher proclaiming the existence of some God. (Something we CAN disprove because we simply have to disprove the bible--a trivial task for anyone willing to listen)

But you are in general right about the theory of Skepticism--It's a very useful tool, just don't trust people who call themselves "Skeptics".

Answering a simple question

[w3woody]

Would a 'global warming controversy' exist without the millions of dollars spent by fossil fuel companies to discredit scientific conclusions?"

Yes, but the shape of the debate may be slightly different.

Look at it this way: Bill Clinton, in the eleventh hour of his presidency, buried the Kyoto treaty--and admission from Kyoto supporters suggest the reduction of CO2 may only slow global warming by the tiniest fraction of a degree. So assuming everyone was on the same page--that is, assuming we all knew that Global Warming was a fact, and further assuming we all knew that Global Warming was entirely caused by human activities--the real political battle over control of how (or if) we can solve this problem would be under way.

The fact that opponents to the idea that Global Warming is real or is as big a problem as presented--and those who believe in Global Warming but who believe it is not entirely (or largly) mankind's fault--have received funding from the oil companies does not take away from the fact that "solving" the problem of manmade Global Warming is a big political undertaking. And anything that is this big political undertaking will inevitably be a big political mess involving trillions of dollars and lots of opportunities for lying, cheating and stealing. (To think otherwise is to think all of our politicians are as pure and clean as the wind-driven snow. Hah!)

I mean, even though we now have proved the Tobacco Companies falsified clear evidence and used tactics to falsify scientific evidence--evidence that has a much more solid basis in double-blind studies on smokers than Global Warmings evidence of computer models and tree ring studies--we still haven't solved the problem of smoking. People still smoke like chimineys, and the evil Tobacco Companies are still selling cigarettes like crazy.

So even though we have reached a solid consensus that smoking kills you and it's all the fault of the Tobacco Companies--they are still in business. And a good friend of mine died of lung cancer at the age of 41 just last year, caused by smoking.

Re:Check out Wiki on UCS

[WindBourne]

I am waiting for people like you to start calling Poppa Bush, Nixon, and Lincoln Communist and leftwingers, while pushing somebody similar to David Duke for president.

Re:and the enviromentalist

[electroniceric]

Can you please offer some real-life experience that backs up any of those assertions? Note: what you read on Free Republic does not count as experience.

I have a degree in physical oceanography, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that you are wrong on this as the deniers i the lies bought from them. The whole time I was in graduate school, I held the point of view that anthropogenic effects could not be separated from natural variability. While people didn't agree with me, I was never disparaged, and nobody even thought of trying to link my work to that. At the time, there were a lot of challenges to be made to important conclusions like Mann's, and modelling was much less well developed. There are still important uncertainties, but the open scientific process has worked, and it has confirmed the findings about anthropogenic climate change. I have been obligated to change my point of view by the increasing body of evidence here.

There is no controversy. There is no doubt. There are some claims which are not fully supported - e.g., how exactly anthropenic warming will affect hurricane formation is not clear, but the most of the basic physical mechanisms are pretty well undertand (if not the second order problems like interaction between wind shear and sea surface temperature), but when they are made and answered within the context of scientific debate (e.g. Kerry Emmanuel's paper), they have tended to confirm the magnitude of risks. Part of the reason scientists are pissed and have begun publishing reports like this is that they resent the endless meddling in the process by these oil-funded "think tanks".

The problem the denialists have is not bias, it is that they are trying to challenge an increasingly established body of science with loopier and loopier ideas. This is similiar to the small but active community of denialists who claim that cold fusion is being suppressed - they more evidence thatemerges against it, the more they turn to whiny claims of bias of crazy counterarguments. Trying to make improbable criticisms stick is never a good strategy for funding. Any responsible grant administrator will consider the question of, say, the meaning of correlation between atmospheric CO2 and temperature as an approximately closed question. There are of course caveats and valid criticisms to any particular paper using those correlations, but the basic science is considered fairly well established. It might be nice if there was so much funding just lying around that the correlation could be subjected to nearly endless testing, but it can't. It's had its day in scientific debate, and barring some truly innovative method or a new framework that raises new concerns, the question is settled. The denialists have provided none of this (barring Lindzen's loony IRIS theory), yet they continue to whine and moan about how their lack of good ideas and unwillingness to accepted results of good work is not in fact petty obstinacy (or more likely outright bought loyalty), but is some kind of noble keeper of the flame movement. That's self-flattering bullshit, and an insult to serious scientists everywhere. Climate science has a healthy scientific process - like anything else, it could probably use improvement in some areas. But to suggest that the whole field of climate science is fundamentally unsound is breathtakingly arrogant and small-minded.

So until you have something real to the conversation, do us the favor of keeping your unfounded slander in your mom's basement next to your teddy bear and anime girlfriend.

Jack about science

[wytcld]

You don't know jack about science. Scientists get published precisely by questioning present assumptions. But the questions themselves have to be rigorous. Virtually every breakthrough in science was made by someone questioning present assumptions. We've had a long string of major and minor breakthroughs over the last several centuries. The global warming/climate change hypothesis was itself a major challenge to the present assumptions back in 1988, when the first major papers suggesting it got into the journals.

The assumption that Exxon favors - that humankind can't change the climate, because it's just too big for little us to make any difference about - was the prevailing assumption back before all the pioneering work in global warming/climate change was done. You cannot get published by challenging the notion that the world is spheroid by claiming that, no, it's flat. But if you could come up with a plausible model of how the apparent world is really a cross-section of a hyperdimensional whatnot, that's might well see print. Science goes forward, not back. Exxon is claiming the equivalent of that the world is flat.

Of course, it's always easy to sell the public on the old, previously-prevailing assumptions that science, with its constant practice of challenging assumptions, has moved beyond. The stuff is still latent in the cultural background. So there are a whole lot of people in the public who can be sold on the notions that the world is 4000 years old, flat, and not subject to human-triggered climate change. But that's public relations and ignorance, not science - and it's no failure of science to not take this sort of "challenge" seriously.

Re:and the enviromentalist

[Anonymous Coward]

In climate research right now you have only three choices:

1. Go with academia's agenda...perform research aimed at demonstrating that GW is occurring and that humanity is the principal cause...get funding.

2. Go with the energy industry's agenda...perform research aimed at demonstrating that GW may not be occurring, but if so is it has nothing to do with carbon emissions...get funding.

3. Attempt to perform research targeted at ignoring agendas and concentrating on actual facts...become ostracized by the academic and industrial camps...get no funding.

You don't fund scepticism.

[Chris Burke]

Look, those people who went to the Antarctic to get ice core samples didn't go there to prove anything. They went there because they wanted ice core samples. They showed the data. It showed trends. It showed that CO2 hasn't been as high as it is today for the past 300,000 years. If it had shown that CO2 was higher in the past than today, then they would have published that data, and it would have formed a solid basis for refuting the claim that humans are contributing unnatural levels of CO2 to the atmosphere. However that was not the case.

And that's regardless of whether the people who did that study believed in anthropogenic global warming or not! Science doesn't work that way. A scientist may have a belief, but their science demands evidence.

Famous example: Michelson and Morely set out to prove the existence of the luminiferous aether. They conducted their experiment and got... nothing. They tried it again and got... nothing. They tried it at high altitudes. They tried it at low altitudes. They tried it in the southern hemisphere and the north. They hypothesized aether-dragging effects and tried to account for them and got... nothing. No matter what they did they got nothing, and that's the result they reported, and no matter whether they still believed in it or not they could not draw a scientific conclusion that it existed. They didn't have to go LOOKING for the conclusion opposite of their own, it came to them through normal scientific rigor.

By the way, in doing so, they turned scientific belief on its head, guaranteed their own position in the history books, and opened the doors for other explanations, the one that passed scientific muster being Einsteins's.

You don't fund scepticism. You fund science. You conduct experiments. The result of that experiment is your scientific evidence, whether it supports your theory or refutes it. That's the way science works.

Re:and the enviromentalist

[amorsen]

Which means that as soon as 2009, China will overtake the US in carbon emissions.

About damn time they did. They are a few more people, after all.

Re:We should be watching the enviromentalist money

[sumdumass]

It is because it isn't a science, it is a religion. And don't you dare doubt the words of thier creator.

Seriously, Look at the sumery of the submision. It says "to a network of 43 advocacy organizations that seek to confuse the public on global warming science." What it is really saying is that there are 43 organizations that don't agree with "our position on global warming" and instead of using the scientific principles of debating and comparing evidence to come to more acurate conclusion and perhaps known facts, we will just demand that we are corect and they cannot be wrong. And even when our side admits that it is wrong on something, it won't matter because we will just skew the interpretations again.

God, Look at mars, The temp is increasing there, the polar caps are receading too, How is it that man has caused that, and how is it that G.W Bush is behind it all? You know, there has to be a time when someone looks around and says maybe we are jumping the gun on this a little. Especialy when we see things like the kyoto treaty which is little more then a redistribution of wealth scheeme comming out as the savior of the planet. I say lets get real, Look at real solutions whether it means doing something about polutants or bracing for the inevitable.

Who cares if Exxon gave money to people researching somethign and they came out in one direction verses another. Exxon is going OWN the supply distribution chaine and tape a cut in whatever energy that replaces fossil fuels. They already have the network in place, equiptment that can be modified and any fees attached to them are already passed onto the customer so there is no reason to think otherwise in the future. Exxon really has little to lose whatever the reality of global warming is. They will still profit and all we would succeed in doing is increasing the cost to the consumer. It is mighty white of some bleading heart libers attacking big bad oil costing them tons of money so they increase thier prices to maintain a profit and stop the poor people from being able to afford the gas. But thaTs another rant (about finding ways to suppress people so you can claim to hepl them.)