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Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Climate Denial and the art of propaganda



Capitalism has a problem, I’m not talking about the inherent injustice of a few having all the money or the slavish ideological worship of the free market or even the IMF and worldbank genocide of poor people they commit every day with policies that promote Western mega corporations and their ability to dump heavily subsidized mass produced food on countries thus destroying the local markets – oh no, I’m talking about it’s impact on the environment. The reality is that the filth we pump into our planet has an impact on that planets health, a truth that the right wing do everything to conceal, to lie about and to muddy the perception of. This muddying is in part paid for by oil companies, check out the large number of front groups Exxon-Mobil use to attempt to divert public attention from the fact that Global warming is happening and happening because of the consumer culture we all desire so much, don’t believe me? Here they are

60/Sixty Plus Association
Accuracy in Academia
Accuracy in Media
Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty
Africa Fighting Malaria
Air Quality Standards Coalition
Alexis de Tocqueville Institution
Alliance for Climate Strategies
American Coal Foundation
American Conservative Union Foundation
American Council for Capital Formation Center for Policy Research
American Council on Science and Health
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
American Enterprise Institute-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies
American Friends of the Institute for Economic Affairs
American Legislative Exchange Council
American Petroleum Institute
American Policy Center
American Recreation Coalition
American Spectator Foundation
Americans for Tax Reform
Arizona State University Office of Cimatology
Aspen Institute
Association of Concerned Taxpayers
Atlantic Legal Foundation
Atlas Economic Research Foundation
Blue Ribbon Coalition
Capital Legal Foundation
Capital Research Center and Greenwatch
Cato Institute
Center for American and International Law
Center for Environmental Education Research
Center for Security Policy
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise
Center for the New West
Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change
Centre for the New Europe
Chemical Education Foundation
Citizens for A Sound Economy and CSE Educational Foundation
Citizens for the Environment and CFE Action Fund
Clean Water Industry Coalition
Climate Research Journal
Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow
Communications Institute
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Congress of Racial Equality
Consumer Alert
Cooler Heads Coalition
Council for Solid Waste Solutions
DCI Group
Defenders of Property Rights
Earthwatch Institute
ECO or Environmental Conservation Organization
European Enterprise Institute
ExxonMobil Corporation
Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment
Fraser Institute
Free Enterprise Action Institute
Free Enterprise Education Institute
Frontiers of Freedom Institute and Foundation
George C. Marshall Institute
George Mason University, Law and Economics Center
Global Climate Coalition
Great Plains Legal Foundation
Greening Earth Society
Harvard Center for Risk Analysis
Heartland Institute
Heritage Foundation
Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University
Hudson Institute
Illinois Policy Institute
Independent Commission on Environmental Education
Independent Institute
Institute for Biospheric Research
Institute for Energy Research
Institute for Regulatory Science
Institute for Senior Studies
Institute for the Study of Earth and Man
Institute of Humane Studies, George Mason University
Interfaith Stewardship Alliance
International Council for Capital Formation
International Policy Network - North America
International Republican Institute
James Madison Institute
Junkscience.com
Landmark Legal Foundation
Lexington Institute
Lindenwood University
Mackinac Center
Manhattan Institute for Policy Research
Media Institute
Media Research Center
Mercatus Center, George Mason University
Mountain States Legal Foundation
National Association of Neighborhoods
National Black Chamber of Commerce
National Center for Policy Analysis
National Center for Public Policy Research
National Council for Environmental Balance
National Environmental Policy Institute
National Legal Center for the Public Interest
National Mining Association
National Policy Forum
National Wetlands Coalition
National Wilderness Institute
New England Legal Foundation
Pacific Legal Foundation
Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy
Peabody Energy
Property and Environment Research Center, formerly Political Economy Research Center
Public Interest Watch
Reason Foundation
Reason Public Policy Institute
Science and Environmental Policy Project
Seniors Coalition
Shook, Hardy and Bacon LLP
Small Business Survival Committee
Southeastern Legal Foundation
Stanford University GCEP
Statistical Assessment Service (STATS)
Tech Central Science Foundation or Tech Central Station
Texas Public Policy Foundation
The Advancement of Sound Science Center, Inc.
The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition
The Annapolis Center for Science-Based Public Policy
The Justice Foundation (formerly Texas Justice Foundation)
The Locke Institute
United for Jobs
University of Oklahoma Foundation, Inc.
US Russia Business Council
Virginia Institute for Public Policy
Washington Legal Foundation
Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy
Western Fuels
World Climate Report


As more evidence emerges every month that we are not only responsible for global warming, but that it is happening right now, and happening faster and faster than we thought it would, the right, in a desperate attempt to counter the influence of Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ have launched their own movie, ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’ which has been savaged by scientists for errors, distortions and misrepresentations, hell it makes Loose Change look credible! The reality is that we are responsible for global warming, our greed and desire for a rate of consumption that has no ends fuels industry that is toxic for our planet – and it is a toxic industry headed by a rich greedy plutocracy that has no interest whatsoever in changing anyone of their means to make wealth and power. As the weather patterns get worse and worse, it is a lie that those refusing to change will no longer be able to hide.

Climate change row erupts over TV documentary
The makers of a documentary which claims that global warming is a swindle have been accused of fabricating data by one of the scientists who participated in the film. The Great Global Warming Swindle was broadcast on Britain's Channel 4 on March 8 and has been criticised by leading scientists for errors, distortions and misrepresentations. The documentary has also been referred to the regulatory watchdog Ofcom, which is considering a complaint from 37 scientists that the programme breached the broadcasting code on the misrepresentation of views and facts. Now even a climate sceptic whose dissenting views were used by the film- makers to bolster their claims about the "lies" and "swindles" of global warming has accused the documentary of promulgating falsehoods. Eigil Friis-Christensen, director of the Danish National Space Centre, has issued a statement accusing the film-makers of fabricating data based on his work looking at the links between solar activity and global temperatures. Dr Friiss-Christensen said a graph he had produced some years ago showing the link between fluctuations in global temperatures and changes in solar activity - sunspot cycles - over the past 400 years had been doctored. The documentary used the graph to pour scorn on the idea that the global warming in recent decades was the result of man-made emissions of carbon dioxide. Solar activity, the programme stated, was the cause of global warming in the late 20th century. However, Dr Friiss-Christensen has issued a statement with Nathan Rive, a climate researcher at Imperial College London and the Centre for Climate Research in Oslo, distancing himself from the C4 graph. He said there was a gap in the historical record on solar cycles from about 1610 to 1710 but the film-makers made up that break with fabricated data that made it appear as if temperatures and solar cycles had followed one another very closely for the entire 400-year period. "We have reason to believe that parts of the graph were made up of fabricated data that were presented as genuine. The inclusion of the artificial data is both misleading and pointless," Dr Friis-Christensen said. "Second, although the commentary during the presentation of the graph is consistent with the conclusions of the paper from which the figure originates, it incorrectly rules out a contribution by anthropogenic [man-made] greenhouse gases to 20th century global warming," he said. Dr Friis-Christensen, a physicist, believes that solar cycles play an important role in climate change and that not enough effort has gone into addressing the theory. The fabricated data did not, he said, make any difference to the overall view he takes but he is still critical of the way the film handled the scientific evidence. The C4 programme also used out-of-date solar cycle data relating to the past 30 or 40 years which made it appear as if temperatures and solar activity were rising together when in fact solar activity had levelled off for the past few decades. "After 1985 we don't see any rise or shortening of the solar cycles compared to what we saw in the temperature [record]," Dr Friiss-Christensen said. Meanwhile, Professor Carl Wunsch of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said that the way his interview was edited gave the misleading impression that he was not concerned about rising levels of carbon dioxide - a diametrically opposite view to his stated position. Martin Durkin, who wrote and directed the programme, admitted in an email to Mr Rive that the graph was wrong. "Thank you for highlighting the error on the 400-year graph," the email said. "It is an annoying mistake which all of us missed and is being fixed for all future transmissions of the film. It doesn't alter our argument." However, the graph and its fabricated data have been included in the DVD version of the programme now on sale in Britain. The advertising for the DVD says: "Everything you've ever been told about global warming is probably untrue. This film blows the whistle on the biggest swindle in modern history." The scientists who wrote to Ofcom had called for changes to the programme before the DVD version was released. "So serious and fundamental are the misrepresentations that the distribution of the DVD without their removal amounts to nothing more than an exercise in misleading the public," they say.
- INDEPENDENT

4 Comments:

At 9/5/07 8:52 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

What we need is one of these really successful socialist countries that some how get by with out one drop of oil, using only renewable energy sources. You gotta hand it to those communists, they may have starved and purged millions in their gulags but atleast they did it with a really small carbon footprint.

 
At 9/5/07 10:02 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dosen't matter if the "Documentary" is full of crap, many suckers will believe it anyway.

Just like they did swallow the lies of Iraq.

 
At 9/5/07 1:48 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Even if the documentary were true, isn't it better to be trying to make the world a better place to live by becoming more ecologically aware and caring more for our environment? You have to admit we can be pretty disgusting with the way we treat Mother Nature.

NS

 
At 10/5/07 6:37 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

None of those groups are fronts.......and if you were to do a little research some of them agree that the earth is warming some have not issued an opinion and if you dig deep enough the one of the biggest critics of exxon the Union of Concerned Sci......takes money from foundations that accept exxon money....not everyone has a hollywood....cause their not biased....to fund thier budgets

 

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