Couldn’t resist this. Of course, based on the content of the study, we can presume this will be denied as well.

From RawStory.com:

Belief in Free Market Economics Predicts Denial of Science 

A strong belief in a hands off approach to economics is tightly linked to the rejection of scientific facts such as climate change, according to research published in Psychological Science in late March.

“The conspiracist ideation that all of the world’s scientific academies have conspired together to create a hoax known as global warming has found traction in American mainstream politics,” Stephan Lewandowsky of the University of Western Australia and his colleagues wrote in their study.

In particular, Republican Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma has alleged that thousands of scientists working independently over decades are actually part of “the greatest hoax” to increase regulation on businesses and individuals.

The study of 1,377 people who visited climate change denial blogs found endorsement oflaissez-faire free markets predicted the rejection of climate science and other established scientific facts, such as that HIV causes AIDS or that tobacco smoking causes lung cancer.

“The pivotal role of personal ideology in the rejection of climate science has been repeatedly demonstrated,” Lewandowsky and his colleagues explained. “We highlighted the magnitude of this effect among climate-science blog denizens, who have a strong interest in the issue, and we additionally showed that endorsement of the free market also predicted the rejection of two other well-established scientific facts.”

 

Of course, this merely confirms what most of us already knew: the reality of climate change due to human influences, such as greenhouse gasses and land use is not under debate. What is under debate is what to do about it. In order to argue we should do nothing, to keep faith with their ideological commitment to free market economics, denialsts must deny the science. Any way they can.Wildly ridiculous claims of hoax and conspiracy — it doesn’t matter. These folks don’t really care about facts or evidence. Just maintaining their ideological purity — or power.

No. Just no.

Science is not bi-partisan. Science should not be bi-partisan. It should be non-partisan.

FULL STOP.

If “science has come, over the past decade or so, to be a part of the identity of one political party, the Democrats, in the United States” it is not because science is partisan. It is because one political party, namely the Republican Party, has ever so steadily estranged itself from science, through cutting funding or outright denial of science’s findings.

The problem isn’t with science’s partisanship. It’s with the corruption of politics and the radicalization of the Republican Party. The political realm is so thoroughly addicted to the financial elite’s donations and influence that the science has been denied, ignored and trodden on. The Republican Party has so thoroughly estranged itself from anything resembling moderation that it is a shadow of its former self.

Politics, that behemoth, is the real problem.

The Behemoth and Leviathan

There can be no better example than climate change / global warming.

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Now, it is true that the Democratic Party has been remiss in taking action on climate change, despite the increasing clarity with which the science has spoken. What is even more true is that the Republican Party has erred more egregiously in this matter. Neither political party can claim much higher ground, or if there is some elevation that the Democrats have reached, it is barely above sea level.

This is because of a problem with politics and the political system, not science or scientists. Partisanship is not the problem and so calls for bi-partisanship are simply empty and wrong

To head critics off at the pass, I am not claiming that science is pure, lily white and virginal when it comes to objectivity. Only someone with a vulgar understanding of science would claim it is. Science is a human creation. It cannot escape human foibles. But the scientific method and scientific values and approaches to producing knowledge are the best damn means of producing the most objective knowledge yet known.

It’s not infallible. Scientists are not angels fallen to earth. One need only read of the scandals in research journals to appreciate that science is not free from bias and error.

But here’s the thing. In contrast to non-scientific approaches to producing knowledge, scientists spend a great deal of time learning about bias and error and trying to account for it, minimize its impact. Figuring out error is, after all, a key component of every scientific investigation.

Yes, scientists are partisan. They do vote, and they may tend to be liberal-leaning because the scientific mind is liberal rather than conservative. It is largely unafraid of uncharted territory. It is not afraid of uncertainty. It is willing to question and turn over existing views if the evidence demands it. Maybe it does so only after a long time of kicking and screaming, but eventually it does.

Science is an amazing human development and has been so successful precisely because there are built-in means to try to minimize human bias and error. There are expectations of rigour that help weed out wishful thinking.

Science is not partisan, however much social scientists like Sarewitz might claim it is.

To claim that the problem lies in scientist’s partisanship misreads the matter entirely. It speaks of a blindness on the part of Sarewitz and Co. to the real problem. The problem is not that scientists are partisan or can’t communicate their findings properly to the public or side with one political party.

The problem is a corrupt political realm that ignores, tries to interfere with and/or outright denies the science to suit its own agenda.

Here’s Sarewitz:

As scientists seek to provide policy-relevant knowledge on complex, interdisciplinary problems ranging from fisheries depletion and carbon emissions to obesity and natural hazards, the boundary between the natural and the social sciences has blurred more than many scientists want to acknowledge. With Republicans generally sceptical of government’s ability and authority to direct social and economic change, the enthusiasm with which leading scientists align themselves with the Democratic party can only reinforce conservative suspicions that for contentious issues such as climate change, natural-resource management and policies around reproduction, all science is social science.

Let’s try to unpack this:

Sarewitz claims the following:

1. Scientists seek to provide policy-relevant knowledge on complex interdisciplinary problems.
2. The boundary between natural and social sciences has blurred more than many scientists want to acknowledge
3. Republicans are generally skeptical of government’s ability to direct social and economic change
4. Scientists align themselves with the Democratic Party with enthusiasm
5. This leads to the view that all science is social science

So much going on in this one paragraph…

1. First, scientists do science. They communicate their findings with each other in various forums, journals and in conferences. Policy makers seek out the findings of science to help them make political decisions over issues in which science may have a bearing. Some scientists are employed by governments to do science and their findings may be used directly by governments in the policy process. Other scientists may be called upon to review the science and provide summaries of its findings on specific issues so that the knowledge can be used in the policy process. The IPCC is an example of this.

Most of the science I have seen on climate and global warming has been very high quality. I am not an expert, but to me, it is science as we expect it to be carried out. Once it gets into the hands of politicians and politicos, all bets are off. One need only look to how communications of science findings are manipulated by political types to see how politics tries to bend science to its will.

2. This statement about the boundaries of social and natural sciences is gobbledegook pure and simple. Social science has long felt itself to be natural science’s country cousin, and has tried to make itself look more ‘rigorous’ and ‘scientific’ but it is a shadow of its city cousin when it comes to the ability to use its findings to effect change.The only social science that is rigorous enough to match the power of natural science is marketing and advertising. The social science of understanding the human psyche when it comes to commodities and consumerism is about the only thing that has really risen above social science’s general myth-making.

The boundaries between social and natural sciences are only blurred in those who already see through tinted glasses — glasses that apparently need new lenses.

3. Yes, Republicans are largely skeptical of government, period, with a few huge and telling exceptions. It can do wonders when it comes to waging war and enabling markets, protecting property rights, and maintaining social order and the status quo, but nothing else.

That is where the real problem comes into play. The compelling nature of scientific evidence on certain problems, namely climate change, suggests that government may have to step in and effect change, both economic and social, in order to prevent our climate from becoming something antithetical to our current civilization.

Republicans don’t want to accept that. It’s against their ideology. That is the real problem.

4. If scientists align themselves with the Democratic Party with enthusiasm, it is because scientists heed the message of their own findings and their own findings compel them to conclude that action is necessary to address the problem at hand — climate change is a good example. Scientists are humans, they are citizens, they have a vote and a responsibility to use it. If they see the writing on the wall and conclude that action is necessary to address the threat climate change poses to civilization, it is the Republican Party’s fault that scientists do not turn to them.

The Republican Party has been so slavishly catering to extremists in their party for the past couple of decades (young earth creationists, intelligent designers, etc., anti-abortionists, etc.) that it has driven out moderates and those who are willing to listen to science. Why would scientists side with a party that denies science? Why wouldn’t scientists turn to a party that appears at least to accept science as a valid source of knowledge?

5. The view that all science is social science is pure hogwash. If some ignoramus believes that, it is because they are primed to believe it, or are ignorant of the terms of the issue. It is not because of any problem with science that ignoramuses believe such tripe.

We should ignore such people. They are vexations to the spirit.

So, as usual, Sarewitz says a whole lot of nothing. He will be seen as the darling of the denialati for doing so, because he’s pretty much created a straw man of science in order to set it afire. Then all the “skeptics” can point to it and say, “Look, science is aflame.”

Science is not aflame. It’s percolating along as it always has and does, kept moving by the millions of scientists around the world working away in labs and the field and at desks and computers. It’s findings with respect to climate change are more and more clear and compelling.

Politics has become an even more corrupt behemoth, fed by campaign contributions, PACs, and lobbyists, out to stamp out any real or perceived enemy. It is the real problem and until social scientists like Sarewitz start to examine politics with a critical eye, their analysis will remain vapid and empty. All their work will do is provide fodder for the denialist crowd, and excuses to deny the science of climate change and its increasingly clear findings on what we face if we continue on a business-as-usual path.

When the Gleick Heartland documents were first released, people who call themselves climate skeptics claimed that the strategy memo was a fake because Heartland wouldn’t be so blatant in its wording about its goals and strategy to undermine the IPCC and prevent teachers from teaching science:

Lines such as the following were given as examples:

“Heartland is part of a growing network of groups working the climate issues, some of which we support financially. We will seek additional partnerships in 2012. At present we sponsor the NIPCC to undermine the official United Nation’s IPCC reports and paid a team of writers $388,000 in 2011 to work on a series of editions of Climate Change Reconsidered.” 

And:

“Principals and teachers are highly biased towards the alarmist perspective. To counter this, we are considering launching an effort to develop alternative materials for hte K-12 classroom… His [Dr. Wojick's] efforts will focus on providing curriculum that shows that the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain — two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science.”

People on the “skeptic” side argued that the document must be fake because there is no way any right-minded CEO would write a climate strategy that bald-faced about its efforts to deny science and undermine the IPCC.

Then we have this:

Any organization that would put up a billboard that is as extreme as this is very very capable of writing a confidential document that contains the quotes above.

Simple maths.

Research shows that stupid people — people who truly are ignorant — tend to think they know far more than they do. They are also more likely to think informed people know less than they do. It’s the D-K effect and it’s rampant at both CA and WUWT and Climate Etc. If you’ve ever haunted those sites, you know what I’m talking about.

I’m always tempted to go to there and look for ‘teh stupid’ so I can mock it, but as the Twain quote says, they just bring you down to their level. Admittedly, there is a certain pleasure in mocking teh stupid, but life is short and its unnaturally warm outside. Time’s a wasting.

Instead of arguing with stupid people, I’ll instead try to point out really smart people and focus on what they say and do, in order to try to figure out what we should do.

So that’s the new me — not so much mock and snark (although I can’t promise that some won’t slip in now and then — it is my basic nature, after all) and more analysis.

I have several climate-related books on my bookshelf, including Michael Mann’s The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars, The Honest Broker, by Pielke Jr., Storms of My Grandchildren by James Hansen, Challenged by Carbon by Bryan Lovell and Climate Wars by Gwynne Dyer.

I hope to read and provide a review for each of them in the coming weeks.

Sisyphys (1548-1549) by Titian, Prado Museum, Madrid, Spain

I’ve been rethinking my role in these debates since the whole business. Gleick’s actions, whatever they were, served to illustrate what is wrong with the whole climate change wars. Evidence, in the end, doesn’t matter. Power matters.

Here’s an excerpt from a post by Peter Watts in which he laments the sorry state of humanity that I think is worth considering in this context:

I realized, at that point, that you just can’t reason with some people.  It wasn’t until much later that I began to understand why this should be so.  I think it comes down to the oft-revisited theme that natural selection has shaped our brains not for logic but for inclusive fitness.  We can use logic when we want to, of course.  We have tools of reason at our command; but according to at least some experts[1] we have those tools not to glean truth from falsehood but to help us win arguments; to make others do what we want; to use as a weapon.  It’s rhetoric and manipulation that evolution selected for: logic just tagged along as a side effect.  Sweeping oratory, rational debate, it’s all just a way to bend others to your will.

In that light, it shouldn’t surprise us that our brains have developed countermeasures to so-called reasoned argument.  A seemingly-endless list of cognitive glitches compromise the brain’s inability to perceive reality— but maybe they aren’t so much glitches as adaptations, meant to counter the pernicious effects of the silver-tongued.  Confirmation bias, for example, leads us to cherry-pick facts which support our own beliefs;  the Semmelweis reflex makes us automatically reject findings that contradict our expectations.  And perhaps most radically, the Backfire Effect.  You’d think a rational person, confronted with evidence contradicting their beliefs on a given subject, would at the very least grow less confident in those beliefs.  In fact, such contrary evidence often reinforces the very belief being undermined.

These adaptations, if that’s what they are — these defenses against social manipulation — would make rational discourse difficult enough.  But it gets worse.  We know from the work of Kruger and Dunning[2] that not only do people tend to overestimate their own smarts, but that this effect is especially pronounced among the incompetent. Furthermore, incompetent people tend not only to regard themselves as smarter than everyone else, they tend to regard truly smart people as especially stupid, even when shown empirical proof that they are less competent than those they deride.

It explains so much, these counter-rhetorical biases.  It explains why climate-change deniers dig their heels in even deeper with each new study confirming the reality of climate change.

Science is so wonderful because it attempts to remove these influences and stick with the facts and the implications of them, rather than ego-driven wish fulfilment clouded by bias and desire. But it seems to me, if we take Watts insights, that this means people are adapted to ignore science – ignore evidence – when it suits them. Hence, you have deniers who refuse to accept the science — not because the science is wrong, but because it is inconvenient to their economic self-interest. Or because they want to remain ideologically pure (Ayn Randians forex).

Facts and evidence won’t sway these folks. Science is wasted on them. They just shut off the part of their brains that can be swayed by evidence and stick with comfortable delusions.

The rest of the population is ready to accept what science tells them. They generally respect scientists. The problem is that journalism, as an industry reliant on selling newspapers or getting eyes on websites or advertisements, tends to present such a dizzying array of conflicting headlines and messages that it seems that science is up its own arse. Scientists appear to be a psychotic lot who speak in tongues and have multiple personalities. One week it’s good to eat this and then the next it’s bad, one week this causes cancer, the next it doesn’t. No wonder people are confused. I don’t blame the scientists, but the industry of journalism. Even journalists are victims of the system which forces headline writers to write the fantastic to draw readers. Not only are there conflicting messages; there are just too many messages. The average person is overwhelmed and does not have the skills necessary to sort through the dreck to find what’s worthy of thought.

Deniers rely on this confusion. They play it up, spouting alternative theories that do not make the grade. This leads to uncertainty in the minds of the public about what to believe. Uncertainty on the part of the electorate means that politicians, those weak-kneed lily-livered lot, can stall or ignore or sidestep making hard choices.

It comes down to a question, not of truth, but power. Power and those who exercise it and monopolize it, is what matters. Only when those who can make policy — politicians — feel under the gun enough, face a loss at the ballot box, and get the message loud and clear that it is time to act, will we see serious concerted action to mitigate fossil fuel-produced CO2 induced global warming.

It’s sad to say but I agree with Sir John Houghton:

If we want a good environmental policy in the future we’ll have to have a disaster. It’s like safety on public transport. The only way humans will act is if there’s been an accident.

Think of the 2004 Tsunami or the recent Tsunami in Japan. There were folks warning about the risks but no one listened. Humans procrastinate until it’s too late. Until we have disasters, we humans are too short-sighted to act, too self-interested, and too willing to ignore evidence in order to avoid making uncomfortable decisions. Because of vested interests, it’s all the harder. Because of the corruption of our political systems, it is even harder still.

The cards are stacked against rational action. At this time. Rational action will take political will and so far, there isn’t enough despite the growing evidence that we must act — and soon.

My little corner of the internet has been dedicated to poking fun at deniers, looking at their arguments and narratives and making fun, using sarcasm and satire to try to make a point. I’ve been preaching to the choir, and I thank everyone who has visited Policy Lass blog over the past couple of years. I have many regular readers who check in every day to see if I’ve updated. I know where you’re from and appreciate your interest. I feel somewhat pleased to have readers from NOAA, NASA, JPL, and dozens of universities and research institutes. People from around the world – amazing for one small person of no import. Thank you for reading. Hell, even Husky Oil — glad to see you.

This isn’t a swan song. I’m just going to focus less on snark and more on exploring how to build a political movement. Twice in my life I’ve been involved in small-scale political movements that had some measure of success. I’m going to have to spend some time thinking about this and reading about it and finding people who have ideas on how to move this forward. That includes finding public figures who are already or who can become climate champions, encouraging them to speak out, to use their sway with the public, to use social media to reach the electorate, to reach young people, and those who vote, and make it so that the decision makers and policy makers have to listen.

It’s the only way anything will change.

I don’t yet know how to do this, or what avenues to pursue, but I think those of us who spend our time attacking the deniers or even simply trying to push the truth will not achieve what we desire — serious action on climate change. There’s just too much noise and too much disinformation to succeed by either using satire or science to effect change. Satire is lost on all but those who are receptive to the message and science alone is not enough to sway.

We have to seize the discourse among the public using the tools that reach the public. It will be an uphill battle because corporations like EXXON Mobil have so much wealth and the fossil fuel industry has so much wealth and can afford to put on sexy ads about jobs and energy independence and economic security. Until we have voices as big and compelling who can reach into the lives and minds of Joe Public and show them the truth and what they can do to deal with it, we will remain locked in this Sisyphean struggle, expending a whole lot of energy without getting anywhere – fast.

I’m tired and frustrated by it.

The Gleick – Heartland affair and the whole debate that arose around it made this clear to me.

So that’s it for me for a while.

As usual, I will continue to read your blogs and keep up with the climate deniers, but I’m out of heart for what I’ve been doing for the past two years here.

Here’s an excerpt:

“One line item in every Alberta budget shows how the miracle unfolds: non-renewable energy resources. Last year, Alberta took in $8.6-billion in personal income taxes, $3.6-billion in corporate income taxes, $3.8-billion in “other” revenue, $4.7-billion in federal transfers and $8.3-billion in resource revenues. In other words, oil and gas revenues (about half of which – $4.1-billion – came from tar sands oil) poured almost as much money into the Alberta treasury as personal income taxes. What provincial government wouldn’t love that?”

Often misattributed to Otto von Bismarck, this is a truism well appreciated by the policy analyst and policy maker alike.

I just spent a day in a policy seminar on the policy process put on by our local graduate school in public policy and co-hosted by the public service commission.The seminar was led by an academic and a senior bureaucrat and the room was filled with civil servants from a number of different ministries and with different titles following their names. Despite our differences, we could all appreciate the sentiment contained in that von Bismarck mis-quote, having been involved in more than one sausage-making session.

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As with all such seminars, one is exhausted at the end because the room is too small and hot, but one comes away with a confirmation of what you already knew, a few pointers that you didn’t know, a new respect for your superiors (the assistant deputy minister was freaking amazing), a bit of a skeptical eye for the pure academic policy type (when she mentioned “wicked problems” I got all nauseated).

You also come to the realization that there is always a blowhard ideologue participant who thinks they know it all and better than everyone else to gum up the discussion. Luckily, when it came time to present our “Recommendation to the Minister” on the case study — the culmination of our day of learning — he went last and since most of us were already brain-dead, we ignored him. My colleague and I rolled our eyes at each other from across the room as he spouted his drivel.

He was a climate denier and I fantasized about inflicting a few mental (and physical) Judo chops on him given half a chance but I was restrained. I have to keep my super secrit identity super secrit so as to not lose my job because I have teenagers reliant on my bringing home half the bacon.

So what is the upshot of my 8 hours of continuing education? And how does this apply to climate change / global warming policy?

NOTE: This does not represent what I think SHOULD be the way policy is made. It represents my best understanding of how it IS made. Warts and all.

First principles:

Civil servants like me don’t make policy. Policy Makers — aka politicians — do.

We don’t work for “The People” or “The Public Good” or “The Betterment of Humankind” or even “The Truth”.

We work for the Premier (or Minister or Prime Minister, at least in the Westminster System of Government).

The purpose of policy analysis is to develop sound policy that addresses the policy problem without losing your boss’s job.

You have any qualms about what you are doing, you quit. That’s pretty much your only option.

Period.

The purpose of the policy analyst or advisor is to provide the (Insert Political Overlord in Question) with options to address policy problems and the implications of those options and a recommendation based on all considerations, but most especially, the costs. Not just any cost, but foremost is the political cost of the options to address said policy problem.

Now, there are many ways for a timid policy maker to avoid doing something he or she is uncomfortable with politically.

You can merely ignore the problem or deny it exists. This is a favoured option as it simply avoids making a bad or politically costly decision. Of course, no decision is still a decision, so the timid politician can’t weasel out of things too easily. At some point, the policy maker may just have to buckle down and recognize that the problem exists, especially, and this is key, if the public sentiment is leaning towards addressing that problem.

Having been forced to recognize that a problem exists, the next dodge is to deny that government has any purview over the problem. This is the cry of the libertarian climate denier — government just isn’t the right instrument to deal with the climate problem. It must be left to the invisible hand of the market. Lately though, one gets the feeling that the invisible hand has been giving us ordinary folk the finger… But I digress…

The policy analyst or advisor must present the policy maker with options to address the problem. But another key dodge is that problems can be framed in different ways to accommodate political ideology. For example, a denier may present climate change as “a natural phenomenon” and thus, the only real option is to “adapt”. Policy options will then be focused around adapting our behaviors and institutions and actions to the new reality. Certainly not doing anything to prevent it or moderate it.

And even if the policy maker acknowledges the problem and thinks it’s appropriate for government to address it, and even if they accept that it is possible to try to mitigate it, there are still many dodges left.

For example, one could focus on addressing “Carbon Intensity” when referring to the problem of “greenhouse gas emissions” thus one can do not much of anything whilst looking as if one is doing something. This is perhaps one of the most favoured options of the timid policy maker. It’s called “half-assed is better than nothing”. It amounts to nothing much more than wheel-spinning or hamster-wheel-running. Lots of activity but not much of a result except a less bad outcome that makes one exhausted.

But what about the science? you ask, and rightly so. What about the science?

Science is just one form of evidence. It can be included into the mix, and should be, of course, but it is just one form of evidence. Other forms of evidence may be deemed to be more compelling. More pertinent.

Science is added to the mix of other evidences, such as local stakeholder opinion, opinion of industry, and other forms of “evidence’ such as political cost.

Science is important, especially when making a case for a particular action. One then runs to the evidence to justify a decision. However, when the science is against your interest as a policy maker, for whatever reason, one can point out that the science “isn’t settled” or that there’s conflicting scientific opinion, thus allowing the timid policy maker to conveniently ignore it for other evidence.

Such as the political cost of an action.

This is when consultation comes into play. One must consult. Stakeholders. Interested parties. The public. One must consider their opinions on the problem and what should be done.

In the issue of climate change, the key stakeholders are all those who are affected by a policy to address it. The public, industry, workers in the industry, etc. One consults the science, the think tanks, the advocacy groups, the industry affected and the citizens. The consultations produce mounds of evidence that must be considered and weighed.

The goal of the policy analyst is to come up with good public policy. Good public policy is a policy that achieves its objectives — address the problem without losing your boss’s job.

Which brings us to the political cost of an policy option.

Politicians will rarely make a policy that is certain to lose them an election. It would be political suicide and politicians get into politics to exercise power, not to lose it or throw it away. They occasionally do it out of sheer incompetence, but not usually intentionally.

In our case, the political cost of mitigating climate change / global warming is a key bit of evidence for the policy analyst and policy maker — perhaps the most important. This bit of evidence has a lot of weight in the policy process.

The ethical policy analyst should consider all the evidence. The policy recommendation and options should be “informed by the evidence” but not determined solely by the science.

Remember — the policy analyst works for the Premier or Minister and the political cost of an option must be key to determining its appropriateness.

In other words, if an option is so politically costly that it would lose the politician’s seat in the next election, you can fuggetaboutit.

There is no use having power if your actions lead to you losing it.

So the best the ethical policy analyst can do is present the options, present the evidence supporting the options, and present the political costs of each option, present the recommendation that achieves the goal of solving the policy problem without threatening the continued existence of the policy maker and hope the policy maker does the right thing.

Because in the end, it is not up to the policy analyst or advisor to make policy. It is up to the policy maker (hence the name). One can only be as inclusive in one’s portrayal of the policy problem, as comprehensive as one can be in a short document (policy decision items are several pages long but the policy maker may only read the first page, zeroing in on the recommendation and costs) and let the elected representative make the decision and take the resulting heat.

Our system of democracy means that the people, the citizens, have ceded power to the elected official and have given them the right — and the burden — of making policy. If we don’t like the policy they make, our only option is to chuck them out the next time we get around to voting.

And in the case of global warming, the only way that policy analysts will recommend serious actions to mitigate CO2 will be when they deem that the political cost of not doing so will trump the political costs of doing so.

Until the public gets on side and threatens to throw the bastards out of office for not mitigating CO2, it ain’t gonna happen.

This — this reality of the policy making process — the political cycle and the election cycle and the problem of political power — is why the public is the target of the denialist campaign to discredit climate science and climate scientists. Confuse the public about the reality of global warming, undermine their sense of trust in the science and scientists, and the public will prefer the status quo.

Business as usual.

For those hoping to influence the policy process, the main strategy is to build public momentum for action — or inaction, depending on your position — and force policy makers to make appropriate policy.

It’s all about political will.

Only the threat of loss of political power will work.

Like Rick Perry, for example:

“I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects. And I think we are seeing almost weekly, or even daily, scientists are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change.”

Luckily, he’s out, but srsly, he was the top runner for a while.

“My view is that we don’t know what’s causing climate change on this planet. …And the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO2 emissions is not the right course for us.”

This is most distressing to those of us who acknowledge the reality of climate change / global warming because one of these folks could ultimately lead the US next year and to the man and woman, they are all in denial.

So what is denial? As the saying goes, “It ain’t a river in Egypt”…

Denial:

denial [dɪˈnaɪəl]

Denialism: the employment of rhetorical tactics to give the appearance of argument or legitimate debate, when in actuality there is none. These false arguments are used when one has few or no facts to support one’s viewpoint against a scientific consensus or against overwhelming evidence to the contrary. They are effective in distracting from actual useful debate using emotionally appealing, but ultimately empty and illogical assertions.

We believe there are five simple guidelines for identifying denialist arguments. Most denialist arguments will incorporate more than one of the following tactics: Conspiracy, Selectivity, False Experts, Impossible Expectations/Moving Goalposts, and Argument from Metaphor/violations of informal logic.

“Follow the money and understand what’s really going on. This is a hoax. It’s junk science. It’s being portrayed as something to make you scared to death we’re all going to die. You’re supposed to vote liberal for this; supposed to make some sacrifices; pay higher taxes; drive a car you don’t want to drive; live in a house you don’t want to live; live where you don’t want to live … I don’t know who’s in the crosshairs on this, the US government, but it’s going to be various industries who are said to be polluting and Big Oil will probably be the big target here, Big Oil, Big Natural Gas, electricity, utilities, this sort of thing, it’s coming, you have been warned.”  Rush Limbaugh

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“The billion-dollar hoax: global warming rapidly falls from the ‘great moral challenge to our generation’ to ‘the great con that’s falling to bits’.”

Marc Morano

“much of the debate over global warming is predicated on fear, rather than science.” I called the threat of catastrophic global warming the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,” a statement that, to put it mildly, was not viewed kindly by environmental extremists and their elitist organizations. I also pointed out, in a lengthy committee report, that those same environmental extremists exploit the issue for fundraising purposes, raking in millions of dollars, even using federal taxpayer dollars to finance their campaigns.” Inhofe

And Ken Cuccinelli:

“We cannot allow unelected bureaucrats with political agendas to use falsified data to regulate American industry and drive our economy into the ground”.

“Instrumental temperature data for the pre-satellite era (1850-1980) have been so widely, systematically, and uni-directionally tampered with that it cannot be credibly asserted there has been any significant “global warming” in the 20th century. “

“While it is true that global temperatures have risen somewhat during the past 100-plus years since the Little Ice Age ended, there was little room for temperatures to go at the time but up. The Little Ice Age, lasting from approximately 1300-1900 A.D., brought the planet’s coldest extended temperatures during the last 10,000 years. Saying that temperatures have risen by 1 degree or so since the end of the Little Ice Age tells us essentially nothing in the long-term temperature context because the arbitrary baseline of the Little Ice Age was an exceptionally cold climate anomaly.” Heartland Institute

“Yes, the decline had been disclosed in the “peer reviewed literature”. Indeed, that was how I became aware of the trick – long before Climategate and why, as an AR4 peer reviewer, I asked that IPCC not use the trick once again in AR4.

IPCC presentations are how the climate science community speaks to the world. Climate scientists, including CRU scientists, have a far greater obligation of full, true and plain disclosure in IPCC reports than even the specialist literature. Oxburgh pretends that (partial) disclosure of adverse results by CRU in specialist literature is sufficient. It isn’t. There was a continuing obligation to disclose adverse results in IPCC graphics.”

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