Big Tobacco Funded Anti-Global Warming Messages 623
An anonymous reader writes, "The UK Guardian is running an excerpt from the new book "Heat" by George Monbiot (to be published later this month) spelling out the network of funding opposing global action against global warming — specifically, limits on human carbon dioxide generation. The excerpt outlines a web of fake citizens' groups and bogus (but authoritative sounding) research institutes designed to convince laypeople that human causation of global warming is scientifically controversial. Not surprisingly, the article notes funding by ExxonMobil. More interesting is the role played big tobacco, tying their attack on the health risks of second-hand smoke to global warming skepticism." From the article: "What I have discovered while researching this issue is that the corporate funding of lobby groups denying that man-made climate change is taking place was initiated not by Exxon, or by any other firm directly involved in the fossil fuel industry. It was started by the tobacco company Philip Morris."
Re:CEI? (Score:4, Informative)
Exxon's Cash Pipeline to CEI [sourcewatch.org]
Re:Fanatics, yes, proponents, no. (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.amazon.com/State-Fear-Michael-Crichton
It paints a very diffrent view of what is really happening in terms of climate change.
From Publishers Weekly:
If Crichton is right-if the scientific evidence for global warming is thin; if the environmental movement, ignoring science, has gone off track; if we live in what he in his Author's Message calls a "State of Fear," a "near-hysterical preoccupation with safety that's at best a waste of resources and a crimp on the human spirit, and at worst an invitation to totalitarianism"-then his extraordinary new thriller may in time be viewed as a landmark publication, both cautionary and prophetic. If he is wrong, then the novel will be remembered simply as another smart and robust, albeit preachy, addition to an astonishing writing career that has produced, among other works, Jurassic Park, Rising Sun, Disclosure and The Andromeda Strain. Crichton dramatizes his message by way of a frantic chase to prevent environmental terrorists from wreaking widespread destruction aimed at galvanizing the world against global warming. A team lead by MIT scientist/federal agent John Kenner crosses the globe to prevent the terrorists from calving a giant Antarctic iceberg; inducing terrible storms and flash floods in the US; and, using giant cavitators, causing a Pacific tidal wave. Behind the terrorists lurks the fantatical, fund-seeking chief of a mainstream environmental group; on Kenner's team, most notably, is young attorney Peter Evans, aka everyman, whose typically liberal views on global warming chill as Kenner instructs him in the truth about the so-called crisis. The novel is dense with cliffhangers and chases and derring-do, while stuffed between these, mostly via Kenner's dialogue, is a talky yet highly provocative survey of how Crichton thinks environmentalism has derailed. There are plenty of ready-to-film minor characters as well, from a karate-kicking beauty to a dimwitted, pro-environmentalist TV star who meets one of the nastiest fates in recent fiction. There's a lot of message here, but fortunately Crichton knows how to write a thriller of cyclonic speed and intensity. Certainly one of the more unusual novels of the year for its high-level mix of education and entertainment, with a decidedly daring contrarian take, this take-no-prisoners consideration of environmentalism wrapped in extravagantly enjoyable pages is one of the most memorable novels of the year and is bound to be a #1 bestseller. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Re:Global Warming Fanatics Do the Same (Score:4, Informative)
But the "Both sides do it" argument is pretty rediculous. Would some truly argue that the relatively meager lobbies and scientific groups that promote awareness about global warming have the same type of power and persuassion as these mutiti billion dollar profit corporations? Sure both sides point to studies that benefit them. But one side doesn't have to fabricate its science, and isn't backed by monetary interests in the same way the corporations are.
Saying "both sides do it" is like throwing a penny on one side of a scale and a couple of lead bars on the other.
Bush Govt controlling scientists' access to media (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I don't get the connection... (Score:2, Informative)
I would have just replied with "RTFA" or something similar, but it is a fairly lengthy article that mentions Phillip Morris only briefly. To me, the bigger story here is that the public has been getting planted bullshit "opinion articles in key markets" for our entire lifetimes and only reently have we found hard evidence of it.
Then, of course, having been trained to doubt anything that isn't presented to me by an approved media outlet, I doubt the validity of the evidence and await a counter by some group of concerned citizens.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Plug for plug (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Fanatics, yes, proponents, no. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not even close to "the exact same" (Score:3, Informative)
If you're saying that environmentalists never have ulterior motives for their cause, then you're sadly mistaken. Many of them are anti-technology, including the author of this article, having bought into the myth of the noble savage. They realize that the only way to force people to abandon high technology is to make them fear it, and the best way to do that is to convince them that everyone will die if they don't stop using it.
To be sure, there are a number of people genuinely concerned about global warming, but most of them are also more concerned with more important related problems, such as the fact that gas costs too goddamn much to begin with and we'll eventually run out of it.
Rob
Re:Global Warming Fanatics Do the Same (Score:5, Informative)
The key part of the term "Global Warming" is "Global". That is to say that the average temperature of the entire surface of the Earth is increasing. This is, in fact, objectively observable and undisputed (at least in the literature on the subject). As ocean currents and wind patterns are now changing, some places are warming more rapidly, and others cooling -- as predicted. For example, another degree or two will push the Gulf Stream far enough south that the temperature in Northern Europe would be expected to drop to an average of just under 0C. At the same time, however, the 1 degree change in average global temperature would locally increase temperatures in parts of the mideast another 10C.
A popular tactic used by the paid "Global Warming" denial lobby is to concede that global warming is real, but that one of the following is true: the climate is simply following a regular cycle and there's no need for concern (the amount of CO2 and the speed is unprecedented and the effect appears to actually be mitigated by particulate pollutants and accelerating as the pollutants settle out of the atmosphere), or that the effect is not anthropogenic in nature and thus there's nothing we can do about it (it may be too late, but all evidence in the literature points towards anthropogenic causation).
Climatologists are not referring to places with warming trends and ignoring those with cooling trends. They are looking at the whole enchilada and reporting what they see. Lobbyists and gullible press are the only reason anyone thinks otherwise. The literature is very unanimous and exhaustively complete on the subject. From a political perspective there may be two sides or two schools of thought, but not on the scientific side. That argument was settled long ago.
Re: Big Tobacco Funded Anti-Global Warming Message (Score:3, Informative)
The Japanese diet seems to have some protective effects. Japanese women who move the US have higher breast cancer rates, for example. If so that would account for some difference.
Even so the Japanese get lung cancer from smoking. From a Japanese lung cancer study [oxfordjournals.org]:
Re:I still do not believe in Global Warming ! (Score:4, Informative)
This is part of basic, peer-reviewed science. I'd give them the benefit of the doubt and figure they've thought of that already. If they report the number as 330, it's reasonable to guess that it's around 330 +- 10. If you really can't find the uncertainties in the professional articles, email the authors. No offense, but I'd be shocked if you've thought of something they haven't.
The general consensus is that the global temp is up 0.5c +/- .2c. So the warming trend may be as high as .7c and as low as .3c. I can see this, but add to this that the temperature measurements have a posted error correction of +/- .7c we now have a problem. The global warming that may be happening is within the error rate of the temperature measurement. If Microsoft tried to use numbers like this we would tare them apart but the global warming crowd uses them and they are ok?
This is fine, as long as there are lots of measurements. Uncertainties add in quadrature, so we pin down a more narrow confidence level with a great number of measurements.
To those how would point to the chart that shows us warming, they all seem to start around 1880. This is odd as this marks the end of the little ice age, to say that we are warmer now than we were during the little ice age is, well, duh!
The point isn't just that we're warmer now than we've been since the 1880's, but the CO2 levels are the highest they've been in the last 800,000 years, at least. And we've broken through the 200-300 ppm envelope the levels have been in only the last 100 years, so it's the *rate* of increase that is particularly worrisome.
I am sorry, the science seems off and with out solid science to back it up I just can not believe the hype.
Again, and I don't mean any offense, but these seem like simplistic arguments. We might want to be humble enough to assume that these people, most of whom are really smart, and spend their whole professional lives studying just this phenomena, have already considered these things. I'm not advocating a blind appeal to authority, but it's only curteous to assume that the experts in the field carry *some* authoritative weight.
Re:ummm (Score:2, Informative)
Re:MOD PARENT DOWN (Score:3, Informative)
You bang on an interesting point.
Property is a right to exclusive enjoyment. (A right is a power, enforceable through the state's monopoly on force.) Freedom to enjoy property not your own, ends where the right to exclusive enjoyment of the owner begins.
Liberty is a right to be free of an oppression. It is not a dipole to property, per se. The idea of property - a right to exclusive enjoyment - is a liberty. Without that liberty, you cannot have property. You would not be 'at liberty' to own property, in the common sense.
Libertarians advocate strong, nigh absolute, property rights by individuals, sanctioned by the state but without state interferrence other than when that property right is infringed upon. Most notably, the philosophy abhors tax (which is ridiculousness, IMHO). Thus, the Libertarian philosophy requires both property and liberty, as they act in tandem.
Error level in the ice core data is +/- 2-3 ppm (Score:2, Informative)
"The most common omission I find is the error level on charts. Take the ice core samples, what is the error level? Most I have seen have stated that the current PPM of CO2 is at an all time high! It has been stated that the current CO2 levels are 330+ ppm and from ice cores we know it has never been higher, or do we? What is the error level of the ice cores? +/- ??? If it is +/- 500ppm than the charts are junk, if it is +/- 2ppm then they may mean something. To date I have not been able to find anything that states the accuracy of the reading or the error level of the ice cores."
I did a quick Google search. The uncertainty in the Vostok ice core data is plus or minus 2-3 parts per million by volume.
Here's the data: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/antarctica/ vostok/vostok_co2.html [noaa.gov]
From the description:
"CO2 and CH4 measurements have been performed using the methods and analytical procedures previously described (Barnola et al., 1987, Chappellaz et al, 1990). However, the CO2 measuring system has been slightly modified in order to increase the sensitivity of the CO2 detection. The thermal conductivity chromatographic detector has been replaced by a flame ionisation detector which measures CO2 after its transformation into CH4. The overall accuracy for CH4 and CO2 measurements are ± 20 ppbv and 2-3 ppmv respectively. No gravitational correction has been applied."
If anyone wants to see what the Vostok ice core data looks like, here's an open letter I sent to the Canadian environment minister, including a graph of the ice core data: http://www.geocities.com/rwvong/future/greenhouse. html [geocities.com]
You may not be too worried about a CO2 level of 370 ppm, but it's still rising. If we proceed with business as usual, by 2100 it'll be at 800 ppm. (Again, looking at the ice core data, it's never been higher than 300 ppm at any time in the previous 400,000 years, which includes several ice ages. In comparison, settled civilization based on agriculture is less than 10,000 years old.)
If we make a serious effort to stabilize and reduce CO2 emissions in the next ten years--if the EU countries can do it, why can't we?--then we should be able to stabilize CO2 levels at about 500 ppm. There'll still be warming, but it'll be slow enough to adapt.
Re:Smoking related causes... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Smoking related causes... (Score:3, Informative)
People don't spend significant fractions of their lives in poorly ventilated rooms with cars. They do spend signifcant fractions of their lives in poorly ventilated rooms with smokers.
Are there more dangerous things to inhale than tobacco smoke? Sure! There are plenty of things you can inhale that will kill you right then and there.
But you cannot list "dozens" of things that remotely similar numbers of people inhale with remotely similar frequency that are anywhere near as bad for you as cigarrette smoke.
I'm trying to figure out what you're on about with the "anti-smoking industry" stuff. Apparently you think someone nefarious has a big financial stake in convincing people to stop smoking, but I'm not clear who that is. Since I stopped smoking, I have a lot more money to spend that I used to spend on cigarrettes. I'm also much more athleticly active now that my lungs work so much better, so I spend a fair fraction of that money on bike parts. Perhaps you're suggesting Shimano is paying off cancer researchers to skew their findings? Maybe they could be in a big conspiracy with gyms and athletic shoe companies. No, that only works if smoking is actually bad for you. Sorry, I can't figure out who else gets any money from my not smoking.
Well anyway, regardless of the long term health effects you bizzarrely dispute, in the very short term, my lungs unquestionably work radically better. I'm not being "duped" into thinking I can now run distances that would have winded me to jog as a smoker; I can actually do it.
Re:Common agenda (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Smoking related causes... (Score:3, Informative)
Not anymore, because we figured out cigarette smoke was bad for you. But not so long ago, flight attendants, bartenders, and spouses of smokers spent a lot of time in under ventilated spaces with cigarrette smoke. And all had distinctly elevated cancer risk.
"many mechanics, both amature and professional, inhale large quantities of car exaust."
If professional mechanics are inhaling significant quantities of car exaust, their employers are in serious violation of OSHA rules, and are in danger of serious fines.
"You have to be kidding when you imply that the general public is exposed to more cigerette smoke than car exaust."
I did not mean to imply that. I meant to state that the general public is not in remotely as much danger from car exaust as smokers are from cigarrette smoke.
"Just" and "extremely" are not technical terms; arguing which one is correct is obviously stupid. Smoking is not as bad for you as bullets in the head. Going by rates of heart & lung disease it's orders of magnitude worse for you than breathing inner-city levels of car exaust every day.
"If you are unwilling to even question an industry that is bringing in billions of dollars a year, your arguments simply carry no wieght."
My arguments are not based on any industry; they are based on rates of disease in smokers versus non-smokers. But note that the cigarrette industry brings in a heck of a lot more than you're so-called anti-smoking industry.