Following up on a comment

I’ve had a couple trolls comment on my post about the individuals and institutions involved in global warming denial, one in particular accuses me of “slandering” Ross McKitrick and Bjorn Lomborg.

Here’s what desmogblog’s “denier database” has to say about McKitrick and Lomborg. Therefore, they are both high enough profile deniers to warrant my including them in the original post.

The commenter makes the perfectly valid point that economists should be involved in analyzing the economic impacts, but that actually reinforces my point. McKitrick is an economist, not a climate scientist, and is in no position to make claims regarding the reality of climate change, only the costs involved in taking action compared with the cost of doing nothing. The fact that McKitrick is associated with both the George C. Marshall Institute and Fraser Institute implies to me that he’s deliberately confusing the science because of his right wing ideology. This is part of what I find so completely fraudulent (I use that word deliberately) about this point of view – conservatives are so obsessed with free markets, deregulation and lowering taxes that they think it’s okay to counter the real climate science with their distortions and pseudo-science. The comment itself reveals this mindset,

a suspicion that some of the leftists taking the alarmists position want to use the global warming issue to bring in socialistic government by the “Back door”

so it’s ok to lie, because it’s just politics. The problem is, just as with tobacco and health care, they deny reality purely because of their ideology.

And they’ve been successful – instead of the debate being what level of CO2 do we need to stabilize at (350 ppm) and how do we get there, we debate the costs of doing anything at all.

Yet even more ignorance, misinformation, distortion, and lies from global warming deniers

A classic tactic the deniers use is “I haven’t seen any research that shows…”

Take Michele Bachmann’s mind-numbingly stupid “There’s not a single piece of evidence that CO2 is harmful, it’s natural, it’s only 3% of the atmosphere” rant (I know those are not her exact words, but YOU know that was the message) . It’s so appallingly stupid, I’ll let others address it.

I’ve been accused by a commenter of hating people who disagree with me, but to be more accurate, I agree (to some degree) with Alonzo that global warming denialism is evil because of the devastating impact it will have on future generations, including my descendants and those of so many people whose lives will be ruined because anti-regulation free-market capitalists want to make more money today.

Here’s a story about a climate change denier organization’s own scientists accepting the global warming science, in 1995!!!

Ok, to those who claim to never have seen the research, I’ll do your homework for you. Google “global warming research”. For me, the #1 hit was the Stanford Solar Centre. Page down to the FAQ’s, and follow some of the links.

Beware, the real research gets very technical, very fast. For the non-scientist, like me, I let the experts figure it out. This gets back to my original post – on one side, we have almost every credible climate scientist on the planet, and on the other, we have James Inhofe’s debunked list of economists, TV weathermen, dead people and people who even objected to being on his list. Before you give both sides a chance to express themselves, you have to decide if both sides are credible, and the deniers flatly are not credible, for reasons that I addressed in my original post.

Anyway, believe what you want, because I think the tide has turned and you are now on the wrong side, just like you (or at least many of your fellow global warming deniers) are wrong about evolution, gay rights, vaccinations and crimes against humanity (torture and starting illegal wars). Don’t feel bad if you’ve fallen for it all, the Republican lie machine is a very powerful force of malevolent hatred, all designed to manipulate ignorant, bigoted people into keeping them in power.

I don’t need to re-hash everything, if you want my general opinion on issues, read my shared items from the blogs that I read.

And remember, I’m not here for readers and I don’t want to get into arguments in the comments. My comment section is for respectful, intelligent discussion. I’ll discuss any issues, but “I haven’t seen any research” is no longer good enough.

Read this before your start your global warming “research”…

I’ve met enough people who’ve said, in effect, “I’ve done the research and I’ve concluded that global warming is not real/not caused by humans/not such a bad thing.”

Before you start your own research, I suggest you look into some of the people and organizations involved in global warming denial.

I’ll tell you some of the individuals you’ll find:
Sen. James Inhofe, Sallie Baliunas, Willie Soon, Fred Seitz, S. Fred Singer, Ross McKitrick and Bjørn Lomborg, among many, many others.

Or, don’t believe Wikipedia? Check SourceWatch.

Among the organizations involved in global warming denial, four of the most prominent are: George C. Marshall Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Heartland Institute and Cato Institute.

Let’s be clear, these are primarily conservative think tanks, aimed at reducing regulation. We all know how that worked out for the banking industry…

For example, CEI (though their website is off-line as I write this) believes “that people improve their lives not through government regulation, but by making their own choices in a free marketplace.”. So they’re not about science or climate, they’re a conservative think tank and they’re all about deregulation. They strive to deny the science behind global warming, in the interest of corporate profit.

Now, check out ExxonSecrets.org, once you’re past the intro, check out the pre-saved maps, sucn as “Biggest Exxon $$ Winners”, “Fred Singer, Skeptic-in-Chief”, “CEI web”, “Sen. Inhofe and friends” or my favourite, “Climate Science Skeptic Roundup”.

If you’re not convinced, try googling “seitz singer tobacco“, 2 of the top hits today are “The Indisputable Corruption of Frederick Seitz“, “The Corrupt S. Fred Singer, corrupt Fred Seitz…” and “No apology is owed Dr. S. Fred Singer, and none will…” The last one is interesting, as it shows the connection between S. Fred Singer and tobacco lobbyists, whose “product” was doubt.

Or google “inhofe 400 debunked“.

If you still want more reading, here are the environment posts from my other blog, or one from What I Learned Today or, if you prefer, a video.

I can save you a lot of time and confusion in doing your research, because there’s only one factual conclusion: The parties involved in climate change denial are well-connected, well-funded, highly-motivated and not at all concerned about lying or distorting facts. Their ideology is based entirely on free markets and reducing regulation, not about science or protecting future generations. Their method is the same as was used by the tobacco industry, create doubt.

America sometimes “spectacularly” more dysfunctional than more secular European countries

or in the words of TimesOnline, societies are worse off when they have God on their side

“In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies.

“The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so.”

Gregory Paul, the author of the study and a social scientist, used data from the International Social Survey Programme, Gallup and other research bodies to reach his conclusions.

He compared social indicators such as murder rates, abortion, suicide and teenage pregnancy.

The study concluded that the US was the world’s only prosperous democracy where murder rates were still high, and that the least devout nations were the least dysfunctional. Mr Paul said that rates of gonorrhoea in adolescents in the US were up to 300 times higher than in less devout democratic countries. The US also suffered from “ uniquely high” adolescent and adult syphilis infection rates, and adolescent abortion rates, the study suggested.

Mr Paul said: “The study shows that England, despite the social ills it has, is actually performing a good deal better than the USA in most indicators, even though it is now a much less religious nation than America.”

He said that the disparity was even greater when the US was compared with other countries, including France, Japan and the Scandinavian countries. These nations had been the most successful in reducing murder rates, early mortal

I find this an encouraging thought…

From LA Progressive,

Now, the Republicans are relegated to the South — an extremist backwater party of white heterosexual Christian fundamentalism, cultural intolerance, and political irrelevance. They embrace xenophobia, islamophobia, and homophobia as America becomes a browner, more diverse nation. They uphold the plutocratic interests of free market capitalism at a time when the public demands greater government intervention in the economy, as a check against corporate excess and upward wealth redistribution.