Catherine Brahic, "New" "Scientist"'s online environment reporter continues to reflect the magazine's confusion between environmental science and environmental politics.
If I didn't know better, I'd say "so much for the pulling power of oil money". Reports suggested that it played a big role in George W Bush's two terms in office, but according to this stunning online interactive graphic, it was powerless to save Rudolph Giuliani in the 2008 primaries.
The graphic is from OilChange International, who have made an online toy showing the relationships between past US presidential candidates and oil industry donors.
But what is the significance of oil money? Is it really surprising that corporations and businessmen donate to presidential candidates? Not a lot, and no. US presidential candidates are not going to have got to where they are by not taking donations and by refusing to be friends with rich people. You might find something equally scurrilous by looking at donations from any industry sector - toys, for example - and their donations. Even greener-than-though, pledge-making eco-warrior Al Gore took $142,014 in 2000, according to this silly database. (Only enough to pay his gas bills for just a couple of months though.) Rich people hang out with each other. It's what they do. Companies (and individuals) make donations to US politicians. It's how it is done.
Corruption? Hardly. Right or wrong? That's a very different question. There are many discussions to be had about whether what goes on in Western democracies is 'right'. But that it it 'all about oil' is an argument which comes up again and again, and again, in the climate debate. Why?
It reveals an awful lot about the Green movement (as well as a large part of the liberal left) that it can't actually challenge its counterpart, or call for a new form of politics which doesn't require such vast sums of capital. It's easier to say, for example, that John Kerry ($184,037) lost the election to George Bush ($2,649,725) because of oil money, or because people are stupid, or like rats, and republicans appeal to stupid people. Instead of reflecting on why their ideas have failed to find a home in the public imagination, increasingly commentators have looked for other reasons to explain the failure of the self-proclaimed good guys. If politicians eager to identify with progressive movements were to try to challenge the politics by which powerful interests gain influence, they would undermine themselves. This is perhaps more evident in UK politics. We've linked to this video before... David Cameron, standing on top of Greenpeace's HQ in London, showing off his ethical credentials, and announcing a new policy.
Is it any less dodgy to be in bed with Greenpeace (a multi-national player if ever there was one) than with an oil Baron? Who is Cameron trying to appeal to here? His plans for micro-generation will be appealing to about 0.001% of the UK population - mostly his landed school chums. Meanwhile, micro-generation is likely to serve only as a colossal pain in the arse to anyone who has to depend on it - everyone else. His policy has not emerged from a well-developed political philosophy that he wants to share, but just the immediate need to appear to be in bed with the "right people" in the mistaken belief that it will appeal to "the people". Greenpeace are only too happy to be the powerful corporate interest in that relationship. All it has to complain about is that it's own vast spending power hasn't had the effect on the electorate that it imagines the oil money has.
If $2 million were enough to buy a US president, the US wouldn't be quite the superpower it is. Like the shrill cries about ExxonMobil-funded sceptical scientists, the claim lacks any sense of proportion.
The oil argument is a big, black...er... red-herring tossed out by a movement that thrives on the exhaustion of political elites, but finds itself the object of just as much cynicism from the public. Naturally, then, the movement finds faults with both. The former is corrupt, and the latter is stupid. Tired politicians are turning to the environmental movement as a PR move for empty campaigns.
Back to the New Scientist blog... Brahic is, of course, not reporting science, but politics. We certainly don't dissapprove of coverage of the politics of the environmental debate. But Brahic and the New Scientist's agenda don't actually bring a fresh perspective on the debate more than they epitomise it. You could hear the same old stories and tired rhetoric from any mouldy old hairshirt ecowarrior. Recycling internet innuendo, conspiracy theories and doom-mongery is not 'news'. There is an interesting debate to be had about the relationship between science and politics, but New Scientist is not fuelling it.
One of the arguments which frequently emerge from the warmers in climate change debates is that the scientific expertise of sceptics has been bought – literally – by oil companies. We see this tired argument again wheeled out in the aftermath of the Inhofe 400 list. For example, James Wang of non-profit organisation Environmental Defense tells us,
The aim of the report is to refute that only a handful of scientists - mostly in the pocket of oil companies - still dispute that global warming is happening, and that it's caused by human activities.
The logic of the "industry funded sceptics" argument seems to be that scientists can’t possibly have an honestly held position which contradicts the “consensus” because the consensus cannot possibly be mistaken, so their opinion must have been paid for. These scientists (and, for that matter, anyone with a public profile who has anything critical to say about global warming) are whores – “industry shills” , “corporate toadies”, or part of the “well funded denial machine” – who not only prostitute themselves, but also sell us all out to an apocalypse for dirty, dirty dollars... Those who "deny" climate change are in fact, denying a "holocaust". As ecowarrior Mark Lynas puts it,
I wonder what sentences judges might hand down at future international criminal tribunals on those who will be partially but directly responsible for millions of deaths from starvation, famine and disease in decades ahead. I put this in a similar moral category to Holocaust denial – except that this time the Holocaust is yet to come, and we still have time to avoid it. Those who try to ensure we don’t will one day have to answer for their crimes.
It would be hard for the warmers to escalate the rhetoric against their detractors and for the tone to sink any lower. Yet still, the inclination of those using this argument is not to engage their sceptical counterparts in scientific discussion, or even to allow their political opinions on the best way to act on the available evidence to be challenged in an open and democratic way. Meanwhile, the scientific and political debates go unheard, and are overwhelmed or shut down by the shallow rhetoric of 'consensus science versus industry-funded sceptics'.
This is not merely the language of hairshirt lunatics and fringe activists operating in the blogosphere and Internet forums, but even the "considered" opinion of "experts". But far from lending the argument credibility, this expert opinion only reveals its own shallow, fragile and nervous claim to objectivity and the hollowness of the political environment that it thrives in. The truth of the matter appears to be that few people recognise environmentalism as a political ideology. We’ve reported before how the Royal Society - the UKs leading "science academy" - make bigger noises about "funding" than they shed any light on the science.
There are some individuals and organisations, some of which are funded by the US oil industry, that seek to undermine the science of climate change and the work of the IPCC. They appear motivated in their arguments by opposition to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol, which seek urgent action to tackle climate change through a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions... Often all these individuals and organisations have in common is their opposition to the growing consensus of the scientific community that urgent action is required through a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. But the opponents are well-organised and well-funded...
The Royal Society's statements that sceptics aren't interested in debate but "seek to distort and undermine the science of climate change and deny the seriousness of the potential consequences of global warming"are unequivocal. According to them [PDF] (and pretty much any activist), at the centre of this conspiracy to pervert the course of science are "climate criminals" ExxonMobil, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. And at the centre of the attempt to expose this devious master plan, and dishing the dirt on the backroom negotiations is the website Exxonsecrets, a database of rumour, innuendo, and leaked documents, which sells itself as:
a Greenpeace research project highlighting the more than a decade-long campaign by Exxon-funded front groups - and the scientists they work with - to deny the urgency of the scientific consensus on global warming and delay action to fix the problem.
And the reason Greenpeace have targeted ExxonMobil is that,
For over a decade, it has tried to sabotage international climate change negotiations and block agreements that would lead to greenhouse gas emissions reductions.
A report by the campaign [PDF] in May last year concluded that
ExxonMobil’s campaign to fund “think tanks” and organizations that spread misinformation about the science and policies of global warming is now widely known. The company’s multimillion dollar campaign has undoubtedly contributed to public confusion and government inaction on global warming over the past decade.
and suggested that ExxonMobil should
Apologize to the world for the damage delay caused by the company’s actions to confuse the public understanding and slow political response to this global crisis.
And the sums we are talking about, which have been spent on comissioning these "climate criminals"...
TABLE 1. EXXONMOBIL’S “HANDFUL” OF 2006 FUNDING CUTS
So, according to Greenpeace and co, the $2,005,000 given to the CEI between '98 and '05 was enough to stall worldwide action on climate change.
But hang on a minute. Don't Greenpeace also seek to influence the debate by lobbying politicians, and making public statements to “inform” the public?
Gosh, looking back over some of our recent posts, it seems as they do. Just last month, we reported on how Conservative leader (and quite possibly the UK’s next Prime Minister) David Cameron was so impressed by Greenpeace’s views on micro-generation that he was virtually singing about it from the rooftops.
Here he is, actually on Greenpeace’s rooftop, at their expensive headquarters in London. Not quite singing, but policy-making and webcasting, nonetheless.
In a BBC article last year, a Greenpeace representative summed up the way they like to be perceived...
“But it is not enough for green campaigners just to be seen as "nice people", argues Greenpeace's Jean McSorely - they must also have the stronger arguments. The pro-nuclear lobby has been clever in using environmental arguments, on climate change, and the security of supply issue, to push its case, she says. She believes Greenpeace has a stronger scientific case, but, she argues, it does not always get a fair chance to make it. "The access industry gets is just phenomenal compared to green groups," she tells the BBC News website. "Labour has often castigated the old boy network, the public school tie and so on, but they have a similar network. It depends who you know in the unions or ex-Labour ministers. "People may accept that as the way things are, but there needs to be more transparency."
Greenpeace… Always the victim, the underdog, the oppressed. Never mind its access to teams of lawyers, opposition parties and its favourable media image as heroic planet savers, and their proximity to the old-boy, public school tie network in the forms of David Cameron, and the billionaire Goldsmiths, among many others.
But if it is true that poor little Greenpeace doesn't always have a fair chance to make its case, (which is news to us) how much smaller is this David, than the Goliath? If it's true, as Greenpeace say, that "You Get What You Pay For", how much cash has it had to spent on PR, and to influence the global dialogue on climate change?
Let us recap. Of all the oil companies, according to Greenpeace, the Royal Society, and campaigning organisations, journalists, and scientists, ExxonMobil is the worst. And of all the wrong things it does, the worst has been to give $2 million to the CEI over the course of a decade. This funding has been sufficient to significantly stall international action on climate change on the global political agenda. Allegedly.
Yet as we can see, since 1994, Greenpeace have been the lucky recipients of well over $2 billion in roughly the same time. A difference of three orders of magnitude.
And what have they done with it? Lobbied. And pulled high-profile stunts to gain media attention. And lobbied. And run expensive PR and media campaigns. And lobbied. And interrupted democratic processes and the generation of electricity and sabotaged crops. And lobbied. And picketed the forecourts of privately run ESSO garages. And lobbied. And lobbied. And lobbied. And, of course, terrified the public about cancers, apocaplyses, armageddons, catastrophes, too often and too many to begin to list here. You can do a lot of lobbying and PR work with 2.2 billion dollars. And don’t forget that a vast amount of work done is done for Greenpeace for free by activists, journalists, campaigning celebrities, and politicians who are keen to appear to be up-to-speed with the climate bandwagon, and therefore 'in-tune' with today's concerns. Nothing epitomises this state of affairs better than the image of an MP or prospective Prime Minister in bed with an NGO. Because politics is regarded as sinister, whereas NGOs, in today's world, are seen to be above that kind of stuff - "ethical", rather than political. By achieving the ethical seal-of-approval of vociferous and high-profile NGOs, politicians can claim to have a stainless character. Environmental NGOs foster suspicion of politics, which is corruptible, claiming that their vision of "the good life" isn't subject to contest, criticism or influence because "the science is in".
Greenpeace want to claim that the corrupting influence of money has distorted the public perception of climate science. Given the scale of their funding and the extent of their influence, shouldn't we agree with them? Couldn't we say that Greenpeace have been engaged in exactly the propaganda exercise they accuse ExxonMobil and the CEI of? It accuses other organisations of sabotage, yet sabotaging and interrupting legal and democratic processes and stopping industrial operations is precisely how Greenpeace has risen to prominence. It terrifies people into donating and believing, and in doing so, over the last few decades, Greenpeace has successfully influenced politics throughout the world. But it is right and proper that they have been able to do so. What is a terrible, terrible shame is that opposition to them has been insufficient, and that, their own shrill complaints have gone largely unchallenged. There have not been enough Exxon-funded CEIs. If Greenpeace really had "science" on its side, and really had our interests in mind, it would welcome challenge, and debate - like all good political campaigns, it would shout "BRING IT ON!". It would be through this process that Greenpeace would influence the debate. Instead, Greenpeace, the scientists at the Royal Society, and anyone using the cheap language of rumour, conspiracy, and innuendo avoid debate. This argument has been successful only because of the mass withdrawal from politics, and the political elite's desperate need to find ways to justify itself. The 'scientific consensus' is a stand-in for political legitimacy, and the terrifying images of Armageddon constructed by environmentalists are a surrogate 'purpose' or vision. To challenge the consensus is to undermine that legitimacy, and to challenge the terrifying images is to undermine that purpose. It is far easier to shift the debate away from such potential damaging and revealing matters, to focus on 'interests', and to say that such challenges are the obfuscations of profit-seeking oil-barons. The most peculiar thing about this is that in this strange way of thinking, those who claim to have the least interests get to have the loudest voice, and it is up to the sceptics to prove the argument false.
Greenpeace should be free to make its political arguments, as should the CEI - wherever they each get their money from. But if Greenpeace want to continue to appeal to victimhood, as the hard-done-by truth-seekers, oppressed by the nefarious influence of cash, they should consider that their billions of dollars make their claims look not too dissimilar to those of the old church, which preached the virtues of poverty while raking in a vast wealth, using it to expand its influence, and to coerce and harass disbelievers. Such is the nature of orthodoxies.
The only real value in pointing out Greenpeace's billions is to show how exhausted the political environment has become. People who clothe themselves in terms such as "progressive" and "liberal" yet get behind Greenpeace's arguments about "scientific consensus" and "industry funding" should therefore take stock of the fact that, if it is true that alternative voices are being funded by corporate interests, it is big business which has created a challenge to powerful, well-funded and well-connected quasi-corporate interests and orthodoxies. No doubt it is confusing for such liberals to learn that they are in fact, engaged in undemocratic, and elitist argument.
The irony of "the well-funded well-funded-denial-machine denial machine" is not simply that it is well funded, and denies critics of its political agenda, whilst complaining about funding and political distortion of science. But that the angry accusations thrown at sceptics - both scientists and 'ideological' sceptics - are the product of a deeply illiberal form of politics, which seeks to deny opposition its right to expression, avoids debate, and hides behind the distorted conception of science that comittees can determine scientific truth which politicians and individuals should obey, and damn anybody who disagrees.
Just to say that we have found ourselves distracted by that nice man Anthony Grayling, who has been good enough to respond to our post on his recent CiF piece and provide us with an opportunity to practise our polite disagreement skills.
On Commentisfree, A.C. Grayling, Professor of Philosphy at Birkbeck College London, writes in "An antidote to the black poison"
Over-determination is a particularly interesting phenomenon as it besets efforts to arrive at explanations in the social sciences. [...] And yet: in the heaving crowd of causes one can pick out a few tall malefactors, ubiquitous and malevolent, diffusing noxious, maddening, riot-provoking odours as they dart about to spread their evil. One is mentioned so often here by me and others that the curse of its name can be given momentary rest. Another is mentioned far too infrequently, though frequently still. It is the black, toxic, planet-sickening ooze on which the world is so utterly drunk that it has become insane - lusting for the ghastly poison because burning it belches out wealth, and wealth means power and influence.
In other words: oil is the evil which explains the evil of Middle Eastern human rights atrocities, that nasty man, Putin, that nasty man, Bush, and his nasty father, and that nasty man Osama bin Laden.
In defence of oil - and nasty men aside for a moment - we can think of a number of positives which would struggle to survive without the energy and convenience that the 'ghastly poison' provides:
Hospitals Schools Ambulances Central heating Cheap, abundant food Freedom and means to travel The Department of philosophy, Birkbeck College London etc.
In spite of his lyrical prowess, Grayling doesn't offer us a very detailed account of the mechanism by which oil makes men evil, other than to say that oil creates wealth, which creates power, which creates corruption. Give the professor of philosophy a Nobel prize for something.
Finally, Grayling wonders...
...what the cost of the Iraq war to date would have funded in the way of research into alternative energy sources?
The question here seems to suppose that, if only people didn't 'lust' for oil, we would have an alternative. It is as though the oil itself were a narcotic that interfered in the process of rational judgement. Naturally, we would agree with Grayling if he were simply suggesting that the budget for the Iraq war were better spent on developing alternatives such as atomic or fusion energy. But what Grayling is saying is that the Iraq war was about oil, because of oil, and commissioned by junkies in search of another fix.
In this shallow view, Grayling mystifies oil. He turns it into a monster, a devil, an evil, malign spirit which possesses men. He himself 'besets efforts to arrive at explanations in the social sciences' rather than explains carefully why oil is a thing which adequately accounts for the current state of geopolitics, all by itself. He imagines that were there simply an alternative to oil, it would entail world peace. It's as if politics, the desire for power, and the influence of powerful interests would each suddenly disappear were only we to spend enough dollars on wind technology as a 'white' alternative to the black magic of oil. In doing so, he looks for external reasons to explain human conflicts. (This environmental orthodoxy is just the sort of determinism Grayling seeks to avoid.) But arguably, fuel such as oil has given people the means to escape the mundane existence of subsistence living and to confront tyranny. The reason that it hasn't in all cases is because such determinism as inherent in 'oil = political freedom' is equally wrong.
If wars can be fought for oil, wars can be fought for territories that provide better conditions for wind, solar, biomass, or tidal power generation. As green commentators have pointed out recently, the push for bio-fuels has caused problems for poor people as fertile land is given over to fuel crops, rather than food. Depriving the world of the means to create wealth does not remove from the world people with an advantage inclined to seek a greater share of it. On the contrary, it is poorer populations who are less able to resist powerful interests. And in a world where the production of fuel is limited to what 'nature' can provide on a moment-by-moment basis - such are the limits and demands of environmentalism - so the potential for conflict between tyrannies might escalate. But of course, that's not going to happen, because oil offers an alternative way of life which is better than bondage to the land and feudal landlords. Environmentalism's proximity to the anti-wealth, anti-development agenda should offend Grayling's humanist perspective. It's a real pity that it doesn't. The result is an anti-human determinism: environmentalist orthodoxy, taken for granted, masquerading as humanism.
Writing in New Scientist this week, James Hansen tells us that the scientific community (you know, those 'thousands' of specialised scientists at the IPCC) are wrong, and have massively underestimated the extent of polar ice melting as a consequence of anthropogenic global warming.
I find it almost inconceivable that "business as usual" climate change will not result in a rise in sea level measured in metres within a century. Am I the only scientist who thinks so?
Apparently he is. And the reason? All the other scientists are being too cautious.
I believe there is pressure on scientists to be conservative. Caveats are essential to science. They are born in scepticism, and scepticism is at the heart of the scientific method and discovery. However, in a case such as ice sheet instability and sea level rise, excessive caution also holds dangers. "Scientific reticence" can hinder communication with the public about the dangers of global warming. We may rue reticence if it means no action is taken until it is too late to prevent future disasters.
Scientists, in other words, should adhere to the scientific method except when it's politically inconvenient. (And only, presumably, when it's Hansen's politics that are inconvenienced.)
Most scientists who go against 'the consensus' get labelled as mavericks, sceptics or denialists. New Scientist covers their work only to show it up as scientifically flawed, politically motivated, the result of industry-funded misinformation and bad moral fibre, just as they did when they reported on Willie Soon's paper challenging received wisdom that climate change is imperiling polar bears. Or just as Michael Le Page did in May this year when he wrote:
Indeed, those campaigning for action to prevent further warming have had to battle against huge vested interests, including the fossil-fuel industry and its many political allies. Many of the individuals and organisations challenging the idea of global warming have received funding from companies such as ExxonMobil.
Hansen, however, gets a 3000-word feature all to himself. Even though it doesn't take much digging around to find that Hansen himself has more than his fair share of dodgy financial interests.
The consensus, it seems, may only be challenged from one direction.
We believe that an unfounded sense of crisis - and therefore urgency - dominates public discussion of environmental issues. Thus, demands for urgent action to mitigate climate change thrive at the expense of genuine, illuminating, nuanced debate.
Neither the science nor the politics of climate change should be exempt from scrutiny. Our intention is to provide some decent commentary on how science, politics and the media handle environmental matters, for anyone interested in challenging this dangerous new orthodoxy...
Climate Resistance's starting position: 1. There is good scientific evidence that human activities are influencing the climate.
2. The evidence for anthropogenic climate change is neither as strong nor as demanding of action as is widely claimed. 3. Our ability to mitigate, let alone reverse any such change through reductions in CO2 emissions is even less certain. 4. The scientific consensus on climate change as widely reported inaccurately reflects the true scientific consensus. 5. There is no scientific consensus on how society should proceed in the face of a changing climate. 6. How society should proceed in the face of a changing climate is the business of politics. 7. Science does not and should not proceed by consensus. 8. Political arguments about climate change are routinely mistaken for scientific ones. 9. The IPCC is principally a political organisation. 10. Environmentalism is principally a political phenomenon. 11. And yet climate change policies go unchallenged by opposition parties. 12. The goals/aspirations/values of society are/should be matters of politics, not science. 13. The current emphasis on mitigation strategies is impeding society's ability to adapt to a changing climate, whatever its cause. 14. The public remain unconvinced that mitigation is in their best interests. 15. Widespread disengagement from politics means that politicians pander only to the loudest, shrillest voices. 16. Science is increasingly expected to provide moral certainty in morally uncertain times. 17. Environmental concerns are serving to provide direction for directionless politics.
Climate Resistance is edited by Ben Pile and Stuart Blackman, writers, in Oxford and Edinburgh respectively, with a particular interest in the interface between science and politics.
Thanks to Rich for technical and design assistance
