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I am grateful to the hackers that stole thousands of e-mails and then combed through ten years worth to find something embarrassing to the environmental movement. It was a Russian machine, so it was probably a Russian that was hired to do the espionage to damage the environmentalists. The Russians are not too fond of environmental rules, but then again it could have been Exxon Mobile or any of a number of billionaires in this country. The end result of this is that there will be more openness in all scientific research and there will be rigorous re-evaluation of all of the climate research to insure that it is valid. The Science will be stronger for this trial.
During the Bush years, science took a back seat to ideological politicization. Studies were withheld, doctored, or heavily redacted to deny any evidence of Global Warming. The embarrassing e-mails will insure that we do not swing from politicization of the right to politicization of the left. Science should be divorced from politics, and scientists should labor for the pure truth without any preconceived notions that would color their research.
Many on the right believe that there is a vast environmental conspiracy to convince people that mankind has caused the earth’s warming. They believe that scientists must lean toward the environmental viewpoint in order to get government grants and that the government is pushing this viewpoint so that they can justify higher taxes.
The main fallacy with this reasoning is that during the Bush years, anti environmental ideologues were placed at the head of most of the agencies that study the weather, and there was a clear disincentive to write papers or conduct studies that were geared towards Global Warming, and all of the tax breaks went to the fossil fuel industry.
Another fallacy of the hoax conspiracy is that all of the scientists in all of the countries of the world are involved in this conspiracy. In 1997 there were over 5 million “researchers” (scientists and engineers). Since then the percentage of students in the United States going into engineering and science has been going down, but in countries like China and India the number of scientists and engineers have increased tenfold. Many other countries like Japan, South Korea, Germany, have increased their numbers of scientists dramatically. They value education and science more than Americans do. Of these millions of scientists about 84% believe that the global warming is man caused, and about 14% believe that the earth is warming, but that people have a minor part in the increase. To say that all of these millions of scientists are all part of a huge hoax is just plain silly, and it demeans them and is down right insulting to accuse them of intentionally lying or faking evidence.
All of the countries in the world rarely agree on anything, and yet every nation in the world with the exceptions of Saudi Arabia and perhaps Syria do not dispute the science. There is a consensus amongst all of the nations and their scientists, because the facts are so convincing.
Proponents of the Global Warming Hoax conspiracy say to follow the money. OK let’s do that. Let’s determine who would benefit from exaggerating man caused Global Warming and who would benefit by denying Man Caused Global Warming.
Those who would benefit from a deception are the environmental groups. They lobby Congress to save the planet and their contributions and lobbyists are paid from millions of concerned citizens, averaging about $25 a donation None of those citizens would receive any money if there was a deception.
Those who would benefit by denying Global Warming are the entire fossil fuel and power industry. They are receiving tens of millions of dollars in subsidies that they are afraid of losing and they are afraid that they will be forced to reduce their pollution, and will receive competition by clean renewable energy. They stand to gain billions of dollars by denying Global Warming.
When in the entire history of the world has any government, let alone most governments colluded against all of the major corporations in the world?
For every lobbyist on the hill working for the environment there are seven industry lobbyists working against the environment. There are 5 climate lobbyists for each member of Congress. Just in the second quarter of this year the Fossil fuel Industry spent about $36.8 million compared to $2.6 million by the environmental groups. This is a ratio of 14 to one!
Billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch have spent $9 million on direct lobbying and much more indirectly through industry funded groups like the Enterprise Institute. Media mogul Rupert Murdoch, has also conducted smear and disinformation campaigns against the environment and anything Obama. Fox Enterprises, talk radio and all of the Murdoch empire has been mobilized to oppose environmental reforms. The same PR firms that have been hired to spread doubt about the lethality of smoking, asbestos, and many toxic chemicals has now been marshaled to spread doubt about climate change.
All of these millions of dollars spent on disinformation and propaganda has had its effect. 77% of the people used to believe that global warming is happening and now only half do. Only 39% believe that the warming is man made. Of course this is highly politicized. 75% of Democrats believe global warming is man made and only 25% of Republicans do.
This reflects a recent Pew Poll that indicates a distrust in the news and media sources, with 75% of Democrats preferring CNN and 72% of Republicans preferring Fox News for their information. There is a similar distrust of science on the part of Republicans.
This may also explain why only 39% of Americans believe in evolution, and 20% believe the sun revolves around the earth, or that 55% believe that they are protected by a "guardian angel". Republicans would rather believe Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck with their high school educations than the scientists of the world. They would rather believe Sarah Palin to Al Gore.
Most of the world is aware of the disappearing North Polar ice caps, the Rapid melting of the Greenland Ice Sheets, the melting of glaciers all over the world, the acidification of the oceans, and the accelerating rise in sea levels, and is aware of the human causes, but about half of this country would rather believe that because one scientist out of 5 million was perhaps a little overzealous in his pursuit, that the entire concept of Global warming that has been proven in thousands of research projects is false. It is amazing to me that so many millions of people can be duped by industry propaganda. Only in America!