[Committee] "The American Denial of Global Warming" - Naomi Oreskes

[S.J. Stretton]

Dear Friends,
You might be interested in the following.
Regards,
Stephen

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: John R. Mashey <mash at heymash.com>
Date: 8 Feb 2008 04:41
Subject: Naomi Oreskes' video, FYI
To: info at zerocarbonnow.org

"The American Denial of Global Warming" - Naomi Oreskes

http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/index.php/csw/details/oreskes_lecture/

points at an hour-long YouTube video, from Prof. Oreskes' lecture at Scripps
last Fall. The first part ("TRUTH") outlines the history of climate science
research, and the unpoliticized acceptance thereof that lasted until the
early 1990s.  The second part "DENIAL" describes the George C. Marshall
Institute's role in creating confusion and politicizing the issue, using
tactics from the cigarette wars.

Naomi knows her topic well, and is a lively speaker - I heard an earlier
version of this about a year ago, and this talk is well worth watching.

TRUTH
00:00  Introduction
02:00 Frank Luntz
04:00 2001 IPCC TAR, but many decades of science before
10:30 1957 Suess & Revelle; "Big Greenhouse" in Time Magazine
14:00 1964/65 NAS Science Advisory Committee; President's Science Advisory
Committee
         "In those days, politicians listened to scientists";
bipartisanship.
17:30 1970s NRC; JASON; "Charney Report"
23:30 1988 IPCC formed; US National Energy Policy Act; George H. W. Bush

DENIAL
26:30 Why is there denial?  Where did it come from?
29:15: 1984 George C. Marshal Institute founded by William Jastrow

 Added William Nierenberg, Frederick Seitz; S. Fred Singer later.
 Original goal: Cold  War, support Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative
(from other physicists)
 Tactics: threaten PBS stations with lawsuits under "Fairness  Doctrine"
 Create uncertainty
36:00 1990, cold war over, switch to other areas [global warming, CFC-ozone,
tobacco]
 No Greenhouse problem, as long as free market allowed to solve!
39:00 1995 IPCC SAR, personal attacks on Ben Santer
42:00 1995 Connection with tobacco, Seitz, tactics
 Create doubt, do not publish science, but in popular literature, op-eds,
Wall Street Journal
53:30 Why? In each case, political views [NO REGULATION, EVER] masked as
arguments about science.
 [People can have whatever political views they want, but the proper place
to discuss them is in politics, not by fudging science.]
=====
Prof. Oreskes' lectures, as well as her earlier work documenting scientific
consensus on climate change, have gotten her a high position on certain
people's hit list.  If you didn't follow last Summer's Monckton / Schulte /
Ferguson / Morano attack on her, which set a new level of absurdity and
personal attack (climate science from a British NHS endocrinologist?), it's
documented in detail:

http://www.zerocarbonnow.org/wordpress/uploads/monckton_schulte_oreskes1.pdf

As this video gets seen, I suspect they'll be after her again....