Everyone has probably seen the hilarious
CEI commercials on Global Warming by now. This "Global Warming is Good for You" spin has been coming for some time. I wrote about it four years ago
here. Here's a snippet:
Westbrook's specialty has spawned a near cottage industry of sorts in the Houston area. In this energy capital of America, eager listeners still abound for the message delivered by Westbrook and at least a handful of colleagues: Global warming threats are just so much foolishness, hatched by environmentalists to fuel the fears of the populace.
He himself boasts no more than a master's degree and a career focused on marketing and economics, rather than doctorates or published research in the field. But in this war for the public's collective mind and soul, credentials don't have to get in the way of a worthy crusade against the common enemy called environmentalists.
Westbrook still considers himself a scientist. "A degree's not everything," he says. "Look at Rush Limbaugh. He's only got, what, one and a half years of junior college? And he's smart as a whip."
[SNIP]
There are those, however, who are skeptical of the skeptics. Sheldon Rampton, co-editor of PR Watch, a quarterly that keeps tabs on public relations campaigns and industrial front groups, says the debate about whether humans are warming the planet is finished in the scientific community.
The real story, he says, is how self-proclaimed experts have been able to obfuscate well-established scientific fact in the eyes of the public. Call it the myth of the global warming myth. The controversy, Rampton says, is coming not from the researchers themselves but from special interest groups with weak scientific credentials and strong ties to the energy industry. He says their claims are typical of those who practice what environmentalists call lobbying for lethargy.
"In general, the tactic is to create enough controversy and doubt about conclusions of climatologists involving global warming that you can justify inaction by saying we need to study the problem further," Rampton says. "The strategy is not to attempt a full frontal rebuttal of the evidence regarding global warming in the hopes of winning the argument. They just attack to create a sense that there's a controversy there."
The methods used for delay, he says, come down to three tactics first laid out by social scientist Göran Therborn. The Swedish scholar says to argue the following:
* A problem doesn't exist.
* Even if it exists, it's actually a good thing.
* Even if it exists and it's a bad thing, there's nothing we can do about it.
These basic arguments enable pundits to muddle an issue with talking points that are then disseminated by the faithful, Rampton says. He says if you look closely, it becomes obvious that these techniques are being used by the very people who have the most to lose if global warming were proved true.