UC Berkeley Physicist Richard Muller is making headlines and got a positive glow on Rachel Maddow's show Monday night for dramatically changing his views on global warming. First, he had concluded--long after the vast majority of the scientific community--that is was actually happening. Second, he has finally decided--also with significant tardiness--that is is certainly caused by human activity. If it were just one late-to-the-conclusion scientist, it would not seem like a big deal
But this scientist founded, with his daughter Elizabeth, the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature in 2010, which has received at least one $150,000 grant from the Koch brothers. So now it's being spun as the turnaround of a Koch-funded scientist coming out with the raw facts. Let the chips fall where they may.
Not so fast. This is looking very fishy. Follow beyond the orange fishy below.
Interestingly, Rachel had just before her interview with Muller put on a short piece about fracking--how it seems to be causing earthquakes, sending flammable gas out peoples' faucets and how it's done with a secret mix of chemicals whose effects no one really knows.
Place this revelation against the background of all the "promise of natural gas" commercials that are on the tube that mention the process of getting gas from the Earth without ever using the word "fracking."
So Rachel quite naturally asked him what the alternative was and he first said that much could be done by increasing energy efficiency. True enough. Then he said that we have to get off of coal and ended up saying that we have a huge opportunity with natural gas and that the dangers of fracking were way overblown. Rachel seemed somewhat off stride at that and briefly mentioned that of course would be good if we could be sure that there would not be worse consequences.
Make no mistake--I think this guy is still working for the Koch brothers.
The same day (Monday, July 30) his daughter Elizabeth had a piece in the opinion section of the San Francisco Chronicle titled, "Fracking Helps Reduce Polluting Emissions." There she claims to be a co-founder with her father of this Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature organization. She goes through some nice green-sounding statements like energy efficiency, that we need to do things at low cost, etc. But she says that we need to get developing nations to switch to natural gas.
She then plugs her fathers book,"Energy for Future Presidents," and claims that, "Though some environmentalists still oppose fracking," it has helped lower greenhouse gas emissions- blah, blah, blah. Then today (July 31) the Chronicle comes out with a front-page article about this scientist who has changed his mind on global warming and touts how his research helped him reach this conclusion--years after most of the world's scientists--but there is not one word there about fracking.
Now I have had some expreience as an editor dealing with PR spin and this smells very much like it. It is quite possible that the Kochs have decided that the way to keep the billions rolling in is not to fight climate change head on, but to divert attention to a nice-sounding and perceptively attractive alternative that they can still control--natural gas.
It will be interesting to see just how this little campaign continues and whether or not Rachel decides she has been had. If she does, you can expect a scathing bit of commentary in the next couple of days.