"Climate Denial"

My apologies, this one is a ramble. But life is getting complicated. Perhaps there are some resources here for you to follow up.

Tonight (Monday 15th March) was a relief. The ABC News headlined the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology report that found the climate in Australia really has been warming over the last fifty years. http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/

We know the change which has happened in Burra over thirty years. 39 years is long enough to get climate data.

I was getting worried by the level of media coverage some of the nay sayers were getting.

Sunday reminded me that the inner and outer circles of status are not fixed, are not defined clearly. Who is on the outside looking in, and who is in the centre are not always easy to say. The prodigal son seems to be marginalised. But the father runs to greet him and bring him in. And the older son who has stayed at home, in the "centre", is now outside in the fields. But even here, the father goes outside to try to bring him in also.

Who is in the centre? The IPCC, James Hanson? Al Gore? or is it now the deniers, the Lord Monckton's who seem to be feted by the media. ...

Hopefully the steady statements of Bureau of Met and CSIRO people will show us who to believe. <sigh>


I am chasing up Clive Hamilton's columns written for The Drum Unleashed (on ABC) about Climate Denialists.

22 Feb http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2826189.htm  Bullying, lies and the rise of right-wing climate denial
23 Feb http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2827047.htm  Who is orchestrating the cyber-bullying?
24 Feb http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2828195.htm  Think tanks, oil money and black ops


Where does the plethora, the deluge of climate denial come from? Why the push to make the ABC "politically correct" and to tone down their advocacy of the climate science? I was shocked by a comment from Alex Sloane on 666 local ABC radio last week in a (short) interview with James Hanson, that she had not heard anything from him or other scientists, that the scientists were quiet. I thought rather that the media were neither reading "New Scientist", or listening to their own "Science Show".

On the 23rd Hamilton wrote:

What drives denial?

What motivates the legion of climate deniers to send hate-mail? In recent years a great deal of evidence has come to light linking fossil fuel corporations with organisations that promote climate denial, but it would be a mistake to believe that the army of sceptical bloggers is in any sense in the pay of, or directly influenced by, the fossil fuel lobby.

Climate denialism has been absorbed by an older and wider political movement, sometimes called right-wing populism. Emanating from the United States, and defined more by what it fears than by what it proposes, the movement's enemies were helpfully listed in a 2004 TV ad attacking Democrat Howard Dean, whose supporters were characterised as a:

"tax hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show."

.....

In more recent years, the denial movement has been joined by some hard-line conservative Christian groups, including the notorious Catch the Fire Ministries and its witch-hunting pastor Danny Nalliah. According to Paul Colgan, these groups were heavily involved in the lobbying to have Tony Abbott elected as Liberal Party leader.  ...

I am now wondering about connections between right wing denialism and religious fundamentalism.

As this suggests, becoming a denialist does not follow from carefully weighing up the evidence (that is, true scepticism) but from associating oneself with a cultural outlook, taking on an identity defined in opposition to a caricature of those who support action on climate change. It is the energy in this wider movement that has seen climate denialism morphing into a new form of political extremism.

Some active climate deniers possess a distinct "mindset" comprised of a certain worldview, including a narrative centered on secretive forces - variously encompassing elected leaders, scientists, scientific organisations, environmental groups and the United Nations - that are using climate science and climate policies as a cover to accumulate power with the objective of creating a world government that overrides national sovereignty and deprives citizens of their rights.

Those who hold to this worldview often feel marginalised and persecuted. It attracts the unstable and fanatical as well as those with more legitimate political grievances. For political leaders so inclined, the energy being mobilised by climate denial is a golden opportunity. Although it remains necessary for these leaders to evince a concern for the environment, and even to pretend to accept climate science, they can speak to the denialist minority using dog-whistling techniques to signal that they are really on their side.

I guess I will just have to accept the reality that Fred and I drink lattes (and chardonnay!), and we should be spending our money on a nice car rather than photo voltaics! But of course now we can actually expect to be making money from the panels. Does that make us "filthy capitalists?"


and this is the report to expose Exxon's contribution to the debate:
http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/global_warming/exxon_report.pdf