Merchants of Doubt

"This is the crux of the issue, the crux of our story. For the shift in the American environmental movement from aesthetic environmentalism to regulatory environmentalism wasn't just a change in political strategy. It was the manifestation of a crucial realization: that unrestricted commercial activity was doing damage - real, lasting, pervasive damage. It was the realization that pollution was global, not just local, and that the solution to pollution was not just dilution.....
To acknowledge this is to acknowledge the soft underbelly of free market capitalism: that free enterprise can bring real costs - profound costs - that the free market does not reflect. Economists have a term for these costs - a less reassuring one than Friedman's 'neighborhood effects'. They are 'negative externalities': negative because they aren't beneficial and external because they fall outside of the market system. Those who find this hard to accept attack the messenger, which is science."
(Emphasis added.)

Phew!  That took me a while to read.  But it was well worth it.  I was shocked, stunned, angered and incensed by the material I read.  And this is for someone who already knew some of the dirty, underhand tactics the Tobacco companies used in the past - so I guess I should not have been so shocked to find similar techniques used by the anti global warming campaigners.

The book is very thoroughly researched and is extensively referenced.  Unfortunately, it is not an easy read and is not likely to be become one of those best sellers that nearly everyone reads, or intends to read.  I found I got a bit lost occasionally in all the names, abbreviations, historical facts and technical details.  But the overall message comes through very clearly. 

It you don't have the time, inclination or patience to read the book, you could instead check out the web site or watch the 4 minute interview below.

The web site is worth a look: http://www.merchantsofdoubt.org/index.html
It has a lot of information and links to interesting web sites.  It also lists and links to the key documents referred to in the book.

The techniques commonly employed by the merchants of doubt include:
1. Fostering uncertainty and doubt about an issue long after a scientific consensus has been reached.
2. Using the popular media to foster this impression of uncertainty by debating the issue in the popular press rather than in the usual scientific means of peer reviewed scientific journals, and in some cases long after a consensus has been reached in the scientific literature
3. Invoking the idea of fairness to demanding equal time for their views in the media.
4. Attacking the messenger - mounting personal attacks against scientists who have published work that does not support the political agenda of the "Merchants of Doubt."  Recognize this fallacy anyone?  It is the arguement ad hominem.
5. Presenting information that has no real bearing on, or place in a scientific debate as if it should convince you of their position.  The Heartland billboard below is a prime example.

Oreskes and Conway respond in the book to the idea of for "fair media" employed in the 3rd technique:

"While the idea of equal time for opposing opinions makes sense in a two-party political system, it does not work for science, because science is not about opinion. It is about evidence. It is about claims that can be, and have been, tested through scientific research—experiments, experience, and observation—research that is then subject to critical review by a jury of scientific peers. Claims that have not gone through that process—or have gone through it and failed—are not scientific, and do not deserve equal time in a scientific debate."

The rice video was recently posted on Facebook by a friend and is an example of the fourth technique.  The information presented made me cringe.  The presenter wants us to believe that just because the total number of CO2 molecules in the whole of earths the atmosphere is very small that global warming can't be true.  Umm, what?  There is  discussion of what level of the atmosphere he stops his count at, density of molecules in the crucial zone, what the CO2 molecules do there, etc.  Never mind any discussion of the decades of research and evidence about climate change.  And he completely disregards the undisputable fact that CO2 has been increasing at an alarming rate (see image below). 

From the wikipedia page: CO2 in Earth's atmosphere

So who are the merchants of doubt? Oreskes and Conway name a few of the key players in their book: 
Frederick Seitz
Robert Jastrow
William Nierenberg
Fred Singer

The book presents detailed evidence of their shenanigans in fostering doubt and misinformation on a range of issues - including the risks of passive smoking, acid rain, CFCs and the ozone hole and of course global warming.  It also reveals sources of their funding including the tobacco industry and energy companies.

The organisations they often channeled their work and funds through include:
Global Climate Coalition
The George C Marshall Institute - founded by Seitz, Jastrow and Nierenbery
Heartland Institute 
Alexis de Tocqueville Institution

The GCC has disbanded.  Unfortunately the GC Marshal and Heartland Institutes are still operating.  If you click on the links above it will take you to their wiki pages.  Well worth a look.

Here is a recent example of the Heartland Institute's handiwork:

I discussed this here: Murders Tyrants and Madmen.

Global Warming has been know about for a very long time. 
- It was first reported in the 1930's
- Many scientists have been working on it since the 1950's.
- Climate scientists have largely understood it since the 1970's/80's.
- There has been a scientific consensus that Global Warming is occuring since the late 1980s, however it was not until the early 1990's that there was wide spread consensus that Global Warming is indeed anthropogenic.

If you would like to examine the Global Warming timeline in more depth check out this link: Global Warming Timeline.

Despite this, beginning in the 1990's, there has been a concerted effort by certain groups to undermine this knowledge, particularly in the popular media.  Since then the media has largely presented the issue of global warming as if there was still no consensus amongst reputable scientific bodies.

Why?

Oreskes and Conway sum it up very well:

"To acknowledge this is to acknowledge the soft underbelly of free market capitalism: that free enterprise can bring real costs - profound costs - that the free market does not reflect."

At the heart of Global Warming Denial is the ideal of free market capitalism.  If you are ideologically opposed to government regulation in general, then you may find yourself specifically opposed to acknowledging any problem for which the most obvious solution is government regulation.

I do not believe that the free market can solve the problem of Global Warming.  Capitalism is based on growth, not on restriction.  Yes it is true that scientific innovation, in the hands of entrepreneurs, may offer some help to the Global Warming crisis, however it is extremely unlikely that this will be sufficient without regulation by governments to stimulate innovation, and the application of innovation, in relevant areas.

Some have argued that capitalism drives innovation.  This is historically not true, as is touched on in the book.  All the major innovations of the last century, from transportation to communication, owe their realization to governments. Either because they were originated in government departments (primarily the military) or they are the result of research that has been heavily funded by government grants.

Haven't we learned our lesson from the tragedy of the commons yet?  No, free market capitalism will not and cannot solve this problem for us.  So what has been the response to global warming by the die-hard free market capitalists?  Denial.

The merchants of doubt and those associated with them have been known to call global warming advocates "Watermelons": green on the outside and red on the inside.  But I am not a communist.  I do believe in the free market but I think it seems very clear that it needs to exist within boundaries.  A free market + sensible government regulation seems to be a clear answer to me.

Well, that is quite enough ranting from me.  What else can I say?
- It's a great book and I highly recommend it.