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A calculated cool-down

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By PATRICK BOHLEN

Special To The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 7, 2009

On Oct. 21, 13 of the nation's leading professional agricultural, biological, chemical and geological organizations sent a joint letter to the U.S. Senate urging it to adopt policies that would limit U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. "Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver," they wrote.

At the same time, a recent Pew Center poll shows that only 36 percent of Americans believe climate is warming due to human activity, a decline from previous polls.

Citizens from other countries do not share Americans' skepticism. Recent polls show that 75 percent of French citizens and 85 percent of Chinese believe human activity is contributing to global warming.

Why are Americans becoming less sure about human-induced climate change when scientists are becoming surer? In his recently published book, "Climate Cover-Up: the Crusade to Deny Global Warming," James Hoggan offers a reason. He documents the well-funded, decades-long public relations campaign to deny climate science and delay climate change policies.

Strategies to deny global warming, and even some of the people involved, come from the same playbook that the tobacco industry used in its crusade to deny the negative effects of smoking.

Starting in the 1980s several organizations set out with a mission to create doubt in the public's mind about the certainty of global warming. These organizations were funded largely by industries that produce fossil fuels or emit large amounts of greenhouse gases. Their early efforts spawned an industry of climate-change denial that remains strong today.

Hoggan's book recounts an article published in 2005 in Science magazine by Naomi Oreskes, professor of history and science studies at the University of California, San Diego. She examined all peer-reviewed scientific papers published from 1993-2003 that addressed global climate change. She found 928 papers and examined whether they supported, contradicted or were neutral on the consensus that human greenhouse gas emissions were contributing to climate change. Not a single one contradicted the consensus view.

At the same time, a different analysis showed that nearly 50 percent of media articles on global warming emphasized contradictory evidence.

No wonder the public is skeptical about climate change. They are being bombarded with a cacophony of contradictory messages and misled by a huge, well-funded misinformation campaign.

In the end, climate policies, not climate science, will have the biggest impact on greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. The same people who have spent the past two decades trying to deny global warming now want us to adopt their policy recommendations or do nothing at all.

The sky may not be falling, but do we really want to take our climate policy advice from ostriches with their heads in the sand?

Patrick Bohlen, Ph.D., is director of the MacArthur Agro-ecology Research Center near Lake Placid and an associate research biologist.

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