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The fossil fuel funded climate debate
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As the U.S. Congress and the United Nations continue to initiate actions to combat climate change by regulating energy emissions, many questions remain in the public's mind. Polls indicate that a vast majority of scientists agree that climate change is real, and almost uniformly agree that it is human induced, but in the public's mind, questions still remain concerning the validity of the science behind the phenomena. Where does that doubt come from?
Most people are familiar with the Nobel Peace Prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). According to their website, "The Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change is the leading body for the assessment of climate change, established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to provide the world with a clear scientific view on the current state of climate change and its potential environmental and socio-economic consequences."
The group most people might not be familiar with is the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC); notice the similarity in acronyms. According to their website, the NIPCC is "an international panel of nongovernment scientists and scholars who have come together to understand the causes and consequences of climate change. Because we are not predisposed to believe climate change is caused by human greenhouse gas emissions, we are able to look at evidence the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) ignores. Because we do not work for any governments, we are not biased toward the assumption that greater government activity is necessary".
Undoubtedly, political rhetoric surrounding climate change and energy generation has already begun to heat up and will continue as the world's governments approach the meeting in Copenhagen at the end of the year. As advocates on both sides of the issue engage in a media point-counterpoint, the public sometimes is left with the impression that a valid debate is taking place.
The NIPCC's 2009 report called Climate Change Reconsidered goes through some of the IPCC claims point by point and seems to echo many of the statements skeptics have made concerning climate change over the years. The report's conclusion is that global warming is not a crisis and never was. In fact, the NIPCC's website points to conspiracy and bribery as the sole driving force behind the IPCC's climate initiative on the issue. NIPCC makes the claim that "the scientists involved with the IPCC are almost all in careers that rely on government contracts and rely on government grants to support their IPCC activities. Most travel to exotic locations, and hotel accommodations for the drafting authors is paid with government funds. The IPCC’s agenda is often misunderstood. It is not to discover the truth about how the world’s incredibly complex and ever-changing climate operates. It is, instead, to justify control of the emission of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide." (NIPCC)
The IPCC's most recent Assessment Report (its fourth) dealt with the Physical Science Basis, Impacts, Adaptations, and Vulnerability, and Mitigation of Climate Change; the next set of reports is due in 2013. The 2007 reports' conclusions are that climate change is a pressing issue influenced by human actions and, without intervention, will result in catastrophic runaway phenomena capable of dismantling human civilization.
Critics of the NIPCC point to the fact that "The NIPCC documents appear to follow the same line of reasoning as those that support intelligent design (ID) over evolution. ID supporters constantly try to find holes in the evolution camp's arguments instead of trying to prove their own arguments. Of course, ID folks cannot prove something that is untrue so instead they keep pointing the finger at the other side to hide their own inadequacies". (here)
The public meanwhile is left with the question of which set of data to believe. The NIPCC claims that their data is accumulated from scientists who have broken away from the IPCC agenda, and that a large body of information on climate science is being ignored. On the other side of the issue, the science that the IPCC is acting on is established; the IPCC has moved past debating the science and is now working on mitigation efforts. It appears as though an honest debate is going on.
In order to compare better the results of each side's claim, information from the NIPCC is listed below. (blue links provide additional explanations from other sources besides NIPCC) This list is in no way comprehensive; it was composed to be digestible.
There are nine chapters in the NIPCC's Climate Change Reconsidered:
- Chap. 1: The IPCC violates many of the rules and procedures required for scientific forecasting, making its 'projections' of little use to policymakers. (IPCC Model data)
- Chap. 2: Scientific studies suggest the model-derived temperature sensitivity of the earth for a doubling of the pre-industrial CO2 level is much lower than the IPCC’s estimate. Corrected feedbacks in the climate system reduce climate sensitivity to values that are an order of magnitude smaller than what the IPCC employs. (NOAA, temperature and CO2)
- Chap. 3: We reveal the methodological errors of the 'hockey stick' diagram of Mann et al., evidence for the existence of a global Medieval Warm Period, flaws in the surface-based temperature record of more modern times, evidence from highly accurate satellite data that there has been no net warming over the past 29 years, and evidence that the distribution of modern warming does not bear the 'fingerprint' of an anthropogenic effect. (USGCRP, satellite and surface temperature differences)
- Chap. 4: We find no evidence of trends that could be attributed to the supposedly anthropogenic global warming of the twentieth century. (Union of Concerned Scientists)
- Chap. 5: We describe the evidence of a solar-climate link and how these scientists have grappled with the problem of finding a specific mechanism that translates small changes in solar activity into larger climate effects. We summarize how they may have found the answer in the relationships between the sun, cosmic rays and reflecting clouds. (AMS)
- Chap 6: The IPCC claims global warming will cause (or already is causing) more droughts, floods, hurricanes, storms, storm surges, heat waves, and wildfires. We find little or no support in the peer-reviewed literature for these predictions and considerable evidence to support an opposite prediction: That weather would be less extreme in a warmer world. (Hell and High Water)
- Chap 7: Rising CO2 levels increase plant growth and make plants more resistant to drought and pests. It is a boon to the world’s forests and prairies, as well as to farmers and ranchers and the growing populations of the developing world. (Stanford)
- Chap. 8: Examines the IPCC’s claim that CO2-induced increases in air temperature will cause unprecedented plant and animal extinctions, both on land and in the world’s oceans. We find there little real-world evidence in support of such claims and an abundance of counter evidence that suggests ecosystem biodiversity will increase in a warmer and CO2-enriched world. (PBS)
- Chap 9: The IPCC blames high-temperature events for increasing the number of cardiovascular-related deaths, enhancing respiratory problems, and fueling a more rapid and widespread distribution of deadly infectious diseases, such as malaria, dengue and yellow fever. However, a thorough examination of the peer-reviewed scientific literature reveals that further global warming would likely do just the opposite and actually reduce the number of lives lost to extreme thermal conditions. We also explain how CO2-induced global warming would help feed a growing global population without major encroachment on natural ecosystems, and how increasing production of biofuels (a strategy recommended by the IPCC) damages the environment and raises the price of food. (World Health Organization)
View more Peter Sinclair 'Crock of the Week' videos here.
In reality, although the general public thinks a debate is going on regarding climate change, among scientists, there really is no debate; the majority of the scientific community has moved on to mitigation efforts. "48% of Americans think most climate scientists do not agree that the Earth has been warming in recent years, and 53% think climate scientists do not agree that human activities are a major cause of that warming." (Doran and Zimmerman, 2009)
In the scientific comunity, the results are strikingly different. 3,146 Earth scientists were polled recently; the results "showed 96.2% of climatologists who are active in climate research believe that mean global temperatures have risen compared to pre-1800s levels, and 97.4% believe that human activity is a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures. Among all respondents, 90% agreed that temperatures have risen compared to pre-1800 levels, and 80% agreed that humans significantly influence the global temperature. Petroleum geologists were among the biggest doubters, with only 47 percent believing in human involvement." (Doran and Zimmerman, 2009)
Fossil fuel companies have been successful in hiring groups to sow doubt on the science behind climate change. On topics as complex as climate change with so many interrelated variables, it is easy to confuse the public on the issue by creating strawman arguments and then disassembling them. Scientists, however, remain almost completely unified in their stance that climate change is a pressing issue significantly influenced by humanity that needs to be dealt with sooner rather than later.
So where is the public's doubt coming from? Undoubtedly, fossil fuel companies' financial bottom lines will be hurt considerably from a shift to a clean energy economy. The way they see it, creating doubt in the public is a solid investment for their future business models. Over the past few years, numorous groups have sprung up with claims that climate change doesn't exist. These groups have been extremely effective at shaping public opinion regarding the science behind climate change.
The Heartland Institute funds the NIPCC. Heartland's funding is kept secretive, but up until 2006 Exxon contributed to their work. "The Heartland Institute received $561,500 from ExxonMobil between 1998 and 2005. Nearly 40% of funds from ExxonMobil were specifically designated for climate change projects." (Wikipedia) The Institute has made assertions in the past such as "most scientists do not believe human activities threaten to disrupt the Earth's climate, the most reliable temperature data show no global warming trend, a modest amount of global warming should it occur would be beneficial to the natural world and to human civilization, and the best strategy to pursue is one of 'no regrets'."
Recently, the Heartland Institute was involved in a controversy regarding the publishing of 500 scientists' names whose work contradicted global warming. When they were met with a portion of those scientists demanding that their name be taken off the list, Heartland Institute responded by saying, "In response to the complaints, The Heartland Institute has changed the headlines that its PR department had chosen for some of the documents related to the lists, from '500 Scientists with Documented Doubts of Man-Made Global Warming Scares' to '500 Scientists Whose Research Contradicts Man-Made Global Warming Scares'." (DeSmogBlog) The scientists' names, who requested a retraction, were not removed from the list.
The Washington Post reports about the new slant fossil fuel supported 'think-tanks' are taking to combat climate change mitigation. "H. Leighton Steward, a veteran oil industry executive, and Corbin J. Robertson Jr., chief executive of and leading shareholder in Natural Resource Partners, a Houston-based owner of coal resources that lets other companies mine in return for royalties, have formed two groups, CO2 Is Green and Plants Need CO2", all in the name of education. These sites try to get visitors to believe that raising the CO2 level in the atmosphere is actually good for plants in the long-run. The slogan for the latter is 'Climate change is the norm'.
The fight over climate change legislation hasn't even begun yet, and still the fossil fuel industry has convinced half of the American population that there is an actual debate going on among scientists concerning climate change. "The debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes," CNN reports.
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