Guest essay by Brandon Schollenberger
You can’t make things like this up. James Hansen, one of the most vocal proponents of global warming, is now part of the global warming denial campaign.
I would never have imagined that until I read an article about a new paper, Institutionalizing delay: foundation funding and the creation of U.S. climate change counter-movement organizations, by Robert Brulle. It claims to investigate the financial status of the “climate change counter-movement” (CCCM), also referred to as the “denial campaign.” I was flabbergasted when I read this in its introduction:
What is the climate change counter-movement?
Here I argue that an efficacious approach to defining this movement is to view it as a cultural contestation between a social movement advocating restrictions on carbon emissions and a counter-movement opposed to such action.
According to this, it doesn’t matter if you believe in global warming. It doesn’t matter if you think global warming is a serious problem. It doesn’t matter if you demand taxes on fossil fuels to pay for investments in renewable energy and carbon sequestering to attempt to lower carbon dioxide emissions. All that matters is how you feel about “restrictions on carbon emissions.”
And it’s not just bad wording. The Conclusion section of the paper says:
The CCCM efforts focus on maintaining a field frame that justifies unlimited use of fossil fuels by attempting to delegitmate the science that supports the necessity of mandatory limits on carbon emissions.
Mandatory limits/restrictions on carbon emissions are known as cap and trade. Oppose those, and no matter what else you may say or do, you’re part of the “denial campaign.” That means when James Hansen writes things like:
But at the heart of his plan is cap and trade, a market-based approach that has been widely praised but does little to slow global warming or reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. It merely allows polluters and Wall Street traders to fleece the public out of billions of dollars.
…
It is not too late to trade cap and trade for an approach that actually works.
He’s part of the “denial campaign.”
Why then does Brulle not discuss people like Hansen in his paper? It’s simple. Brulle is playing fast and loose with definitions. Brulle’s Supplementary Material describes how he collected his list of organizations:
a consolidated list of all of the organizations identified in prior studies was created.
With an attached footnote that says:
Criteria and Studies utilized to compile this comprehensive listing of potential CCCM organizations are:
1. Organization represented by a speaker/sponsorship at any of the ICC/Heartland Conference
2. Organization participated in the Global Climate Coalition
3. Organization participated in Alliance for Climate Strategies
4. Organization participated in the Cooler Heads Coalition
5. Organization listed as a climate skeptic organization in Merchants of Doubt (Oreskes and Conway 2010)
6. Organization listed in the Greenpeace study of climate change counter-movement (Greenpeace 2010)
7. Organization listed in the Union of Concerned Scientists study of climate change counter-movement (Union of Concerned Scientists 2007)
8. Organization listed in NCRP study of Conservative Organizations (NCRP 1997: 46-53)
An obvious question is why do the first five bullets not describe “organizations identified in prior studies” as claimed? I don’t know. What I do know is all eight bullets deal with groups on the skeptical side. Brulle argues anyone who opposes cap and trade is a denier by simply pretending people like James Hansen don’t exist.
The problem goes beyond that. Brulle doesn’t exclude all people like James Hansen. He doesn’t exclude all people who oppose cap and trade but support other options. What Brulle does is far worse. He includes some people who want to take action to combat global warming but not others, and he does so arbitrarily. For example, the Global Climate Coalition declared:
the development of new technologies to reduce greenhouse emissions [is] a concept strongly supported by the GCC.
That is a course for combating global warming. People can disagree about how good a course it is, but there is no stated distinction between it and the course James Hansen endorses. Both oppose cap and trade, both endorse alternative approaches, but only one gets called a denier. Why?
Because Brulle didn’t make a list of deniers. He made a list of people he dislikes. Being a “denier” isn’t a matter of fitting his definition of the views of a “denier.” It’s just a matter of being disliked by Brulle and his sources.
In other words, “denier” is defined as, “Anyone I dislike.”
I think this is a simple matter of projection. They have things like Fenton Communications and various NGOs that coordinate together as a coordinated “movement” and have deep pocket sources of funding and so maybe he just naturally assumes anyone opposed to their views do, too. It’s possibly someone just projecting the state of their own side of the debate onto the other side. It must be very frustrating for them to have spent so much money and so much ink and so much bandwidth trying to scare people into accepting their socioeconomic agenda only to gain little traction among anyone who wouldn’t have already bought that agenda in the first place and didn’t need a “global warming” boogieman to scare them into it.
I say it’s just another indication of how badly they are now flailing in their attempt to explain their failure. Of course THEY could not have been the problem, it must be some evil forces on the other side that has thwarted their plan. Good thing is I don’t believe anyone except their loyal base of supporters is going to believe it but that might be who this is aimed it. It might be some sort of last ditch effort to keep their base of support from drifting away.
Jim G says: @ur momisugly January 6, 2014 at 4:00 pm
Gail Combs says:
January 6, 2014 at 3:18 pm
…Why do you suppose the fed keeps printing money through their “open market operations/quantitative easing”? Most of it ends up on Wall Street and then a good percentage goes right back to our “representatives” and “officials” in DC. Sure as hell is not hitting Main Street.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I am with you there. The value of that freshly printed money is coming from the devaluation of Main Street’s wages and the increase in cost of living.
However don’t let _Jim catch you saying that. For him the Fed and Wall Street can do no wrong, Jekyl Island is a mythical place only to be found in conspiracy dreams and Bankers have only our best interests at heart.
Brulle is just whining and lashing out because in his heart he knows he has already lost his effort to impose AGW claptrap on the rest of us.
The raping of science to support genocide (which is what happens when cheap energy is taken away from groups of people). Now where has this been used before? I can’t quite recall….oh yes….I remember….
Those who forget the past are destined to repeat it. It would not surprise me to find out that someone, somewhere, has proposed that we dispose of dead bodies as an alternative fuel source.
Chances are, this post will be snipped, but damn it, this cough-cough scientific paper is a bridge too far! It allows the flood gates to be opened to watermelon nut cases who feel like they have been given the green light to eco-bomb the black list.
Rob Dawg says:
January 6, 2014 at 4:39 pm
…By that metric since FedGov funds climate alarmism their budget is $3.2 trillion.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Now add in every other country that also funds CAGW.
Off topic, but on two different internet tools I no longer see the links to other websites on the right side of the WUWT web page. Has something changed permanently, or is this temporary?
This is not unique to Brulle. Has not Nuccitelli, Foster, and Appell done the same thing before? The facts do not matter to the totally indoctrinated. Neither does debate. Instead they are out to destroy those they simply take a disliking to.
Descending into a quagmire of semantics, Watts; but the globe will continue to warm despite your protestations.
Steve from Rockwood says: @ur momisugly January 6, 2014 at 4:52 pm
I need to smarten up because I just don’t get it. Read it twice too.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It is called Bafflegab in the advice given to gives his fellow academics by J. Scott Armstrong. Simply put, “If you can’t convince them, confuse them.”
So he’s Pro-nuclear power, right.
“Mandatory limits/restrictions on carbon emissions are known as cap and trade. ”
No. There are other forms of a mandatory limit. There are caps without trading. There is the 1 gigaton limit.
Essentially, you force a reading of his text which creates a conflict in his position.
So, you are either misreading his text, misunderstanding his position, or his position is confused.
If I have to choose between your interpretation which classes Hansen with skeptics, and deciding that you misunderstand. I will choose that you misunderstand.
Anthony-
Wanted you to see today’s damage control from Lewandowsky on the images from the stuck Antarctic ship. http://theconversation.com/an-icebreaker-gets-stuck-in-the-ice-photos-are-used-to-mislead-21736?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+7+January+2014&utm_content=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+7+January+2014+CID_95a20db5ce0b38d4567ab53c8ed37e0f&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=An%20icebreaker%20gets%20stuck%20in%20the%20ice%20photos%20are%20used%20to%20mislead
Deniers just do not properly understand Antartica’s weather.
Hey Robert Brulle and your silly little pie chart whining about the money the private “Davids” have from private donations – what do you have to say about the amount of money your thug “Goliath” has and how he obtained it? Go ahead, take a look, I dare you. http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/2014_R&Dbudget_climate.pdf
You don’t want people to know about THAT spending do you? .. of course not, hiding the truth is your modus operendi and that of the climate shake-down artists you worship.
Pipped Kool says:
January 6, 2014 at 5:14 pm
So “They” come up with a total of 7.2 billion dollars to fund “skeptic” science….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
WHAT “7.2 billion dollars to fund “skeptic” science”?
As has already been stated they take the ENTIRE BUDGET of a foundation or whatever and count it when a very small fraction actually goes to “fund “skeptic” science”
And even if it is $7.2 billion dollars? Who gives a crap? Doesn’t the other side get to do any research? Aren’t people allowed to give THEIR OWN MONEY to fund what ever research the want to outside of weapons development?
OH that’s right TAX PAYERS get ripped of for billions to produce the propaganda used to shape their opinions, so of course we have no say, no rights, no freedom in how our own money is used to counteract that propaganda.
Government burn $70 billion a year subsidizing renewables, and wild claims of “fossil fuel subsidies”
And then there is money for ‘research’.
What a bunch of cry babies. You get beat in a fight with the other guy crippled by a lack of money and then you have the audacity to complain that someone might have tossed him a few crumbs in funding?
HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH….
Another commenter in another arena posted this little quote from Lewis Carroll and it seemed to me to be spot on:
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”
Robert Brulle admits his findings do not actually support this claim. His list of recipients is as others have noted, is highly suspect to start with.
But a A closer read of Brulle’s work shows his claim is really about the TOTAL money to these organizations. He admits the his research does NOT identify, nor attempt to identify, funding spent on “climate change activities”
In a response to The Guardian Brulle makes this point clear that The Guardians use of the “$1 Billion” number does NOT reflect the money to these organizations in support of climate change activities.
Which means ALL HIS WORK DOES is document funding to organizations he thinks might be somehow involved in climate change activities. His conclusion really is that these organizations, that he has arbitrarily believes have SOME relationship with climate change activities, received appx $900,000 million in total funding. He admits he has no proof or clue if ANY of that money is spent towards climate related activities.
The study is worthless. The selection criteria are specious – little more than opinion. And he reaches NO CONCLUSION on whether ANY funding is provided for climate change activities.
His complaint to The Guardian may be accurate – but it makes his paper look sillier yet. It is carefully crafted to walk and talk like a paper that condemns the funding received for the work of skeptics, yet it reaches ZERO conclusion on that premise.
Brulle’s protestation to The Guardian notwithstanding – their story is EXACTLY what the paper was intended to accomplish. There are a myriad of sources promoting the same false “$1 billion funding received by climate skeptics” claim … mission accomplished.
In my opinion this paper was no different than Lewandowsky’s Moon Landing Hoax garbage, and was created for the same purpose.
The Guardian story:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/dec/20/conservative-groups-1bn-against-climate-change
Gail Combs says: “Simply put, “If you can’t convince them, confuse them.””
In engineering circles it’s, “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance – baffle them with bull ****.”
AussieBear says:
January 6, 2014 at 5:53 pm
I don’t get this whole “Big Oil” conspiracy. Why would they send any money to “Denialists”? …
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
They don’t or only send a token to give the rumors legs. ‘Big Oil” is solidly behind CAGW. Shell and BP funded CRU. Ged Davis, VP of Shell Oil was an IPCC big wig who wrote the scenarios for the climate models Climategate e-mail
In the USA and eyewittness says Enron, joined by BP, invented the global warming industry. I know because I was in the room. This was during my storied three-week or so stint as Director of Federal Government Relations for Enron…
The tracks are all over the internet if you bother to look. Heck Maurice Strong Chair of the UN First Earth Summit, the start of this mess in 1972 and later chair of Kyoto made his billions through oil.
I am not paid for my man-made global warming/man-made climate change denial activism. However I’ve been doing it hard for free since mid 2009 for selfish reasons and to seriously screw over certain people on planet Earth. I’m selfish because I don’t want to pay my money on carbon dioxide energy taxes to a world global government taxing regime. I also wanted to lay waste to the worlds corporate oligarch overlords who devised this stupid global government scam for their own benefit. Our owners thought they could get away with it too. Now their heads are exploding because they’re not getting that biggest thing they wanted most, king of the world status. Kiss that 1984 vision come true good bye control freaks. We’re also tearing your big brother NSA operations a new one as well.
God gave me the greatest weapons you overlords can’t beat. Solar cycle 24 grand solar minimum and E.J.Snowden. Eat that. HaHa.
I have a new term for likes of those who maliciously and by design fabricate stories and twisting of facts, if any. They’re called “Fabricateurs.”
Perhaps we should form a union, and approach Big Oil for some sort of salary, stipend, or honorarium, for standing up to the army of watermelons. We’re outnumbered 97 to 3, out financed 800 to 1, and out media’ed 100 to 1 (fox), and yet we have managed to prevent the globe from warming for almost 20 years, and kept the One World Government enthusiasts at bay. I have to admit that the Climate has helped, but where’s my check?
/sarc
Chris, oddly I found your check right where I found mine – http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fb/Yes_check.svg
Looks like Brulle is a proponent of eco fascism and totalitarian government by the fascists. The US Constitution is at odds with this kind of control monger.. That however has not stopped the likes of Obama and his eco facist EPA from trying to force that too down our throats… Brulle is just the mouth piece of the rest of those who’s agenda is control.. Its never been about science. It has always been about CONTROL!
Maybe “cap-and-trade” should be renamed to “cap-in-hand”
Petticoats showing and stood up, left at the altar of global warming, the lady doth protesteth far too much…
Resorting to sociology, psycho-babble because there is panic in the halls of academia and in the plush offices of the UN, EPA, NGO’s the world over – their stillborn hypothesis [man made warming] never made it – shot down by a bunch of amateurs [but sharpshooters] and the few brave but real scientists.
We held the Alamo and beat them darn well and they still won’t, no actually refuse to ‘get it’.