Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Senator Whitehouse has a conspiracy theory, about why people aren’t embracing skyrocketing energy prices and a substantially degraded quality of life.
According to Whitehouse;
Fossil fuel companies and their allies are funding a massive and sophisticated campaign to mislead the American people about the environmental harm caused by carbon pollution.
Their activities are often compared to those of Big Tobacco denying the health dangers of smoking. Big Tobacco’s denial scheme was ultimately found by a federal judge to have amounted to a racketeering enterprise.
The Big Tobacco playbook looked something like this: (1) pay scientists to produce studies defending your product; (2) develop an intricate web of PR experts and front groups to spread doubt about the real science; (3) relentlessly attack your opponents.
Thankfully, the government had a playbook, too: the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO. In 1999, the Justice Department filed a civil RICO lawsuit against the major tobacco companies and their associated industry groups, alleging that the companies “engaged in and executed — and continue to engage in and execute — a massive 50-year scheme to defraud the public, including consumers of cigarettes, in violation of RICO.”
Senator Whitehouse doesn’t understand that there is no “denier” conspiracy.
Ordinary people like myself, are motivated to act because we are fed up with failed climate models being paraded as settled facts. We are fed up with our kids being force fed messages of hopelessness and despair, when they should be learning about the wonders of science. We are fed up with endless schoolyard bullying tactics, the gratuitous name calling, the utterly disproportionate legal threats, and wild, baseless accusations, being used to harass anyone who dares to question the credibility of the self appointed prophets of thermageddon.
Climategate email 1212063122.txt
>> Mike,
> Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?
> Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis.
>
> Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t
> have his new email address.
>
> We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.
>
> I see that CA claim they discovered the 1945 problem in the Nature
> paper!!
>
> Cheers
> Phil
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I think we need to use the RICO laws against the members of the United States senate.
His theory doesn’t apply to sceptics but I was struck by how accurate a description it is of warmists.
“We are fed up with endless schoolyard bullying tactics, the gratuitous name calling, the utterly disproportionate legal threats, and wild, baseless accusations, being used to harass anyone who dares to question the credibility of the self appointed prophets of thermageddon.”
If you want to see a perfect example of how the Media covers for failed “progessive” policy’s, then attempts to shift the blame onto Conservatives who are actually adressing the Issues the Left ceated and failed to do anything about for decades…
“Memo to the media: Residential schools were created by the era’s progressive “experts”.
Brian LilleyRebel Co-Founder”
http://www.therebel.media/_remember_residential_schools
We see much of the same willfull bias by a left leaning media in the Climate Debate, don’t we?
When I think of all the skeptical arguments I’ve pounded out over the years for free, my ears burn. Now I find out the rest of you yahoos were getting paid big bucks by Big Oil?
I had never heard of this Sheldon Whitehouse guy and actually thought this article was satire.
This is backwards!
“1) pay scientists to produce studies defending your product;”
How is that a crime? And why shouldn’t companies study the effects of their products and publish the results to defend themselves? Climate alarmists attack you for disagreeing with them and then attack you for defending yourself against their attacks.
By the way, the claim that the validity of a study can be determined by its funding source is a genetic fallacy. The validity of a study can only be determined by the contents of the study, even if the money was gotten by organized crime (i.e., the government). And the claim that climate skeptic’s studies are like tobacco studies commits a begging the question fallacy. They start with the premise that all skeptical studies are wrong because Climate Change is a fact, then they assume nefarious intent on the part of companies who fund any skeptical studies. Therefore, they conclude these studies are just like fradulent tobacco company research. BS! Assuming what your must prove isn’t evidence of anything but sloppy reasoning on your part.
“(2) develop an intricate web of PR experts and front groups to spread doubt about the real science;”
This is projection. The truth is that governments have spent many billions of dollars to advance the Climate Change hoax thru education and indoctrination. Not only is the Climate Change hoax woven into TV shows and movies, freethinkers who resist a total government takeover in their fictional stories are protrayed as dangerous Luddites.
Even some of the major companies that sell DNA tests have woven a Climate Change narrative into the “histories” of each haplogroup’s migration patterns! Why did your ancestors leave Africa? Climate Change. Why did they then migrate from Central Asia to Europe? Climate Change.
And recently some Climate alarmists have begun to advocate for outright brainwashing of children because they’ve failed to convince everyone using mountains of false propaganda.
“(3) relentlessly attack your opponents.”
This is the worst one of all because it is the Climate alarmists who have relentlessly attacked scientific skeptics. Everyone knows the history.
And regarding the funding, every time a skeptic spends a dollar, a Climate alarmists spends several thousand, AND almost all of the alarmist funding is taken from taxpayers. We’re all forced to pay them to churn out false propaganda and plan the demise of Democracy and Capitalism.
And they’re still not satisfied. It galls them that any skeptic is allowed to spend any money opposing their theory.
I’m almost 50 years old and I’ve never questioned the claims about tobacco and cancer. Now, though, all these comparisons between climate skeptics and the tobacco industry are making me start to wonder if maybe they know exactly what they’re talking about. Maybe someone needs to go back and critically review the tobacco literature to see if it was as shoddy and agenda-driven as the global warming “science”?
scp,
Many years ago I dated a pulmonary (lung) specialist M.D. She had similar concerns. What she was always ranting about was nicotine, which she said is completely harmless (although addicting).
The real problem is in the “tars” from cigarettes. Tar is what causes almost all the lung problems, but the gov’t as usual was targeting the wrong thing (nicotine). Same thing today. In this case, it’s CO2. “Carbon”.
Can the investigation cover the fortunes taken by Pachuri, Gore, Suzuki, Hansen et al in the name of the Climate Racket?
In my ideal world. Any public figure who chastises fossil fuel companies should be banned from any vehicle using such fuels. They will be forced to pay for absurd prices for alternate fuel sources and be forced to canoe across the planet instead of flying in an aircraft (which mostly uses fossil fuel based derivatives). The ban should be enforced by the military and prevent such individuals from even entering a vehicle powered by fossil fuels. The hilarity this would bring… They should not fret. I recall google maps has prepared these brave men with real time charting and direction by canoe across the globe. 🙂 (They could stand to lose some weight)
In my ideal world, anyone who rejects the findings of science should be prohibited from school boards, teaching of science, or voting on issues of Science. If they want to mutually reinforce their non scientific nonsense with other, let them knock themselves out…just not contaminate the teaching of our kids or the voting booth. RICO does seem severe, but maybe a little bit of ridicule in the public square would be a good corrective.
warrenlb says:
In my ideal world, anyone who rejects the findings of science should be prohibited from school boards, teaching of science, or voting on issues of Science.
May I edit that into an honest comment? Thank you:
In my totalitarian, propaganda-based, unconstitutional, hate-filled world, anyone who rejects the findings of my personal, evidence-free, wild-eyed nutso version of “science” should be prohibited from school boards, teaching of science, or voting on issues of Science, and sent to the gulag.
There. That’s much more accurate, no?
No it is not more accurate.
Joel,
Thanx for your opinion. I stand by mine — doubled and squared. Actually, I held back.
I wonder which deniers are going to be targetted – those that deny a lack of global warming or those who deny the existence of global warming?
The
Big Tobaccoplaybook looked something like this: (1) pay scientists to produce studies defending yourproductPOV; (2) develop an intricate web of PR experts and front groups to spread doubt about the realscienceresults from real instruments; (3) relentlessly attack your opponents.4; Pretend Karl et adjustments (2015) “Possible artefacts of data biases in the recent global surface warming hiatus” is some kind of real science and not just another politically funded POS timed to work toward the Paris junket.
There … Fixed.
Senator Whitehouse needs to get some original material.
I wrote about using RICO against warmists in 2012 or earlier.
Best, Allan
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/21/dr-john-christys-testimony-before-congress/#comment-1085683
Bob says: September 22, 2012 at 4:53 am
Christy has been a breath of fresh air. Do you think he can convince any of those on the AGW side of climate change politics?
_____________
Response to your question: Probably no Bob, for the following reasons:
There is strong evidence that global warming is a false crisis, manufactured to achieve an oblique political objective.
For evidence, please see
http://www.green-agenda.com
and
http://www.c3headlines.com/global-warming-quotes-climate-change-quotes.html
Excerpt:
“We’ve got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy.”
– Timothy Wirth,
President of the UN Foundation
To these people, the science and the truth are irrelevant, so do not expect valid scientific arguments to change their political agenda.
_______________
I really dislike conspiracy theories, but the above references provide overwhelming evidence, in the words of the co-conspirators, of their objectives, strategies and tactics.
Their objective is political power; global warming alarmism is their strategy; and viciously smearing any dissenters and enforcing media bias are their “green-shirt” tactics.
Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace, provides a history of the rise of eco-extremism, below. Moore says that the far-left political movement effectively annexed the green movement after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when pro-Soviet groups were discredited and needed to find a new power base for their far-left political agenda.
The extremists have obviously succeeded. Governments, academia, the media and large corporations are all cowed into submission. Leading scientists have been ousted from their universities for speaking and writing the truth. Only a few tenured or retired professors and the occasional renegade dares to speak out, and many use aliases for fear of retaliation.
When this worm turns, and it will, we can expect the RICO (anti-racketeering) laws will be put to good use.
As we confidently stated in 2002 at
http://www.apegga.org/Members/Publications/peggs/WEB11_02/kyoto_pt.htm
“Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist “
Earth has not warmed for 10-15 years. Continued absence of global warming or global cooling will finally put an end to global warming hysteria, after trillions of dollars of scarce global resources have been squandered…. and then the wheels of justice will begin to turn… Watch for early signs of climate rats leaving their sinking ship.
__________________
The Rise of Eco-Extremism
by Patrick Moore
http://www.greenspirit.com/key_issues/the_log.cfm?booknum=12&page=3
There has been no significant global warming for close to 20 years. The polar icecaps are growing, not shrinking. The polar bear population is going up, not down. Carbon dioxide is not a toxin. It is a fertilizer and makes green plants grow. We all exhale it with every breath. It has nothing to do with the weather and besides , only 2-3% of it at most is man made. When Mount Pinatubo blew its top it put more C02 into the atmosphere that has man since the beginning of time. We cannot control the weather; we need to adapt to it. And every dollar we throw away on the “green revolution” trying to control it is a dollar wasted that could be put to use to help people in this poor suffering world. If anyone should be prosecuted under the RICO statutes it is Whitehorse and his Chicken Little friends
Hey – from what they tell me Monument Valley in Utah was formed by receding glaciers. Glaciers in Utah! Why didn’t Superman Whitehouse (his name or his ambition?) save them??? Talk about warming!