16.+POLITICAL+OBSTACLES

=Chapter 16 by Mikolaj=


 * To reduce or not reduce? **


 * The political response to the climate crisis has been clouded by confusion, mostly started intentionally by corporate carbon polluters.
 * Global warming’s global scale has disguised it’s role in causing specific catastrophe’s such as Hurricane Katrina.
 * Reducing CO2 emissions would have a negative effect on many economies.
 * De-carbonising an economy would be an immense political challenge.
 * It is also difficult to decide how the carbon-cutting brudens should be shared. Developing nations argue that they didn’t cause global warming so they shouldn’t share the same burdens as those who did. Developed nations are afraid that cutting emissions would damage the economy.
 * However, the economic recession has helped create millions of new, green jobs.
 * Passing global warming legislation and creating an international treaty on global warming has been a political battle for the last two decades.


 * Political opposition: **


 * Many powerful industries have opposed the introduction of anti-global warming legislature.
 * Coal-dependent regions have opposed measures that would disproportionately impact them.
 * In America, the Republican Party has counted oil and coal companies as key members of their political coalition.
 * Most Republican officials have fought against taking any meaningful action against global warming.
 * Many Democrats have also opposed action, especially those from coal dependent regions.
 * In a survey conducted in 2008, it was revealed that only 19% of college educated Republicans thought that humans were responsible for Global warming.
 * In the same survey, 75% of college educated Democrats thought that humans were the cause of global warming.
 * Oil and coal companies are often the largest contributors of campaign donations and their influence has increased as a result of television advertising instead of proper discussion.
 * This has led to their views having a significant role in politics.
 * This is most obvious when it comes to climate change.
 * Oil and coal companies were the largest donators to campaigns and the biggest advertisers.
 * In the first 3 months after Barack Obama took office; corporations spent $200million trying to influence US energy policy and build opposition against action on global warming.
 * The same companies flooded the US Capitol with paid lobbyists; they showed up in unprecedented numbers.
 * These companies spent $90million on climate lobbying in 2008 alone.
 * A study conducted by the Center for Public Integrity found that for every one member of the House and Senate there are more than four lobbyists for climate issues. This is a 300% increase on a few years ago, when climate change legislation was last brought before Congress.
 * The number of lobbyists opposed to climate change legislation outnumbered those in favour of it by more than eight to one.


 * A campaign of deception: **


 * In the 1980s several large oil, car, coal and coal-burning companies joined together to undermine the integrity of the evidence.
 * Their goal, as stated in an internal memo was “reposition global warming as theory rather than fact.”
 * This campaign still continues today.
 * These companies paid little-credentialed scientists to publish pseudo-studies, letters, books, pamphlets and videos to raise doubt about the existence of global warming.
 * ExxonMobil paid 40 groups to distort the public’s understanding of global warming.
 * ExxonMobil offered as much as $10,000 for every paper that disputed the existence of global warming.


 * Attacking the truth: **


 * Another tactic was to question the integrity of respected scientists that advocated global warming’s existence.
 * This was done by saying that they had evidence that their views were financially motivated.
 * However, those saying global warming did not exist were financially motivated. Also, anyone who could prove global warming’s existence to the scientific community would become an extremely wealthy and respected scientist.
 * Unfortunately, the public’s lack of knowledge on global warming means that the campaigns to prove global warming as theory have had an impact on them.
 * When their proof was proven wrong, they continued with their assumptions.
 * They sifted through all the information and only used information that could support their point.
 * For example, they used evidence taken from satellite photographs which showed that the Earth was cooling. However, these photos didn’t take into account mathematical mistakes and the decay in orbit.
 * The recalculated findings ended up proving global warming’s existence.
 * One of the authors of anti global warming papers was forced to publicly withdraw his argument. Unfortunately, he returned to repeating the same argument in public.
 * When melting of the ice caps and several years of record breaking temperatures proved global warming’s existence, the deniers shifted to a second line of argument.
 * They said that it was a natural thing and it has no relationship to the 90million tones of pollution we put into the atmosphere everyday.


 * More invalid arguments: **


 * As man-made global warming became more accepted the deniers shifted to a third line of argument.
 * They said that whilst humans may be a factor, global warming is mainly a natural trend.
 * None of their arguments were allowed in reputable, peer-reviewed scientific journals.
 * One argument was that Pluto was warming at the same rate as the Earth; this meant that an increase in the Sun’s output was the reason for increasing temperatures. This was laughed at.
 * A study on the point of view in peer-reviewed scientific articles showed that none of them differed with the scientific view on global warming (humans are causing it).
 * The deniers’ next line of argument was to say that global warming was a good thing. This view contradicted the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. However, the whole point of that statement was to sow doubt.
 * The deniers also said that any effort to stop global warming would be worse than global warming itself.
 * However, minimizing pollution is cheap; the cost of global warming would be massive.
 * The last claim by the deniers is that it is too late to address global warming.


 * Corporate Propaganda: **


 * In 1989, Amoco, the American Forest & Paper Associatiom, the American Petroleum Insitute, Chevron, Chrysler, Cyprus, AMAX Minerals, Exonn, Ford, General Motors, Shell Oil. Texaco and the US Chamber of Commerce formed the Global Climate Coalition (GCC).
 * They began a massive disinformation campaign designed to deny the existence of global warming and human activities.
 * After this campaign, the press began to give equal coverage to the pseudo-science bought by carbon polluters.
 * In 2009, documents surfaced which proved that these carbon polluters had authorized and paid for an internal review of scientific evidence.
 * These companies forced the removal of evidence showing how global warming worked and instead put in a view that their own science advisors told them was not correct.
 * In 2005, the national academies of science in the US, UK, China, India, Russia, Brazil, France, Italy, Canada, Germany and Japan had all formally endorsed the view that global warming existed.
 * However, these companies continued their fraudulent campaign.


 * How the propaganda can be fought: **


 * The change in news coverage after the launch of the propaganda campaign led to a dramatic weakening of support for global warming legislation.
 * The peak of support for legislation was in the 1980s, just before the propaganda campaign was launched.
 * The doubt created by this campaign led to global warming dropping further and further down the lost of action priorities.
 * This was what the polluters wanted.
 * George W. Bush appointed several of the deniers to key positions in his administration.
 * Phillip A. Cooney led a disinformation programme was put in charge of environmental policy of the white house.
 * He routinely censored the views of government scientists and used the views of oil and coal companies.
 * The companies which formed the GCC have made record profits and the directors who authorized the campaign have received large bonuses.
 * In 2006, the Royal Society of London publicly asked ExxonMobil to stop mis-representing the science on global warming and expressed “disappointment at the inaccurate and misleading view of the science of climate change.”
 * Grassroots activism is essential to overcoming well funded opposition.
 * Self-interested corporate deniers must be held accountable for their actions and stop efforts that deny global warming.
 * The media must properly inspect all science before it is presented.


 * The Alliance for Climate Protection: **


 * Founded in 2006, The Alliance for Climate Protection is a non-profit organization dedicated to changing how people think about the climate crisis.
 * Their message is that we can solve the crisis.
 * It is led by a Board of Directors that is evenly balanced between Democrats and Republicans and looks for ways to find support for ways to stop climate change.
 * Unfortunately, many political leaders will continue to be timid in creating global warming legislation until there is a genuine base that looks to transform the way we produce energy.
 * The Alliance’s aim is to spread the truth about the choices we have to make.
 * Their major projects include: Repower America, We Can Solve It, and This Is Reality.


 * Helpful links: **

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