So deep in denial is the fossil fuels industry, it ignored its own scientists when they offered advice on climate change that the industry did not want to accept. The Global Climate Coalition, a group representing industries with profits tied to fossil fuels, had spent a decade leading an aggressive lobbying and PR campaign against the notion that greenhouse gas emissions cause climate change, and they weren’t about to screw it up with a silly thing like actual facts.
From The New York Times:
A document filed in a federal lawsuit demonstrates that even as the coalition worked to sway opinion, its own scientific and technical experts were advising that the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted.
“The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied,” the experts wrote in an internal report compiled for the coalition in 1995.
The coalition disbanded in 2002, but some members, including the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Petroleum Institute, continue to lobby against any law or treaty that would sharply curb emissions. Others, like Exxon Mobil, now recognize a human contribution to global warming and have largely dropped financial support to groups challenging the science.
Basically, the fossil fuels industry knew about the harm that rampant greenhouse gas emissions would cause, and not only didn’t act – but sought to convince the public that there was no tie between these emissions and global warming, a tactic that was also employed by the tobacco industry. British environmental activist and writer George Monbiot points out that the fossil fuels industry didn’t have to convince people of their point of view, but simply create as much confusion as possible.
And, to some degree, it worked. Much of the ‘evidence’ and ‘scientific opinion’ that global warming deniers and skeptics still use to refute the reality of climate change to this day originates from the misinformation deliberately injected into the argument by the fossil fuels industry. Luckily, the noise from the ‘global warming is a myth’ side has largely died down in the face of actual facts.
So, where’s the public anger? Why aren’t people pushing back against an industry that would sacrifice millions of lives and the future of our planet for their own financial gain? It might have something to do with the fact that most people still don’t think global warming is going to affect them personally. I hope, for everyone’s sake, that they aren’t forced to learn otherwise in the near future.
Link [The New York Times]
