Global warming conspiracy theory

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The terms global warming conspiracy[1] and global warming conspiracy theory[2] are used to refer the claim that the theory that global warming is caused by humans is a conscious fraud, perpetuated for financial or ideological reasons.[3] The term conspiracy theory is commonly, though not always, used in a pejorative way,[citation needed] and proponents of the claim often refer to a "global warming hoax"[4] or fraud[5] instead. In particular instances, it may be difficult to determine whether claims of a "hoax" or "fraud" are intended as serious accusations of conscious dishonesty, or represent what has been called "overheated rhetoric", intended to emphasize a claim that proponents of anthropogenic global warming theory are in error.

Contents

[edit] Claims

  • The suggestion of a conspiracy to promote the theory of global warming was put forward in a 1990 documentary The Greenhouse Conspiracy broadcast by Channel Four in the United Kingdom on 12 August 1990, as part of the Equinox series,[1] which asserted that scientists critical of global warming theory were denied funding.[6] Although the program title referred to a conspiracy, Patrick Michaels downplayed the idea, saying[7] "It may not quite add up to a conspiracy, but certainly a coalition of interests has promoted the greenhouse theory : scientists have needed funds, the media a story, and governments a worthy cause".
  • Writing in the National Review in 1997, Ron Bailey said "Militia members are famously worried that black helicopters are practicing maneuvers with blue-helmeted UN troops in a plot to take over America. But the actual peril is more subtle. A small cadre of obscure international bureaucrats are hard at work devising a system of "global governance" that is slowly gaining control over ordinary Americans' lives. Maurice Strong, a 68-year-old Canadian, is the "indispensable man" at the center of this creeping UN power grab."[8]. Strong's list of contacts is said by Bailey to include
  • Bailey remarks "It's not a conspiracy, of course: just a group of like-minded people fighting to save the world from less prescient and more selfish forces -- namely, market forces. "
  • In a speech given to the US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works on July 28, 2003 entitled "The Science of Climate Change",[9] Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla) concluded by asking the following question: "With all of the hysteria, all of the fear, all of the phony science, could it be that man-made global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people?" Inhofe has suggested that supporters of Kyoto such as Jacques Chirac are aiming at global governance.[10].
  • A Washington Post article describing the views of global warming skeptics quotes climatologist William M. Gray as having "his own conspiracy theory'. saying "He has made a list of 15 reasons for the global warming hysteria. The list includes the need to come up with an enemy after the end of the Cold War, and the desire among scientists, government leaders and environmentalists to find a political cause that would enable them to "organize, propagandize, force conformity and exercise political influence. Big world government could best lead (and control) us to a better world!"" In this article, Gray also cites the ascendancy of Al Gore to the vice presidency as the start of his problems with federal funding. According to him, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration stopped giving him research grants, and so did NASA.[12]
    • In this same article, Neil Frank, former director of the National Hurricane Center, also gave the view that global warming is a hoax. Both Gray and Neil complained in this article that they were not approached by the IPCC despite their long scientific record in climate-related fields.
  • The March 1, 2007 issue of Whistleblower magazine, a publication of WorldNetDaily, is entitled ""HYSTERIA: Exposing the secret agenda behind today's obsession with global warming" and asserts that "all the main players – from politicians and scientists to big corporations and the United Nations – benefit from instilling fear into billions of human beings over the unproven theory of man-made global warming".
  • Commenting on criticism of the Lavoisier Group by Clive Hamilton, the Cooler Heads Coalition notes that "Hamilton accuses the Lavoisier Group of painting the UN's global warming negotiations as "an elaborate conspiracy in which hundreds of climate scientists have twisted their results to support the 'climate change theory' in order to protect their research funding" and comments "Sounds plausible to us."[13]

The general claim that the theory of global warming is a lie promoted by members of one or more interest groups acting in concert for dishonest purposes has been made on a number of occasions, using descriptions such as hoax, scam, swindle and fraud. Prominent examples include:

  • The Oregon Petition website states that "over 17,000 scientists declare that global warming is a lie with no scientific basis whatsoever."[14]
  • The film The Great Global Warming Swindle is based on the claim that "a multibillion-dollar worldwide industry: created by fanatically anti-industrial environmentalists; supported by scientists peddling scare stories to chase funding; and propped up by complicit politicians and the media".[15]
  • John Christy, professor of atmospheric science, director of the Earth System Center at the University of Alabama and former IPCC lead author, notably said that "The global warming hoax is not about the Earth's climate. It is about an attack on the economies of those nations that produce much of the world's wealth" and that "The industrialized nations of the world are the target of the environmentalists, as is the entire population of the world. By every means possible, they have sought to undermine economic growth and to enhance the reduction of human life on this planet. Those of us who defend growth, who oppose their efforts to keep vast portions of the Earth's population in poverty and subject to lethal diseases, are assailed as "tools of multinational corporations" and advocates for "pollution."[4]

[edit] Fictional representations

  • The novel State of Fear by Michael Crichton describes a conspiracy by scientists and others to create public panic about global warming. The novel includes 20 pages of footnotes, described by Crichton as providing a factual basis for the story.[16][17]

[edit] Motives

A number of different motives have been claimed for a conspiracy to promote the idea of global warming

  • A desire on the part of environmentalists to prevent carbon-based industrial development in Africa[15]
  • A desire on the part of environmentalists to promote pollution-intensive industrial development in Africa, while reducing industrial output in the United States [1]
  • A desire on the part of left-wing political activists to promote an agenda described by Melanie Phillips[5] as a "left-wing, anti-American, anti-west ideology which goes hand in hand with anti-globalisation and the belief that everything done by the industrialised world is wicked. The agenda to cripple this world is revealed by highly questionable assumptions made by climate modellers about likely developments in economics, technology or population movements, which affect emissions and consequent temperature predictions."

[edit] Ideological motives

Statements made or allegedly made by various supporters of climate change policies have been quoted as giving support to the idea that anthropogenic global warming may be used primarily for political purposes.

  • According to a critical editorial written by Peter Menzies in the Calgary Herald, Christine Stewart, former Canadian Environment Minister for the Liberal Party of Canada, said in 1998 that "No matter if the science is all phoney, there are collateral environmental benefits.[18]
  • According to a 1993 book by Michael Fumento, Timothy Wirth, former US Senator (D-Colo) said that "We've got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing – in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.."[19]
  • Stewart Elge, environment law professor at the University of Ottawa and Dan Gagnier, senior vice-president of Alcan, co-authored an article titled "Emissions trading: Like foreign aid, but better[20]" in which they claimed that "So we know emissions trading can work. In fact, on a global scale, it works a lot like international development aid — only better. Each year, Canada spends billions helping poor countries improve their environmental, health, and socioeconomic conditions. Global emissions trading is simply another form of development aid. In fact, it is some of the most effective aid we can give, because it helps poor countries develop in climate-friendly ways."

[edit] Criticism

Critics of claims that scientists and others concerned with global warming are promoting a deliberate fraud have commonly used the term "conspiracy theory" to describe this view.

  • In a piece headed Crichton's conspiracy theory, Harold Evans described Crichton's theory as being "in the paranoid political style identified by the renowned historian Richard Hofstadter" and went on to suggest that "if you happen to be in the market for a conspiracy theory today, there's a rather more credible one documented by the pressure group Greenpeace", namely the funding by ExxonMobil of groups opposed to the theory of global warming [4]
  • Responding to the film The Great Global Warming Swindle,. UK Secretary of State for Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs, David Miliband presented a rebuttal of the main points of the film on his blog and stated "There will always be people with conspiracy theories trying to do down the scientific consensus, and that is part of scientific and democratic debate, but the science of climate change looks like fact to me."[21]
  • Also, responding to The Great Global Warming Swindle, John Houghton said, "The most prominent person in the programme was Lord Lawson, former Chancellor of the Exchequer who is not a scientist and who shows little knowledge of the science but who is party to the creation of a conspiracy theory that questions the motives and integrity of the world scientific community, especially as represented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)."[2]

[edit] Overheated rhetoric

It has been widely observed that the debate over climate change has given rise to "overheated rhetoric" on both sides [6]. Statements that global warming is a "hoax" or "fraud" may, in some cases, be instances of such rhetoric, intended to emphasize a claim that advocates of anthropogenic global warming theory are egregiously wrong, rather than seriously-intended claims of deliberate dishonesty by a large group of scientists and others.

[edit] Claims of conspiracy made by supporters of global warming theory

Supporters of global warming theory have similarly accused their opponents of being motivated by financial or ideological interests, and in some cases have used the term "conspiracy" to describe this. According to an article in Reason magazine, US Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt stated in 1998 that, [7] "Oil and coal companies in the United States have joined in a conspiracy to hire pseudoscientists to deny the facts, and then begin raising political arguments that are essentially fraudulent"

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b Equinox:Global Warming Conspiracy.
  2. ^ a b The Great Global Warming Swindle. The John Ray Initiative.
  3. ^ More examples of this claim, and of the use of the terms "conspiracy" and "conspiracy theory to describe it, are given in the body of the article
  4. ^ a b Revisiting the global warming hoax.
  5. ^ a b c "The global warming fraud". Daily Mail.
  6. ^ Global Conspiracy.
  7. ^ Greenhouse Conspiracy.
  8. ^ Who is Maurice Strong. National Review.
  9. ^ http://inhofe.senate.gov/pressreleases/climate.htm
  10. ^ Senate Environment And Public Works Committee.
  11. ^ Kyoto.
  12. ^ The Tempest.
  13. ^ Antarctic Cooling Down; The Antarctic Ice Sheet is Growing; Hansen Downgrades Warming Threat. Cooler Heads Coalition.
  14. ^ Global Warming Petition Project.
  15. ^ a b c d "Global warming labeled a 'scam'". Washington Times.
  16. ^ "Checking Crichton's Footnotes. Boston Globe.
  17. ^ Crichton Strikes Devastating Blow to Alarmist. Heartland Institute.
  18. ^ http://www.sepp.org/Archive/controv/controversies/concerned.html
  19. ^ http://www.nationalcenter.org/dos7130.htm
  20. ^ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070320.wcomment0321/BNStory/ClimateChange
  21. ^ The Great Climate Change Swindle?.
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