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Index of Subjects
Index of Subjects --Apple-Mail-75-769471896 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Steve, Thanks for pointing some of this out. I've not previously followed the connections to the Association of American Physicans and Surgeons, the Oregon Institute of Medical Science, their entourage, and the various dubious causes and claims that that they promote. On 10-Jun-08, at 1:29 PM, Stephen Shaw wrote: > So the question Lois, Don or other potential denier-enablers need > to address > is why anyone would want to take this sort of publication seriously > as evidence > that there is a current raging scientific debate about the existence > of global > warming and of the anthropogenic contribution to this. Why would > you? The work > is not up to snuff scientifically and forms part of the industrial > strength > lobbying effort Chris has outlined in some detail. This "industrial strength" climate-change denial movement is particularly disturbing. For decades tobacco companies such as Phillip Morris and RJ Reynolds (and the tobacco industry as a whole) successfully employed disinformation tactics to neutralize attempts to curtail or ban the sales and promotion of tobacco products. They did this by hiring their own "experts", funding studies with questionable methodology, publishing these findings which questioned the connection between smoking cigarettes and lung cancer, launching petitions, hiring sophisticated marketing and public relations companies to design campaigns propagandizing various obfuscations. They were successfully able to staunch efforts to curtail tobacco sales and advertising by creating the illusion that there was no scientific consensus on the smoking-lung cancer connection; the jury was still out; scientists were still debating; scientific studies studies were equivocal, etc. A memo from tobacco company Brown and Williamson stated that: "Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the "body of fact" that exists in the mind of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy." I've no idea how profitable this campaign was for the tobacco industry over the years. I know that presently 5.5 trillion cigarettes are smoked annually and that the 1999 sales of just the Altira Group, British American Tobacco, Japan Tobacco, and R.J. Reynolds totaled $114.9 billion. Multiply this over a few decades. What's the fall-out of this? The Canadian Lung Association (CLA) estimates that tobacco smoking kills between 40,000-45,000 Canadians every year. In the United States the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates 438,000 deaths every year. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that tobacco currently kills 5.4 million people/year. When I observe these same tactics, in some cases being promulgated by the same front organizations, with campaigns developed by some of the same agencies, fronted in some instances by the same "scientists" who have miraculously morphed from being "experts" on lung cancer to being "experts" on climate change, I become profoundly concerned. I won't clutter up NatureNS the details, but for interested readers the Wikipedia entry on the climate change denial movement has lots of information and is cross-linked to a plethora of other pages and sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_denial The connections between the two denial movements are discussed in detail in George Monbiot's book, "Heat". An extract from book was published by The Guardian in Great Britain: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2006/sep/19/ethicalliving.g2 Tragic as the deaths of 5.4 million people a year is, this could pale in comparison to the consequences of unchecked global warming. This climate change denial movement has been funded in large measure by fossil fuel companies concerned with profitability. I've no idea how much the fossil fuel industry is worth but I know that Saudia Arabia, the largest oil producing country, is projected to take in $163 billion in oil revenues this year, and Exxon, the largest publicly-traded oil company, takes in $1 billion/day and posted a fourth-quarter profit in 2007 of $11.7 billion ($1,300/second! ;->). Exxon, in their "Corporate Citizenship Report" to their shareholder's meeting in 2008 noted that it has spent $23 million since 1998 funding the climate change denial industry. However, some of this lobbying has become so problematic that Exxon has been forced to sever its links. In this 2008 Corporate Citizenship Report, Exxon announced that, "in 2008 we will discontinue contributions to several public policy interest groups whose position on climate change could divert attention from the important discussion on how the world will secure the energy required for economic growth in an environmentally responsible manner." Who are these groups? According to the Reuters news agency they include, the George C. Marshall Institute, the Committe for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), Frontiers of Freedom, etc. Astute readers of this thread will recall that the George C. Marshall Institute is the conservative think tank that co-funded "The Petition Project." Even Exxon has found it politically embarrassing to continue its association with groups such as these. Best wishes, Chris Christopher Majka - Atlantic Canada Coleoptera http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/Environment/NHR/atlantic_coleoptera.html c.majka@ns.sympatico.ca --Apple-Mail-75-769471896 Content-Type: text/html; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable <html><body style=3D"word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; = -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Hi = Steve,<div><br></div><div>Thanks for pointing some of this out. I've not = previously followed the connections to the Association of American = Physicans and Surgeons, the Oregon Institute of Medical Science, = their entourage, and the various dubious causes and claims = that that they promote.</div><div><br><div><div>On 10-Jun-08, at 1:29 = PM, Stephen Shaw wrote:</div><br = class=3D"Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote = type=3D"cite"><div> So the question Lois, Don or other = potential denier-enablers need to address<br>is why anyone would want to = take this sort of publication seriously as evidence<br>that there is a = current raging scientific debate about the existence of = global<br>warming and of the anthropogenic contribution to this. = Why would you? The work<br>is not up to snuff scientifically = and forms part of the industrial strength<br>lobbying effort Chris has = outlined in some detail. </div></blockquote><br></div><div>This = "industrial strength" cli